Novant hospital next door? This South Asheville community is wary; here’s what they did.

ASHEVILLE - Residents of a South Asheville neighborhood were worried that having a new 67-bed hospital next door would bring too much noise and traffic, so they took a poll and wrote a letter to tell others how they can speak out at an Aug. 12 public hearing.

Biltmore Park Association Inc.’s Board of Directors — a homeowners association board — wants its members at a public hearing to help define which of three hospitals will get to grow in Buncombe County.

“We opposed the Schenck Pkwy hospital location because a majority of members believe that close proximity to Biltmore Park Town Square and our primarily residential neighborhood is not an appropriate location for this facility,” the HOA board said in a letter to its residents. “Major concerns are increased traffic, excessive noise from ambulances and helicopters, and a potential decrease in property values. In addition there are a variety of medical care options on both sides of Long Shoals Road as well as an existing hospital within a few miles of Biltmore Park.”

The hearing is at 9:30 a.m. at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College’s Ferguson Building.

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It will be hosted by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Health Service Regulation and is meant to give the public a chance to be heard in person regarding certificates of need from three hospital systems: HCA Healthcare-owned Mission Health, Novant Health and AdventHealth.

Each is applying to increase services in Buncombe by 67 acute care beds, which would also serve Madison, Graham and Yancey counties.

Only one will be awarded a certificate of need.

Two want to build entirely new buildings: AdventHealth at the Enka Commercial Park where the iconic Enka clock tower stands and Novant at 200 Technology Drive on land between Schenck Parkway and I-26, just outside the bounds of Biltmore Park.

The address Novant is considering is 200 Technology Drive, which is just off Schenck, land, according to current property records, owned by Biltmore Farms LLC.

Biltmore Park, which is a mixed-use community, has homes, apartments, office space, restaurants and retail outlets. But it’s mostly residential single-family homes which range in value from $500,000 to many millions.

“We have 575 in the part that I’m the president of,” said Catherin McCartan, the HOA board’s president and a 17-year Biltmore Park resident. She said office buildings in the area are one thing: Biltmore already has several “low-impact” offices. But a medical center is a different story. “A hospital is not something that was initially proposed and it’s not consistent with the use of a low-impact office situation, and that’s really our concern.”

McCartan and the board surveyed residents to see if they had the same concerns.

She said they received 401 responses: 16% residents said they were in favor of the hospital and 84% were not.

The board already has sent a letter to the DHSR saying they opposed a hospital moving into the lot near Biltmore Park, though McCartan said they’re not expressing favor for one facility or another.

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They’re also not telling HOA members what to say at the public hearing, only telling them what it is and how they can participate.

McCartan said a hospital next to Biltmore Park isn’t something the neighborhood would necessarily benefit from. Mission, various urgent care clinics and physicians’ offices are close enough, she said.

Novant’s proposed hospital would have a number of elements, including:

• 67 acute care beds, including 53 medical-surgical, eight ICU, six labor, delivery, recovery, and postpartum.

• Eight observation beds.

• For surgery services, one operating room in partnership with Surgery Partners, three procedure rooms, one C-section operating room, and one gastrointestinal endoscopy suite.

• For radiology services, mobile MRI, CT, ultrasound, X-ray, and nuclear medicine.

• An emergency department with 35 bays.

It has 687 locations spread mostly throughout North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, according to its website.

Patrick Easterling, senior vice president of Novant Health consumer operations, told the Citizen Times in a recent interview the nonprofit's leadership has visited Buncombe 12 times to meet with leaders and discuss its proposed facility, a project that would cost  $328.7 million.

According to its certificate of need application, Novant would open its proposed hospital by 2027.

The decision to award a certificate of need to one of the three hospitals now lies with the DHSR, which could announce before the end of 2022.

Novant, AdventHealth and Mission executives will be at the Aug. 12 public hearing, the first face-to-face public hearing the DHSR has hosted since March 2020.

Andrew Jones is Buncombe County government and health care reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at @arjonesreports on Facebook and Twitter, 828-226-6203 or arjones@citizentimes.com. Please help support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Biltmore Park concerned about Novant Health hospital plan