Lane County, Springfield ‘making progress’ on behavioral health campus

Lane County officials are pressing ahead with plans for a regional behavioral health stabilization center, navigating complex regulatory hurdles and high-stakes negotiations, while the city of Springfield considers a crucial property annexation request.

Lane County has worked on the project for more than a decade, with an eye toward providing a place for people in mental health and addiction crises to receive treatment outside the hospital emergency department or jail. 

But before the stabilization center becomes a reality, Springfield city leaders will need to approve an annexation request for 18 acres near PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend. That area would contain the stabilization center and PeaceHealth’s planned 96-bed behavioral health hospital on land off International Way east of Gateway Street. 

Springfield city officials initially appeared reluctant about the annexation request, which is essentially the city’s only time to nix the project due to House Bill 2005, a new state law that allows stabilization centers to circumvent municipal zone changes.

At a work session Monday, Springfield city councilors said they’re open to more consideration, though a final decision is not certain. 

For Lane County officials, the annexation request is crucial for the project even as work continues on other fronts — like finalizing construction costs, obtaining state licensing, planning to hire a workforce and acquiring state licenses.

“We have worked our way through numerous obstacles because we understand there are lives in our community that desperately need access to care,” County Administrator Steve Mokrohisky told county commissioners in a presentation Tuesday, Sept. 15.

For years, Lane County officials have pointed to the gaps in care — and how the stabilization center will address them. The work unfolds against a broader backdrop in Lane County and Oregon of gaps in behavioral healthcare that force hospitals to board psychiatric patients in emergency rooms when no other care options are available. 

The project has been in the works for years. In 2014, county officials identified the need for a stabilization center. They allocated the first $1 million for the project in 2018. Since then, the county has secured about $44 million for the project and spent $12 million since December 2021, about two-thirds of it acquiring land. The rest has gone toward consulting, professional, architectural and engineering services.

Even as the work continues, county officials say the need for it has grown.

“The urgency is far greater now,” Commissioner Pat Farr said.

Meanwhile, Springfield leaders are weighing their choice. 

Council deliberates in Springfield 

Springfield city councilors discussed the annexation application at their meetings the past two weeks and whether the crisis stabilization center and behavioral health hospital are consistent with the city’s plans for the area, which is designated for light industrial uses. 

The council looked like it was leaning toward denying the request after its Sept. 8 meeting, when councilors discussed interpretations of the city’s comprehensive plan as it applies to the sites’ planned uses. A majority of councilors favored a narrower interpretation that would not allow the annexation.

However, during a work session Monday, councilors continued deliberating and gave direction to staff that they want to move forward with discussing the next criteria for the application, which is whether the site can be adequately served by infrastructure, including streets. 

“I think people could be comfortable with going to the next deliberation, knowing that it may harden up how we view the first one,” Mayor Sean VanGordon told Assistant City Attorney Kristina Kraaz during the meeting.

Councilors Kori Rodley and Michelle Webber started the meeting with comments. 

“I want to acknowledge that first of all, last week I said that I thought it was very important that we find a way to yes,” Rodley said. “I still feel that way, and I’m hoping that we continue to work this.”

She expressed appreciation “to the probably 150 people” who sent emails. 

“Many of them were full of, you know, professional experiences, personal trauma of folks who’ve, you know, kids who’ve committed suicide, and all of those things,” Rodley said. 

She said she realizes the council can start to feel “immobilized by process and the rules.”

“There’s a reason that land use is so difficult in Oregon, and part of it is it is intended to keep things like affordable housing and behavioral health and all of these things, not built,” she continued. “And I believe, and I will see where my councilors land, but I believe that our job is to do the will of the people, and to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that we succumb to tight land-use laws.”

Webber said her family “has faced serious challenges with severe depression, anxiety and paranoia.”

“Nothing, absolutely nothing, prepares you for the moment when your child or a close friend tells you they are contemplating suicide, and you realize in that instant, you are their lifeline,” Webber said. “I have been there more than once, so I genuinely understand the urgency, the passion and the political pressure driving this conversation.”

“This council has never questioned the need for a behavioral health facility,” she said. “The question before us has always been whether this annexation meets criteria we are required to apply. My frustration is that this council did not choose this path. In my view, our county partners selected this annexation route versus a zone change request, believing it would be the path of least resistance and would effectively force us into approval.”

Kraaz said that if the council approves the annexation, the project will proceed to site-plan review approval because House Bill 2005 preempts application of the zoning standards. 

“The annexation is really the only time, because of the way House Bill 2005 is written, that the City Council is going to interact with this proposal at all,” Kraaz said.

The council will meet in a future work session to discuss transportation and stormwater issues related to the annexation request, as well as a negotiated annexation agreement.

Other details in the works 

As county officials are awaiting a decision from Springfield, they’re pointing to the economic benefits of the project. The PeaceHealth facility and stabilization center will provide 275 jobs that will average more than $100,000 annually, said Mokrohisky, the county administrator. 

That’s important, county officials say, because economic growth is among the criteria Springfield councilors must consider in the annexation request.

County Commissioner Laurie Trieger said the economic benefits are important to emphasize. And county officials are cautiously optimistic.

“We did see movement last night with the city of Springfield and the City Council, and we so appreciate the thoughtfulness that they’re putting into this,” Eve Gray, director of Lane County Health and Human Services, told commissioners Tuesday.

And the work cannot drag out indefinitely. 

For example, the PeaceHealth psychiatric hospital’s certificate of need requires the facility to be built by March 2029, Alicia Beymer, chief administrative officer at PeaceHealth, told commissioners. 

Elsewhere, the county is working on other details — finalizing construction costs, getting a state license from the Oregon Health Authority and working with Medicaid to get billing codes.

Some of the work cannot happen until other steps are done. For example, it’s difficult for the county to finalize and know Medicaid billing codes until its state license is in hand. 

For now, the work continues, one step at a time.

Gray said: “Even though the progress is not as fast as we had hoped at the outset, we are making progress.”