Final Hospital Vote Set for Feb. 3

Supervisors Eager to Conclude Debate

By Christopher Twarowski

Originally published at 1:45 p.m., January 15, 2009
Updated at 6:15 p.m., January 16, 2009

Loudoun County supervisors voted Wednesday to make a decision Feb. 3 on a proposed 164-bed hospital in Broadlands, with several saying they were eager to have the issue finally settled.

"We have looked at this and looked at this and looked at this," said Supervisor Susan Klimek Buckley (D-Sugarland Run). "It's time to vote. It's time to take action."

The unanimous decision to schedule a vote came after the Board of Supervisors, meeting as a committee of the whole, spent more than two hours questioning county staff members and representatives of HCA Virginia, the company that wants to build the hospital. They asked, among other questions, whether the Broadlands location would be consistent with the county's comprehensive health services plan and whether HCA would build a helipad.

It was the latest move in a battle that has raged for years and has split the community. Hundreds of residents have weighed in on the issue in recent months at public input sessions and in e-mails, phone calls and meetings with board members.

HCA, a for-profit health-care network, wants to build a 24-hour acute-care hospital, which would be called Broadlands Regional Medical Center, on a 57.7-acre site at Dulles Greenway and Route 659. The project has the support of the county Planning Department's staff and a certificate of public need from the state health commissioner. The county's planning commission recommended approval of the hospital in November.

A similar proposal by HCA was rejected by a previous Board of Supervisors in 2005.

Opponents say the hospital should be built along Route 50 in the Dulles South area, contending that the county's comprehensive plan calls for Loudoun's next hospital to be located there. The opposition includes officials with Inova Loudoun Hospital in Lansdowne, which is about five miles from HCA's proposed site in Broadlands. They have said that Inova's services will suffer if HCA is allowed to open a facility in such close proximity.

At Wednesday's meeting, Supervisor James Burton (I-Blue Ridge) asked how the current HCA proposal differs from the one rejected by the previous board.

County planner Van Armstrong listed several differences, including the removal of a proposed helipad, HCA's adoption of an environmentally friendly design and construction program, increased transportation improvements and more community input. HCA took the helipad out of its plans at the request of residents.

Burton also sought an interpretation of a comprehensive plan amendment, approved by the previous board, that opponents of the Broadlands hospital have cited. He asked whether the provision dictates where the county's next hospital should be. Cindy Keegan, a county planner, said the amendment was intended to provide "some direction and policy guidance," but it did not call for the hospital to be built at a specific location.

In response to another question from Burton, Armstrong said that several health-care facilities have been proposed or approved in the Route 50 corridor. He said that a special exemption was granted to Inova last year for a health-care campus on an 80-acre parcel that would include a 113,000-square-foot hospital, although Inova has yet to seek a state certificate of public need for the project. He also listed HCA's plans for health service centers in the Route 50 area, including an emergency department that would be built in tandem with the Broadlands project.

Supervisor Stevens Miller (D-Dulles) asked County Attorney John R. "Jack" Roberts whether the board had the authority to direct developers to build a project somewhere other than the site they were seeking in their land-use application. Roberts said it did not.

Miller also asked whether he was allowed to deny an application based on the possibility that the applicant could build elsewhere.

"You're looking at the application that's before you," Roberts said. "The viability of a facility at another site is not a consideration."

Buckley asked Mark C. Looney of the Reston-based law firm Cooley Godward Kronish, which is representing HCA, whether HCA would be willing to sign a legally binding document stating that it would not seek to build a helipad at the Broadlands site. Looney said he would consider signing such a document.

Supervisor Lori L. Waters (R-Broad Run) announced at the meeting that she would vote against the proposed Broadlands hospital. Burton, Miller and Supervisor Andrea McGimsey (D-Potomac) said they had not made up their minds, and the other supervisors did not comment on their position. Board Chairman Scott K. York (I) was absent.

"From a land-use perspective, I've come to my decision that I don't believe this is in keeping with the long-term interests of the county and in conformance with the comprehensive plan," Waters said.

She also said the board is in a "no-win situation" as it prepares to vote on the application, "because we're getting sued one way or another." She did not elaborate.

HCA sued the county after the previous board's rejection of the proposal but withdrew the lawsuit after the current board agreed to reconsider the project.

Randall L. Kelley, chief executive of Inova Loudoun Hospital, which has donated at least $20,000 to a group of Broadlands residents opposing the project, said after Waters's comment that he would not speculate on whether Inova would sue the county if the Broadlands project were approved. But he suggested that homeowners in Broadlands could take such action.

Tagged: Board of Supervisors, Broadlands, hospital, Inova Loudoun Hospital

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