ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 24, 1996 TAG: 9601240024
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
Radford Community Hospital took another small step forward Monday on its long march toward Interstate 81 in Montgomery County.
Following a public hearing, the county Planning Commission recommended approval of a comprehensive plan amendment and three rezonings and special-use permits for the approximately 110 acres off Barn and Tyler roads outside Radford, south of the Virginia 177/I-81 interchange.
That's where Radford Community hopes to build a new hospital in two years.
The Planning Commission voted 5-0 on the comprehensive plan change with member Harry Neumann abstaining. It then endorsed the rezonings 6-0. Two members were absent and member Joe Draper removed himself from the discussions because his engineering firm does work for the hospital.
The Board of Supervisors should vote on the hospital matters at its Feb. 12 meeting.
The votes followed a public hearing where proponents, competitors and would-be neighbors of a new Radford-area hospital each had their say. Barn Road resident Mark Stewart lives across from the proposed site. He urged the board and commission to consider the larger impact of rezoning the land for the hospital - the likely change of what's now a rural area into a fast-growing urban hub.
"You're going to fundamentally change the way people live there," Stewart said.
But six other hospital supporters, including three hospital trustees, cited the project's importance to the community in terms of health care needs and economic development.
The competition came, too. Richmond lawyer Matthew Jenkins, representing Columbia Montgomery Regional Hospital, questioned the timing of the rezoning and said granting Radford's requests would amount to a "speculative gesture" because state approval is still pending.
Columbia Montgomery Regional and Pulaski Community hospitals have a competing application before state health-care regulators. Though they've lost every preliminary round so far in the state Health Department's certificate-of-need process, they've vowed to fight Radford Community to the end.
Gene Wright, Montgomery Regional's chief executive, said the Radford Community plan is too expensive and will harm his hospital, which unlike its nonprofit competitor, pays local taxes.
The county Planning Commission addressed the timing issue in two ways. First, it suggested the Board of Supervisors set a two-year deadline on the special-use permit for the start of construction; and second, it suggested the permit not take effect until the state approves the new hospital plans.
In another matter Monday, the board:
Voted 6-1 to accept L.H. Sawyer Paving Co.'s $366,576 low bid for construction of the first 3.2 miles of the Huckleberry Trail extension from Blacksburg to Merrimac. The county will award the bid - to be paid for mostly by federal grants - if there's no formal legal challenge within 10 days and if the Commonwealth Transportation Board gives its OK next month. One bidder, C.R. Meador General Contractors, has written the county to dispute the moving of the bid opening from Jan. 10 to the next day, said County Attorney Roy Thorpe. The county moved the bid opening because its offices had been closed earlier that week because of the snowstorm.
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