Neighbors band together in opposition of hospital expansion plans
Members of the Three Chopt Elementary School community and surrounding residents are fighting a proposal by Henrico Doctors’ Hospital to develop 4.5 wooded acres adjacent to their respective properties.
A group of PTA members, neighbors and other concerned citizens in the West End has banded together in opposition of a hospital’s expansion plan, despite unanimous approval from Henrico County officials last month.
Members of the Three Chopt Elementary School community have created a petition to stop Henrico Doctors’ Hospital from expanding into an area next to the school designated as a wildlife sanctuary since 1971.
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The Plan
HCA Virginia, the hospital’s owner, intends to construct a four-story cancer center on the 4.5 acres it purchased from the Henrico School Board earlier this year.
The Henrico County Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend approval of the project, which would allow the hospital to move forward with its plans, at its general meeting February 11th despite a large showing from neighbors in opposition to the project.
Adjacent property owners cited concerns about traffic, construction activities, and harm to property values, among others. Prior to the meeting, hospital officials held several community meetings and made modifications to the building plans, including adding additional setback from the purchased property’s borders to appease property owners.
The plans will now go forward to the Henrico Board of Supervisors for review. The board will have final say as to whether the plans are approved. That public meeting is to be held March 8th in the Western Government Center board room at 4301 East Parham Road.
Plans, as they stand now, show significant setback from the school property, with a much smaller buffer in place between existing residential development surrounding the acreage.
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Site Layout
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Property Location
View the full Board of Supervisors staff report which outlines the conditions HCA must meet in order to construct the building and parking areas, see commentary from other county agencies, and view more renderings of the development here (PDF).
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The Petition
The Change.org petition (which had 282 supporters at press time) created by concerned parties reads, in part:
Three Chopt Elementary School is one of the oldest elementary schools in the county. It was built to support the growing suburbs of Henrico County and is surrounded by neighborhoods developed in the 1940s and 1950s. The land was purchased in 1970 and the school opened in 1971.
Also in 1971, in an effort to preserve and protect the property, Henrico County went to the Virginia General Assembly and asked for special enabling legislation and on March 1, 1971, the General Assembly granted the county the right to designate the area a wildlife sanctuary.
On June 11, 1975 the Board of Supervisors designated Three Chopt Elementary School, its grounds and outdoor classroom (nature trail) as the only individual bird sanctuary in the entire county and it remains so today.
The proposed sale of 4.5 acres of the Three Chopt Elementary School woods (and nature trail) is directly in conflict with the county code designating this a bird sanctuary (Chapter 5; Article VI; Section 5-250 – Bird sanctuaries). In addition, it is not supported by the county’s own long range plan which calls for the property to remain Government.
The petition goes on to note that the Henrico County Board of Supervisors voted to purchase 2.5 acres of land in Varina to protect it from future development in November of 2015.
You can view and sign the petition here.
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We’ll be closely watching the final decision by county leaders at the March 8th meeting and will bring you the latest developments as they happen.
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Trevor Dickerson
Trevor Dickerson loves all things Richmond and manages RVANews’ West of the Boulevard and West End community sites.
Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
Mr Dickerson Can you please provide us with the public records you cited regarding the sale of the woods? We have been told bythe county, the school board and the hospital that the sale would not be finalized until the rezoning went thru. If you have evidence to prove otherwise, we’d love to see it. I believe there may be some misinformation in your article. We were told the planning commission only made a recommendation last month. The board makes the final decision next week and the plan of development comes later. Maybe that isn’t the case either. Not only is Three Chopt Elementary the only school designated as a bird sanctuary (it has an outdoor classroom/nature trail that they plan to bulldoze to build their expansion) but the new building closest to the school will have nuclear accelerators. Yeah, county leaders are gonna take a chance with our kids and radiation. Sure, HCA will say it’s safe but then why do doctors, nurses and techs leave the room when you get an MRI or a simple xray? Why are they taking such chances? Why are they selling county land to a for -profit enterprise? HCA CAN build on their campus, they just don’t want to spend the money on a parking deck. The county spent over $400,000 to buy land zoned commercial in Varina to protect a new neighborhood. Why can’t they just not sell this land and protect the kids and the wildlife? Bet this wouldn’t happen at Colonial Trail Elementary or Glen Allen HS.
Hi John,
Thanks for reading, and for your thoughtful comment. The sale was reported by two other local media outlets besides us–I have a call out to the county for more information as to the status of the sale and will update the article accordingly, pending the information provided. As for the approval process, this information is correct. The Planning Commission unanimously recommended the plans for approval, and they’ll now go before the Board of Supervisors next week. I’ve tweaked the verbiage to make this more clear. Thanks again for bringing this to our attention.
These days, HCA is all about the money. It is not the same HCA as it was in the days of Dr. Frist. I worked there for many years and have watched it go from a patient focused organization (in Richmond anyway) to an organization that only looks for how to make more money. They will get what they want in the end and will not care about the neighbors in that area. It’s a shame really. There are very good people that work the front-lines at our HCA hospitals.
Taxes up, trees down, urban sprawl costs us all.