Highlands Cashiers Hospital officials will have to look at other employee housing options following a vote by the town board of commissioners to deny a water and sewer connection request for an on-site housing development.
The employee housing project, which was initially discussed during the board’s September meeting, would have led to the construction of an apartment complex on land that Hospital Corporation of America already owns near the intersection of US 64 and Buck Creek Road.
“I think there are a few misconceptions that we need to clear up about the hospital’s proposal before we make a decision on this,” commissioner Amy Patterson said. “First, the hospital is allowed 70,000 gallons of water maximum per day, not 70,000 gallons of water every single day. That number covers emergencies, like fire suppression, not every day use. So when they say they aren’t using anywhere near their allotted amount, that isn’t necessarily correct.”
Patterson added that despite employee housing being listed in the initial site design for the hospital complex two decades ago, no actual plans were reviewed and approved by the town.
“When the hospital moved to its current location, employee housing was listed as a possible use for the property, but there were no drawn-up plans at that time,” Patterson said. “We as a town didn’t give the hospital a green light for a project like this just by having employee housing listed as a possibility in the future.”
Patterson and commissioner John ‘Buz’ Dotson served on a health committee appointed by mayor Patrick Taylor following the board’s September meeting. The committee met earlier this month to review the details of HCH’s housing proposal.
HCH president Tom Neal told the board that the hospital needed to build employee housing in order to hire more staff. He noted that the possible growth of the Eckerd Senior Living Center and an increase in services would require additional staff and the Highlands and Cashiers real estate market is simply not conducive to hiring hourly employees.
The median home price in Highlands, according to Neal, is approximately $450,000 and that is too steep for average working people. A scarce availability of housing has led many HCH employees to live in other municipalities – such as Franklin, Sylva and Clayton, Georgia and commute to work.
“I have seen the numbers, and more importantly, I have talked with people who have left our hospital due to the long commute every day,” Neal said. “When employees leave we ask why, and the number one answer is the lack of places to live and/or the commute time.”
Multiple commissioners expressed concern during the board’s September meeting regarding the possibility that the hospital may build the employee housing complex, use a management company to run the facility, and then sell it off at a later date.
A similar scenario played out with the Chestnut Hill development, according to Patterson. When Mission Health, the previous parent company of Highlands Cashiers Hospital, built the Chestnut Hill development it was proposed as an employee housing complex. When hard financial times hit, Mission Health sold the complex for a profit.
That previous experience didn’t sit well with members of the board and the mayor.
“I think if HCA was doing this project on their own and they were going to pay out of pocket to build it for their employees I might be more inclined to support it,” Taylor said. “But I am leery about helping a for-profit business, that last I checked was making about $1 billion a quarter in profits, improve its assets using an outside developer.”
Commissioner Donnie Calloway noted that extending water and sewer services for one for-profit business outside of town limits might also open up a Pandora’s Box of such requests.
“We said a few years ago, as a board, that we were not going to extend water and sewer outside of town any more,” Calloway said. “I think we need to stick to that. If we allow this project to go forward, what’s to say other businesses couldn’t buy land outside of town to build employee housing and then expect the same treatment from the town in terms o utilities.”
Commissioner Marc Hehn asked the board to put off voting on the request to give HCH officials more time to weigh their options and develop contingency plans regarding who could manage the employee housing complex.
“I would like to see the conversation about this project continue, and see if there are any other ways HCH could make this plan work that would be more palatable to the town,” Hehn said. “I’d like to see us leave the conversation open.”
Ultimately the board voted 4-1 to deny the water and sewer request from HCH, with Hehn providing the dissenting vote.