Sunday, February 25, 2024, 7:13 pm News Flash Archive

Many citizens of Greenwood have taken notice of the slow progress being made in the refurbishing of the old Honest Abe's building on West Park Avenue. The building and lot were purchased for $823,000 by North Sunflower Medical Center (NSMC) in March 2023 for the purpose of launching a satellite medical center in Greenwood.

There had been visible progress since then, with a large number of workers on site earlier this week. The building had been gutted, and a lot of work done to modernize the external face of the building.

That's why people were surprised Friday morning to see all the workers gone, and a large "For Sale" sign up in the parking lot.

North Sunflower Medical Center (NSMC) building is up for sale

Billy Marlow of Ruleville has been the catalyst for the revitalization of several small hospitals in the rural Delta region. He took over management as Executive Director of the Ruleville hospital at the beginning of the new millennium, and built the struggling hospital into a medical hub of the Delta.

Pretty soon, the public began to see the ads and learn the slogan: "Take me to Ruleville!"

But when Marlow decided to come to Greenwood to provide needed medical services here, people didn't know what to think. Some applauded any new medical providers that would come, while others feared NSMC would compete against the Greenwood Leflore Hospital, on its last legs financially, and struggling to stay open.

In fact, some prominent individuals, such as Troy Brown Sr., demanded that the city use its zoning ordinances to keep NSMC out of Greenwood. Last May, it seemed that the city would not take Mr. Brown up on his demand. See our previous reporting here: North Sunflower Medical Center gains tax exemption for Greenwood clinic

Now it appears that, deliberate or not, Mr. Brown's demands have been met. The Greenwood zoning ordinance has shut down NSMC's entry into the Greenwood medical marketplace.

Friday evening, Mr. Marlow told The Taxpayers Channel that the Greenwood Planning Commission had rejected NSMC's application to resurface the existing parking lot in front of its building.

Marlow told us that was the last straw. NSMC would not go forward with its plans to provide medical services in Greenwood, and the building will be sold.

According to Marlow, NSMC had suffered many delays due, he said, to the Planning Commission throwing up all sorts of demands that made obtaining the necessary permits difficult and time consuming.

But Mayor Carolyn McAdams sees it differently. She told The Taxpayers Channel that the Planning Commission had worked diligently to help NSMC overcome a number of problems and continue to move forward.

Marlow says the problems were caused by Greenwood's zoning regulations that force property owners to jump through a long series of hoops before they could build or repurpose their business properties.

Marlow told us that he had never done business before in a community that had as many zoning regulations as Greenwood has.

It was one of those regulations that, for NSMC, went too far.

NSMC had hired an engineer to ascertain the property lines, and to lay out the parking lot, which consumes the entire front yard of the building. The plan was to resurface the present concrete parking lot, which is riddled with cracks, uneven places, and other impediments that made walking across it a hazard for elderly and disabled patients.

After laying out the curbs and driving lanes and parking spaces, it was found that only 58 slots could be contained in the land available.

But the Greenwood zoning code requires that the medical center have 63 parking slots, so it is 5 slots short.

This required NSMC to go to the Planning Commission to ask for a variance from 63 down to 58 parking slots.

Several NSMC employees and consultants appeared before the Planning Commission Thursday afternoon to argue their request. The entire meeting may be seen here: Greenwood Planning Commission Meeting, February 22, 2024. The relevant portion of the meeting begins at the 20 minute mark, and continues for 38 minutes.

It soon became apparent that the Planning Commission had no intention of granting NSMC's request. Instead, it launched into a discussion about how many trees would need to be planted in the parking lot.

The discussion was principally led by Thomas Gregory, who, while not a voting member of the Planning Commission, is the newly installed Executive Director of the Greenwood Leflore Carroll Economic Development Foundation.

Indeed, Gregory was prominently featured in the Greenwood Commonwealth's "Profile Edition," dated the very same day that the Planning Commission turned down NSMC's zoning variance request.

The Commonwealth described Gregory's approach to economic development this way:

Thomas Gregory believes in taking a holistic approach to economic development.

'You want your community to be the kind of place people call home,' he said.

Quality of Place is where Greenwood shines, Gregory said.

But at the Planning Commission meeting, Gregory led the participants in a discussion of why the NSMC parking lot must be redesigned to comply with the Greenwood zoning ordinance, in order to make it look more appealing and beautify the city.

That would mean, he stressed, that they would have to give up a number of parking places to create parking-place sized islands where grass and trees must be planted.

It would cost NSMC more money to do that, but he and other members of the commission were adamant that it must be done.

NSMC participants tried to explain that, because the building is landlocked, the facility needs to keep every parking place that will fit, and cannot surrender 10% of those places to trees and grass.

The regulation calls for one such island for each eleven parking spaces, which would mean at least five parking spaces would be lost to the greenery. The islands have to be surrounded by concrete curbs.

During the meeting, there was a great deal of question as to how many parking places that would leave for use by NSMC. A lot of time was spent counting the parking spaces, with each count yielding different figures.

The Commission and other city officials spent almost all of the time talking about ways to redesign NSMC's parking lot to maximize the city's interest in making the parking lot look better. No time was spent discussing NSMC's urgent need to have sufficient parking spaces to accommodate its workers and patients.

Several times various members repeated that of course, this would cost NSMC more money, but it was necessary to make Greenwood a better place, and to comply with the city's zoning ordinance.

At least two Commission members did express concerns that all this talk of requirements would hurt NSMC's use of the property, but their concerns were ignored, as the other members continued talking and strategizing about how to carve up the land locked area to make Greenwood beautiful.

Before it was over, the Commission and Gregory tossed around the possibility that the city would put in a sidewalk and some greenery across the front of the property, but the requirements for the parking lot islands and trees would still have to be met by NSMC.

In the end, the Planning Commission did not ever act on NSMC's modest request to resurface its parking lot.

Instead, the Commission voted to allow NSMC to drop down to 58 parking slots, but to require the trees and parking islands as well.

Nobody in the meeting seemed to realize that if NSMC was forced to convert 4 or 5 parking slots into tree islands, then it would no longer be able to meet the minimum 58 parking slots that the Planning Commission was now requiring.

Marlow told The Taxpayers Channel that what they were proposing would cost NSMC up to $200,000 more just to complete the parking lot.

Marlow said that he was tired of all the delays imposed and obstructive issues raised by the Planning Commission and the Leflore County Board of Supervisors.

He estimated that NSMC has already spent $500,000 in renovations, on top of the $823,000 spent to purchase the property.

Marlow doesn't know whether NSMC can recoup the costs already sunk in the project, but hopes most of it can be recovered by the sale of the building.

Then, whoever buys the building will have to spend the money to redesign the parking lot for all the trees and grass the city is requiring for the permit to proceed.

For her part, Mayor McAdams was unapologetic. She told us that she fully supports the actions of her Planning Commission, because the law must be followed. She pointed out that several new business owners had no problems complying with the parking lot requirements on their oversized lots, and so neither should other business owners, including owners who have small lots and no area to comply with the strict new zoning ordinance. No exceptions could be granted, according to the Mayor, so the law could be enforced equally.

McAdams claimed that cities that are well managed all have enhanced design requirements in their zoning ordinances, and those cities are doing very well.

But Marlow begs to differ. He claims that he is willing to do anything reasonable to make the parking lot look good, but that what the city is demanding is completely unreasonable.

On page 11 of the February 22, 2024 Profile Edition of the Greenwood Commonweath, a glowing report on the new NSMC operation appears. It touts the $2.5 million project, and how many medical providers will be available at the health clinic:

Greenwood Mayor Carolyn McAdams welcomes the health-care services that North Sunflower will bring to the city.

'We do have a hospital. And I think people understand we've had some struggles with the hospital, but it seems to be doing better,' she said of Greenwood Leflore Hospital, which is jointly owned by the city and Leflore County. 'It's always good to have an option with your health care, with having more jobs in the city of Greenwood and maybe even having some people moving this way. I think it's great. This can make it easier for people (to have options.)'

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The irony is that these concerns were raised when the city passed the new zoning ordinance back in 2015. Some property and business owners were concerned at the large number of new requirements, the fiendish complexity of the new ordinance, and the financial burdens it would place on businesses and property owners.

Indeed, the parking lot requirements were specifically pointed out as a major problem. The Taxpayers Channel reported on the issue, and publicly opposed passage of the new zoning ordinance. See our reporting here: Monster Greenwood Zoning/Development Ordinance set for adoption Back then, we reported:

The Ordinance, which runs over 100 pages in length, contains many new restrictions as to the use of property and a host of expensive design requirements relating to new construction or expansion of old buildings.

For example, in certain areas, the new ordinance will require parking lots to include one tree for every ten parking spaces.

Particularly disturbing was the sneaky way the city council adopted the ordinance:

Because the public was not notified in time that the Zoning Ordinance was to be on the agenda yesterday, no members of the public were permitted to speak against it. However, the Mayor did invite persons to speak in favor of it.

See also our reporting here: Double Dose of Bad News for Greenwood

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Meanwhile, a time bomb exists under all the businesses and properties that have more than a few parking spaces.

Almost none of those businesses or properties have trees and green spaces anywhere near the one to ten ratio the zoning ordinance requires.

Several examples picked at random include Market Place, Highland Park Shopping Center, Roses and La Terazza, No Way Jose's, the county courthouse, the social security building, Walmart, the public high school, and North Greenwood Baptist Church's various parking areas, just to name a few.

It's not always clear from the extremely complex zoning ordinance whether all of these businesses are required to comply. It's also not clear when the ordinance requirement is triggered to force property owners to bring their existing parking lots into compliance with the tree requirements.

This leaves property owners not knowing when they might be required to spend hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars upgrading their parking lots.

In NSMC's case, just repaving and restriping the parking lot triggered a complete redesign and at minimum $100,000 in increased cost.

Other businesses would do well to make discrete inquiries about the consequences of the zoning ordinance for their properties.

Potential property purchasers are under a far greater threat, since a major refurbishing, or adding of additions, or even just improvements, are more likely to cause a cascade of unexpected expenses to bring the property into compliance with the new, far stricter zoning requirements.

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This zoning ordinance, with such high design requirements, was meant to make Greenwood a better place to live, but it shifts a large cost off onto local businesses and owners, for the supposed benefit of the general public.

Perhaps public outrage at what the city has done to NSMC will result in the city backing down. The city council could overrule the Planning Commission.

Or maybe NSMC will change its mind and continue the project anyway, swallowing the cost of compliance to the unexpected bigger government dictates.

Some might argue that this is an example of the velvet glove over the fist of soft fascism, where private property ownership is shanghaied for the public's benefit, as determined by a government drunk with power.

But the immediate question is this: how do we calculate the invisible cost of driving away critical businesses from our community?

Marlow told The Taxpayers Channel that shutting down the NSMC's plans will cost the community $1 million in lost payroll. NSMC had already hired staff for the Greenwood facilities, which Marlow said will now be redeployed to Ruleville.

It turns out that the price of making Greenwood beautiful costs more than a hundred thousand dollars to redesign and rebuild a smaller parking lot.

In this case, the cost also includes the loss of critical medical services, medical personnel, and a big payroll, in a community that may very well collapse if such services continue to degrade, and then disappear completely.

John Pittman Hey
The Taxpayers Channel

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