The City Council Tuesday allowed Cottage Health System to move forward with its proposed 115 unit condominium project at the old St. Francis Medical Center property. The Council rejected the request that the property be down zoned from allowing 3 story buildings with an unlimited number of units to two stories with two units per building.
The vote was 6-1 with Das Williams being the lone dissenter.
Cottage Hospital plans to build the condos for its employees in an effort to improve recruitment and retention of its health care workers. Eighty-one of the units would be sold to employees at below market prices. Cottage officials said that if the zoning is changed, they couldn’t build as many homes that would be affordable to it s residents.
While the Cottage plan is still in the early stages and must undergo several more steps before gaining approval, city staffers are embracing the project because it provides housing for its workers in a community where there is a jobs-housing imbalance.