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HCA sues for hospital approval
One month after the Board of Supervisors turned down its application to build a hospital in Broadlands, HCA has filed a lawsuit asking the Circuit Court to overturn that vote and to approve that application.
The HCA lawsuit contends that once the State Health Commissioner issued a Certificate of Public Need for a medical facility at a specific location, "The Board did not have the authority" to block the project.
The lawsuit also argues that the supervisors' vote to deny the Broadlands Regional Medical Center "bore no relation to the health, safety or general welfare of County residents" and is thus "arbitrary, unreasonable, capricious and illegal."
The lawsuit adds a charge of interference in the government's review of the application by Inova Health System, parent since November 2004 of Inova Loudoun Hospital.
"Inova prepared and submitted intentionally and materially misleading data alleging that BRMC's location in the county would irreparably harm the viability of Inova Loudoun Hospital," the court filing reads.
The lawsuit continues that Inova's 2004 initiation of a Comprehensive Plan Amendment that calls for the county's next hospital to be built somewhere along U.S. 50 in the Dulles District was an attempt to persuade the supervisors to "usurp the authority and frustrate the will of the Commissioner [of Health], prohibit the development of BRMC, and preserve Inova's healthcare monopoly."
Five of the nine supervisors lined up Feb. 3 to reject the Broadlands application. HCA, the five said before the vote, had made a good-faith effort to mitigate the negative effects of a 24/7 hospital adjacent to a residential community, but the traffic, light, noise and disruption could not be mitigated as required by the county's land use rules for a special exception.
The proposed hospital site at the intersection of the Greenway and Belmont Ridge Road is zoned for an office park, including medical offices. A hospital is allowed only if the supervisors approve a special exception application.
HCA's attempts to build the Broadlands Regional Medical Center started in 2002 with the purchase of 57 acres on Broadlands Boulevard. State Health Commissioner Robert Stroube denied a COPN for Broadlands Regional Medical Center in 2003, but approved a similar application, reduced to 164 beds, in 2004.
In August 2005, the previous Board of Supervisors denied the special exception for the Broadlands Regional Medical Center on a 6-3 vote. HCA went to court to overturn that vote, and in March 2008, just 10 days before the case was on the court's docket for trial, a newly seated group of supervisors agreed to take a new look at the special exception request, in return for HCA's dropping all litigation.
The argument that approval from the State Health Commissioner trumps the county's land use powers failed to convince Circuit Court Judge Thomas D. Horne last time around. In March 2006, Horne dismissed all of the complaints in the previous lawsuit, including restraint of competition and pre-emption by the state, except the the charge that the vote had been arbitrary and capricious.
The state can decide if there is a need, Horne wrote in his 2006 ruling, and the county still has authority, granted by the General Assembly, to direct the "orderly use of land through the zoning ordinances."
Virginia's Alcoholic Beverage Control office regulates the sale and purchase of alcoholic beverages in the state, Horne noted. That doesn't prevent a local government from passing and acting on zoning ordinances to regulate where those sales can happen.
HCA had retained the right to appeal to a higher court Horne's dismissal of the pre-emption argument. It argues in the latest lawsuit that "a local government may not forbid what the state legislature has expressly licensed, authorized or required. While the County may impose reasonable conditions to minimize the land use impacts of the BRMC, the County may not prohibit the development of the BRMC at the property."
Since the Supervisors' rejection of the Broadlands Regional Medical Center application, HCA has announced plans to expand its Reston Hospital Center by 187 beds, and Inova has announced it will apply to the state for a COPN to build an 80-bed hospital on U.S. 50.
Mark Foust, at HCA, said the lawsuit will have no effect on the Reston project.
Asked whether the pre-emption claim would fare better in court this time, Foust said the lawsuit stands on its own merits. He declined to comment any further on the lawsuit's effect on HCA's need to have the Broadlands COPN extended by the Health Commissioner before the end of this month.
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