At Tuesday's Huntersville Town Board meeting, a public hearing related to a rezoning request to clear the way for a multi-phase behavioral health hospital off N.C. 115 and Verhoeff Drive morphed into a 90-minute airing of various questions and concerns related to the proposed project.
Carolinas Healthcare Systems wants to build a 66-bed, 68,000-square-foot behavioral health hospital and related medical services facilities on a 17.35-acre tract it owns in the northwest quadrant of the intersection of N.C. 115 and Verhoeff Drive. Plans call for the facility to be in service in 2013. CHS also has plans to expand the hospital into a 110-bed, 113,000-square-foot facility in the not-too-distant future, and to eventually add a free-standing, 30,000-square-foot medical office building to the complex.
The first step is to rezone the property from Neighborhood Residential to Campus Institution-Conditional District. That was the topic of Monday's public hearing and the platform used to launch discussions about traffic, buffers, water retention, future plans and the basic concept of locating a psychiatric hospital beside a residential neighborhood.
CHS officials knew going in there were some paperwork, permitting and operational omissions in their proposal, and requested from the outset of Monday's public hearing that the discussion be continued until a future board session. But in the meantime, CHS representatives had the opportunity to outline the proposal, town staff members were able to highlight points that still must be addressed, and commissioners and residents were given the chance to ask questions and voice concerns.
The primary issues of discussion were CHS's request that a buffer requirement between the property and Monteith Place, a residential subdivision on the northern border of the proposed hospital site, be reduced from 80 to 40 feet, as well as the street plans and traffic patterns proposed for the facility.
The buffer is required by town ordinance between residential and campus institutional uses, but the plan proposed by CHS, which would convert Dr. Seay Drive off N.C. 115 into the facility's private driveway, reduces the buffer to 40 feet.
""From the dais to the doors is not much less than 40 feet," said Commissioner Charles Guignard, using the Town Hall meeting chamber in which all were assembled as a measuring reference. "That's not much of a buffer between a facility like this and children."
Monteith Place resident Kelly Hayes told the board he wanted the 80-foot buffer requirement to remain while fellow resident Ben Coggins was more direct in his opposition to the plan.
"Can this be turned down," Coggins asked the board, "and what has to be done for it to be turned down?"
Those questions and an assortment of other issues will be addressed in the coming weeks, along with a more detailed look at CHS's proposed expansion of Lottingly Drive from Monteith Place out to an intersection with Verhoeff Drive.
In the proposal, Dr. Seay Drive would be abandoned as a public road and used as the new hospital's main driveway. At the rear of the facility, Lottingly Drive, which currently ends at the Monteith Place border, would be connected to Verhoeff Drive to provide a second access point to the development as well as a new access road into Monteith Place.
As the result of a previous land acquisition between the town and CHS related to the overpass construction — valued at approximately $160,000 — the town would be responsible for constructing the new Lottingly-Verhoeff intersection.
Multiple discussions about turn lanes, commercial traffic into the proposed hospital and the logistics of the revised traffic patterns fueled more than 45 minutes of back-and-forth between commissioners and CHS representatives, as did questions concerning efforts to save trees on the property and various other topics. The latter included basics such as storm water plan approval and a written commitment from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities to provide service to the facility.
CHS Vice President Mary Beth Kuzmanovich, one of more than a dozen hospital representatives at Monday's meeting, said the organization plans to have a revised site plan back to the town as soon as possible and be ready for a planning board review of the project later this month. The issue is expected to be back on the town board agenda at early as its next meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 17.
The haunting tower
Another proposed construction project triggered a second meandering (40-minute) public hearing at Monday's meeting. A request from Jonathan Yates of Pegasus Tower to revise the town's requirements for communication towers was the latest episode in the discussion about a proposed tower off Mt. Holly-Huntersville Road.
Since last summer, Yates has been seeking approval to build a 199-foot-tall tower on a rural tract in western Huntersville. Instead of continuing the pursuit of conditional use permission, Yates has proposed text amendment change that would, basically, make what he wants to do a permitted use. Yates' amendment proposal features a list of specific requirements including setbacks, height restrictions and co-locating capabilities that would regulate tower placement.
Without exception, everyone involved in the conversation agreed cellular telephone service has become close to a modern necessity, but there is still some board opposition to losing control over individual projects.
"I agree that we need cell phone service," Commissioner Charles Jeter said, "... but let's fix the problem right, as opposed to doing it like this."
Commissioners Sarah McAulay and Danny Phillips, both emphasizing the importance of cell phone service availability as a safety and quality of life issue, voiced support for adopting the new guidelines.
"This is one of the reasons I decided to run for office," Phillips said. "We all have them (cell phones), and we have to have them. We need to go ahead and approve this."
Jo Anne Miller, a resident of Asbury Chapel Road and a member of the Huntersville Planning Board, while addressing the board in an unofficial capacity, was just as adamant in her support.
"I'm tired of having to go out under a certain tree if I want to make a phone call," she said. "I just want a cell tower and I don't care what it looks like at this point."
The proposed text amendment will be up for the board's consideration at its meeting on Monday, Feb. 6.
