Senior center approved

All the simmering divisions over a proposed senior center in Central Park returned for a City Council vote on its land use permits this week. But if the battle was familiar, so was the outcome, as the plans moved forward on a split vote.

Council members voted 5-2 to approve the environmental impact and a permit to use the land for a 45,000-square-foot senior center on five acres of Central Park. But they undid the Planning Commission’s requirement to get it certified as a green building, instead just asking for designers to aim seriously at those standards.

Mayor Debbie Cook and Councilwoman Jill Hardy were the two opponents of the center, and they have consistently opposed a Central Park location.

“I just like to kind of spread things around,” Cook said of the estimated $22 million cost. “I’d love to see Bartlett Park finished, and Irby Park and a new skate park. It concerns me that we should spend so much money on just one facility and have to tell the others they will probably never see their projects completed.”

Supporters and detractors came out to speak their mind, with more than 40 speaking on the issue.

Supporters said the city needed a new senior center to replace small, deteriorating Rodgers Senior Center downtown. Former Mayor Norma Gibbs, who was on the council when it set up Central Park, said a center for seniors wouldn’t hurt what she helped create.

“The park is my baby,” she said. “We tried very hard to please everybody. Horse lovers — they got 25 acres. Frisbee players got something like 12. The senior center would like to have five. This is out of some 356 acres.”

Opponents said the city was using funds meant for parks, not for a building for seniors. They also said the impact on the park was too large to allow.

“The only word I can describe for the funding seems to be ‘scheming,’” opponent Mindy White said of plans to help fund the center using fees paid by developer Makar Properties in order to avoid building a park in the upcoming Pacific City complex downtown. “Again, you’re arguing over LEED certification costs when we’re not sure funds are available.”

The discussion over LEED certification was lively. Planning Commission Chairman Tom Livengood said all the commissioners wanted Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification by the U.S. Green Building Council, and making it optional was a mistake.

“I think the intent of every member of the commission was to get it LEED certified,” he said. “Without it, the [green building] program may as well die. If you say it’s too expensive, anyone putting a project in the city is going to be able to say the same thing.”

The majority of council members, however, said they did want a green building, but weren’t sure they wanted to pay tens of thousands of dollars for the inspection to get certified. With the less strict language, council members will get a final decision later when the center is actually designed, Councilman Don Hansen said.

“We’ll have the opportunity to say, ‘I want two extra treadmills and a high-tech bingo machine as opposed to LEED certification,’” he said.