LoudounExtra.com

Hearing on Hospital Attracts Hundreds

County Officials to Continue Talks

By Christopher Twarowski

Originally published at 12:57 p.m., November 21, 2008
Updated at 10:15 p.m., November 21, 2008

Hundreds of Loudoun County residents attended a public hearing Thursday on the issue of whether HCA Virginia should be allowed to build a 164-bed hospital in Broadlands.

More than 100 residents spoke at the nearly five-hour session, a joint meeting of the county Board of Supervisors and the Planning Commission at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn. The atmosphere was more reserved and controlled than at a Planning Commission hearing Oct. 15 on the hospital project, when commissioners reprimanded audience members for rude behavior. But residents at last week's meeting were just as passionate.

Supporters emphasized the 600 jobs and $4 million in annual tax revenue that Broadlands Regional Medical Center is expected to bring and described the county's need for more hospital beds and the benefits of health-care competition.

Photo: Christopher Twarowski

Hundreds of residents showed up at a joint session of the Board of Supervisors and the Planning Commission Thursday night to share their views on the proposed 164-bed hospital in Broadlands.

"I think it's a travesty that in one of the fastest-growing and wealthiest counties in the nation, we have to go to another county when our babies need help," said HCA supporter Sharon Henry, 62, who has lived in Ashburn since 1999. Henry said her granddaughter was sent to a Fairfax County hospital when she had trouble breathing because there were no beds in Loudoun.

Opponents said that the project should be rejected because it does not fit the county's health facilities plan and that the public would be better served if HCA built the hospital along Route 50 in the Dulles South area. They also said that the Broadlands facility would hurt Inova Loudoun Hospital, which is about five miles from HCA's proposed site, and they complained about the noise and traffic the new hospital could generate.

Kent Larson, a nine-year resident of Broadlands, told supervisors and commissioners that if the hospital is built, it will "violate the very spirit of our Broadlands residential community."

"Our concept plan does not permit a hospital," he said, wearing a yellow shirt that read "Danger! We Live in the HCA Fallout Zone."

HCA, a for-profit health-care network, has applied for a zoning exception to build the 24-hour acute-care hospital on a 57.7-acre site at Dulles Greenway and Route 659. A similar proposal by HCA was rejected by the Board of Supervisors in 2005.

The project has the support of the county Planning Department's staff and a certificate of public need from the state health commissioner. Children's National Medical Center has agreed to collaborate with HCA on staffing, training and equipment for pediatric care.

HCA announced last week that the new hospital will also be seeking LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, which would require it to meet standards for energy-efficient design and construction.

HCA supporters have noted the $11 million to $15 million in transportation improvements that HCA has promised to deliver to mitigate the hospital's effects on traffic. Outside the hearing Thursday, a mobile unit from Inova Loudoun gave out sandwiches, candy bars and other refreshments to attendees, as well as T-shirts and buttons to those opposing HCA's plan.

At one point, Rhonda Paice, a Leesburg lawyer representing Concerned Citizens of Broadlands, an opposition group, asked that all those against HCA's plan stand up. At least half of the audience did. Paice's group has received at least $20,000 in funding from Inova Loudoun, according to a June 19 news release from the nonprofit hospital.

Some speakers who support HCA's proposal suggested to county officials that many of the opponents in the auditorium were being paid to be there by Inova. One such comment drew murmurs from the audience and a call for order from board Chairman Scott K. York (I).

Near the end of the hearing, several opponents walked to the stage and delivered stacks of paperwork said to contain names of other residents opposed to the project. Each stack was wrapped in red ribbon and had the name of a county supervisor on it.

At about 11 p.m., the Planning Commission voted unanimously to pick up the issue again at a work session. The Board of Supervisors voted to discuss it Jan. 14; Eugene A. Delgaudio (R-Sterling) cast the only dissenting vote, saying that he has a conflict that day.

After supervisors receive a recommendation from the Planning Commission, they will have until May 20 make a decision on the proposal.

Supervisor Stevens Miller (D-Dulles), whose jurisdiction includes HCA's proposed site, said in an interview afterward that the involvement of HCA's competitor, Inova, made for an unusual hearing.

"Here what we've got is an applicant, the community and . . . someone in competition with the applicant," he said. "They clearly have devoted themselves and considerable resources to making their own opposition known — which is fine. . . . But they've also been using their money and their knowledge of this to assist the citizens who are opposed.

"And I don't say the residents shouldn't have access to that, but it creates a variation on what I usually see when we have a public hearing," he said.

Miller suggested that people who speak at a public hearing as part of their paid job should be last on the list so others can comment and leave earlier. He said that he might ask the board to approve such a stipulation for future land-use applications and to require that paid speakers indicate they are being paid.

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