As expected, the Seattle City Council approved an expansion of Children's Hospital today to allow the facility to add 350 more beds. Today's vote ends a three-year battle between hospital supporters who say they need more room for sick kids, and a handful of neighbors, armed to the teeth with attorneys and cash, who argued the hospital was exaggerating its needs and underestimating its impacts.

The protracted collision provided such theatrics as a helicopter hovering over the wealthy lakeside neighborhood of Laurelhurst to show how tall the hospital could be, the Laurehurst Community Club claiming in legal proceedings that it represented every person who lives in Laurelhurst, a neighbor suing her own neighborhood group to see the list of members, a court proceeding that found many those so-called members actually lived in other neighborhoods, threats to take the hospital out of the city completely, and, finally, a deal to shrink the new hospital's footprint and height and refund the neighborhood group $150,000 in legal fees.

I outlined the proposed settlement between the parties in February. The final details are in a 34-page settlement agreement (.pdf).