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Opposition to Beebe Medical Center’s plans to build a helicopter landing pad in the hospital parking lot has prompted Lewes Mayor and Council to schedule a special meeting.
The meeting will be held at 7 p.m., Wednesday, Aug. 31, at City Hall.
At the council’s Aug. 8 meeting, Mayor Jim Ford said that rather than hearing concerns from homeowners who live near the site, a special meeting to discuss only the helipad would be more effective.
The panel took no action on Beebe’s plans.
Ford permitted Kevin Moore, an East Fourth Street homeowner who requested a place on the meeting agenda, to address the council.
Moore, in the days just before the council meeting, gathered petition signatures of 47 homeowners who oppose Beebe’s plans to build the helipad near Savannah Road and West Fourth Street.
On Aug. 5, hospital officials and a handful of homeowners who live near the facility met privately to discuss medical center plans.
Sharon Harmon, Beebe Medical Center spokeswoman, said the meeting was not open to the public.
“This is so that we can personally hear some of the concerns that residents have. Because of the nature of the meeting it really doesn’t make sense to extend an invitation to the media,” Harmon said.
The Lewes Planning Commission last month recommended approval of plans to move the landing pad after hospital planners said the State Fire Marshal’s Office opposed plans to build it near its current location.
Jim Monihan, Beebe’s special projects administrator, told the commission the State Fire Marshal’s Office did not approve the original site because it called for reducing the width of the fire lane for the medical center’s planned $25 million addition.
Monihan said hospital planners had earlier ruled out a rooftop helipad because of expense and design problems associated with that type of placement.
But Moore cited safety, light, noise and air pollution, structural damage to homes, a reduction in the quality of life and the negative effect on property values among the reasons Beebe should place the landing pad somewhere other than Savannah Road and East Fourth Street.
In an interview before Monday’s council meeting, Moore said Beebe’s difficulty in finding a place to put the helipad is an indicator the hospital has outgrown its Savannah Road location.
Beebe has a history of indifference to concerns raised by those it shares a neighborhood with, Moore said, pointing out that the hospital displayed a lack of regard for neighborhood concerns when the hospital’s last major construction project caused parking headaches for homeowners.
Beebe’s call for a meeting with homeowners occurred only after the Planning Commission approval and following a suggestion by a commission member that hospital officials meet with homeowners.
At Monday’s council meeting, Jeffrey Fried, Beebe president and chief executive officer, said the hospital wants to be a good neighbor and “would go back to the drawing board” to look at alternatives.
John Campanelli, a Chestnut Street homeowner who met privately with hospital officials last week, called the meeting “a step in the right the direction.”
“I think that we came to some sort of understanding about the community’s concerns insofar as the hospital’s awareness goes,” Campanelli said.
In a letter to the Mayor and Council, Campanelli, a retired U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant colonel with experience in helicopter landing zone logistics, wrote that even under the best conditions, Beebe’s selected site poses high risks.
“When compounded by adverse weather, variable winds, darkness and lack of ground guidance systems, the task of flying into or taking off from a site that is surrounded by homes of varying heights, a church with a tower, utility poles and no glide path to ease an aircraft’s landing and takeoff angles, the situation becomes one of maximum risk,” Campanelli wrote.
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