“We have looked at this and looked at this and looked at this,” said Supervisor
(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 there. The opposition includes officials with
in Lansdowne, which is about five miles from HCA’s proposed site in Broadlands. They have said Inova’s services will suffer if HCA opens a facility in such close proximity.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Supervisor
(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 did not call for the hospital to be built at a specific location.
In response to another question from Burton, Armstrong said several health-care facilities have been proposed or approved in the Route 50 corridor. He said 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.
(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.