No New Agreement on Group Health Trees Following Mediation

A nine-hour mediation discussion involving representatives from Sustainable Redmond, Group Health and the City of Redmond failed to yield any new consensus concerning a plan to remove more than 1,000 trees from the site of a planned development in the Overlake neighborhood.

The vacant, 28-acre property is owned by Group Health and is  with 10-12 new apartment buildings and 1.4-million square feet of commercial space.

In January, representatives from Sustainable Redmond joined former mayor Rosemarie Ives in against the city over its approval of an agreement calling for removal of 100 percent of the property's trees.

Representatives from Sustainable Redmond, a grassroots advocacy group, invited Group Health to meet after attending one of the cooperative's board of trustees meeting, said Robert Berg, co-chair of Sustainable Redmond. City representatives also participated in the discussion, which took place on April 23 and was mediated by the Land Use and Mediation Committee of the Washington State Bar Association. (See news release from Sustainable Redmond attached to this post.)

Berg said all three involved parties agreed not to disclose details from the conversation but said an alternative plan that Sustainable Redmond has long advocated for is replacing plans for a 2.67-acre park containing newly planted trees with an equally sized parcel of preserved trees.

“We’re in support of transit-oriented, high-density development," Berg said. "We just think that it can take place in harmony with some tree preservation.”

Representatives from Group Health and the city have argued complete tree removal is necessary because tearing up existing pavement would compromise their structural integrity, while the removal of surrounding trees would make the ones that remain vulnerable to wind storms.

City of Redmond Planning Director Rob Odle and Bill Biggs, a vice president of administrative services for Group Health, both took part in the mediation but declined to comment further, citing the agreement not to disclose details from the discussion.

“One of our agreements was that we were not going to communicate except for the fact that we met and we could not reach an agreement,” Biggs told Redmond Patch. “It’s a legal procedure we’re going through, and all of us are bound to certain agreements.”

Following the lack of resolution, Berg said it's unlikely there will be further mediation among the various parties. A King County Superior Court judge is scheduled to hear the land-use petition against the city on June 25.