Candidates Debate Last Night -- Opinions?

I'll presume you don't have an answer to my question since you answered it with an unrelated question.

 

GCYR: I'm sorry that you did not understand my last response. I thought that it was clear, but here goes again. What I meant was that I think that instead of a ho$pital, an office park, or something else like those things, our community would benefit from a decent church.

My question to you (or in general) is: Are you opposed to that? Wouldn't that be better than HCA's proposed terror?

killer_bee in broadands, ashburn, virginia

 

killer_bee,

Yes, some people in the community would benefit from a church but certainly not everyone since not everyone in the community has the same religion or goes to the same church. However, based on all the protests I read about every time a church tries to build in a community, I don't think a church would happen with any less protests than a hospital. For those who don't know, one of the permitted uses for the land, as zoned, is a "church, synagogue and temple."

Again, I'll presume that you don't know of any benefit that an office park would offer instead of a hospital because you keep avoiding the question. The reason for my question is as I stated before. The anti-hospital folks have stated that BRMC would not provide any benefit to the community, so it isn't necessary. So, what benefits would an office part provide instead of a hospital?

 

Never assume, or presume.

 

GCYR,

My personal beliefs about organized religion aside (this is not the forum), I think that any church would be a much better neighbor than a hospital! If you don't think so, would you actively choose to oppose it? VACLIFF, would you? What about others?

Also, you mention (see above) that the land is ALREADY zoned for a church as is, whereas the hospital requires an unplanned-for exception to the land's zoned and intended use.

I have always found churches to be perfect neighbors. (I have lived beside 2 of them.) They are not high traffic, do not bring in the mentally ill or the criminally insane, and are quite a bit less noisy than your average hospital (much less one with a heli-pad!).

Maybe this is an idea that we all can support for a change! =-) I'm sure that we can find an interested church if we put our minds to it! VACLIFF, what do you think? Would the HOA be willing to sponsor a Church Task Force like it already does for the Hospital Task Force?

 

You need to check previous newspaper articles about requests to have churches built in communities. Not all churches are welcomed by all people. Since there is no church planned for that area and there will be no church there as long as HCA owns the land, lets keep our discussions to what is currently planned.

A hospital is a zoned, permitted use for that property, not unplanned as you stated. It requires a special exception which is still a permitted use for that zoning -- it just has to be approved by the Board of Supervisors and meet certain conditions. All hospitals, no matter where they are built in Loudoun require this special exception -- there is no by-right zoning for a hospital.

You keep ignoring the facts that have been provided to you about "criminally insane" people coming to the planned hospital, so how about providing the facts you have that support this.

 

Chris-
No, I wouldn't oppose a church being built on the commercial property along Broadlands Blvd. In fact, one had expressed interest in it a while back, but I guess nothing came of it. (Not the HCA property, but to the east of where Clyde's will be.)

You are incorrect about your statement "unplanned-for exception to the land's zoned and intended use." Hospitals are SPECIFICALLY listed as a use for this property's zoning. I have a copy of the county description of the zoning if you'd like to see it.

I think a hospital or a church would be a better use of the property than an office park.

I do not see the HOA setting up a Task Force to try and sell Terrabrook's property for them. We established the Hospital Task Force at the request of Drew Hiatt (Dulles District Supervisor) who wanted to ensure that the residents were kept informed about the hospital application process and to get questions answered.
Cliff

 

Why would we (used loosely) want a new church, there are already perfectly good churches within minutes of here!

 

T8erman,

Wow, you are absolutely right. Can you imagine if a big church stepped into the neighbor. You know what competition does. My god, all the other churches would go out of business.

What if the church took care of the homeless. My god, we would have homeless roaming the streets, threatening our kids.

What if the church burned incense. My god, they would pollute our neighborhood, and cause cancer.

What if the church had midnight services. My god, we'd have traffic on our roads, to all hours of the night.

What if the churches fostered sexual predators within their midst. My god, they may actually be trying to council those poor souls and we'd have to deal with them during their treatment.

What if the clergy arrived by helicopter at all ours of the night. My god, could you image the constant noise. I know one church that has them arriving every 20 minutes. I even know of a church helicopter, in New Mexico, that crashed on a house and killed everyone in it.

What if people showed up 24/7 to pray. My god, we'd never get any sleep with the massive volume of people, vans, cars, and buses coming through our neighborhood.

And another thing, the West doesn't have enough churches, they should go out there. I know what's best for the west. I don't want another church in MY BACK YARD.

When I moved in here 8 months ago, no one said anything about a church. Now that I am here, they legally can't be here.

You know some of these churches have actually been taken to court over alleged illegal things, some even convicted. We should make sure none of those guys get in here, they never learn from their mistakes or penalties.

Hey let's start a website, NO CHURCH IN MY BACKYARD.grump

By the way, it's against most religions to slow people from getting to church, they hate traffic lights.

And another thing, when we get a handful of people against this church we can claim that EVERYONE is against it. Arrogance can go a long way. People will think we are great. Tolerance gets you no where, let's attack, don't compromise.

Oh my, and I haven't even mentioned the bells. THE BELLS, the constant horror. They ring constantly, cause animals to go wild, little children develop ADHD, garage doors open without prompt, they actually have been known to cause earth tremors, they cause a significant amount of ear bleeds, they attract moles, Dick Black road signs appear out of no where, clocks spin backwards (or is that heads?), and they actually end up causing more people to attend the church. This brings hoards of un-invited maleficents into our quaint neighborhood.

Rise up citizens, we know what's right for everyone. Stop this church, we already have one. Go to the one I go to.

****QUOTE REMOVED BY MODERATOR --- We do not allow personal attacks. Keep it clean people.****

 

afgm,

Good one! Seems like I read something similar somewhere but I can't remember where...

 

That post was over the top and streches the issue to incredulity.

Hey Admins, show some consistency here! That quote above is far more of a personal attack than any that was on the thread you closed. It's not ok to rebuff someone for being a bigot but it's ok to call someone an idiot? HMMM! I'm inching ever closer to starting up my own Broadlands board.

 

EVERYONE --

We don't have many rules here. But we will enforce the ones we have. NO PERSONAL ATTACKS. PERIOD! Take it offline!

Thanks.

---------------
Got Broadband?

 

This wasn't a personal attack. If you couldn't tell, it was tongue and cheek. One can underestimate the lack of humor in this situation.

 

A church and a hospital are two entirely different things, Yo!
A church is not 7 stories high, for one thing...
Churches don't usually work for profit.

 

SK8R-
Is working for profit a bad thing? Does anyone in your family work for a profit? Churches do indeed make "profits". They do not, however, pay any taxes.
Are you implying that if a hospital works for "profit" rather than bond holders then it is a bad thing?
Remember, in a conversation we had a while back, you mentioned that you felt Reston Hospital was a superior facility to Loudoun Hospital.
Does the fact that you now know Reston is "for profit" mean it is no longer a good hospital?
Cliff

 

I think Reston and Loudoun are probably about the same at this point.
I do not think the Broadlands community should have a hospital.
I just think the idea stinks, that is all

We are moving in three years so I personally don't care what happens anymore, sorry about that.
I am not "worried" about selling my house.
I just think a hospital will make Broadlands a trashy, busy neighborhood. This is just my opinion.
I have lived near hospitals and I don't like it.

You should have to agree though, there are no 7 story churches anywhere..... right?
Also, I believe from the appearance aspect, a hospital towering over Broadlands at the top of Broadlands Blvd is going to look pretty BAD, and, of course, I don't mean that in a good way, haha..

I do not want to turn every forum into a hospital debate forum. I just thought I would throw in my thoughts about
the "church comment" posted by afgm.

 

Actually, if you're concerned about buildings "towering" over Broadlands Blvd, then you should support the hospital. If you've seen the marketing plans Terrabrook had for the site (if you haven't, I'd be happy to show them to you) it shows multiple 5-7 floor buildings throughout the site, with virtually all wooded areas eliminated. The hospital building will be set back a significant distance on the site and will have much less visual impact than the office park concept.
Also, the hospital will not be "towering", as it is situated in a sloped area. One of the levels will be completely below grade. In either case, the height of the hospital, or any building on that site, is dictated by the county and cannot exceed a certain height(I believe it's 125 or 135 feet) regardless of the number of floors.

 

Dear all: Would someone please RE-NAME these forums as "The Broadlands Homeonwers Association Endless Hospital Discussion Site"? The state has killed the hospital twice now, so it is not even a real concern. So, forget about it. In hospital-speak, it is D-O-A!

NOW, COULD EVERYONE PLEASE RE-DIRECT THEIR ATTENTION TO GETTING A LIGHT PUT IN THE SAFEWAY INTERSECTION DEATH-TRAP. Also, I was thinking... What if we all BOYCOTTED Safeway until there was a light there. I am sure that even the threat of that would cause Safeway (i.e., a HUGE company with deep pockets) to put pressure on their lobbyists down south in Richmond. That would surely lead to a light pretty quickly. Any thoughts?

 

True we need that light, but we also need to band together and resolve all the issues we are having with Openband as well.

 

The hospital is not DOA. Last year's COPN is in the appeal process and this year's COPN hasn't been processed (approved or denied) at the State level yet. HCA owns the land and there's no legal limit to the number of times they can resubmit a COPN (annually), so it's their business decision and not the County's or State's that determines when they decide to cut their losses and move on. Hopefully, they do get State approval because the County needs another hospital and and we deserve a choice in our healthcare.

Did Giant raise a stink to stop Safeway when it decided to open in Broadlands less than a mile away? What would the community have said if we didn't have a grocery store in our shopping center because Giant decided to fight off all competitors? I'm sure Giant lost some business when Safeway opened, but does that mean they both can't survive? If people don't like something about the Safeway, they're free to go to Giant, and visa-versa.

Why is LHC so concerned with compitition? Is it because they're concerned BRMC might provide better healthcare services? Otherwise, why would they be so concerned? If LHC services are better, there's no problem, right? If it's OK to have choices in grocery stores (as only one example), why can't we have choices in healthcare?