By CASSANDRA SHOFAR

Staff Writer

MEDINA — Much to some residents’ dismay, the planning commission voted Thursday night to recommend city council approve the rezoning of two Medina General Hospital-owned parcels.

The hospital wants to rezone 3.7 acres from residential to public facility zoning like the rest of its property. The hospital is planning a $30 million expansion — a 74,000-square-foot addition and new emergency room at the west side of the hospital — and the two parcels would be used to replace parking the hospital would lose as a result.

The expansion would more than double the current emergency department, from 11,000 to 27,000 square feet with a 4,500-square-foot observation unit, and the treatment areas would increase from 19 to 37.

“The hospital has been looking to rezone these two parcels for a number of years,” Tom Carabin, vice president of administrative services at the hospital, told commission members. “The hospital needs to expand, particularly the emergency department. The number of visits has expanded considerably over the past years.”

However, some residents present at the meeting were concerned with turning the parcels into a parking lot.

“I have a concern on the creeping encroachment that the rezoning does,” said Emily Smucker, who owns property at 940 E. Washington St., which is contiguous to the hospital’s parcels. “I would like to beg of this body to not recommend the zoning. Don’t throw four more acres of woods, of land away. That’s not what this city’s about.”

She added, along with other residents present, she’s not against the hospital expanding, she just thinks the hospital’s board can find the means to do so within the existing footprint.

Medina Township resident Tom Borror said he’s lived in the area for many years and has watched the hospital grow.

“It’s a very important part of our community,” he said, adding it’s an asset many communities would kill for.

“You have arguably the largest employer in the city,” he said. “We have an aging population. If we refuse an institution like the hospital to grow, we’re going to move our dollars outside the city and I’m sure that’s not what we want to do.”

Ron Rini, of 120 Alber Drive, said his house is directly across from the parcels in question and he would have never bought it had he known he’d be looking at a parking lot in the future.

“I bought the property knowing the city’s zoning is strong and they won’t bend over backwards for every little change the hospital wants to make,” Rini said.

Alber Drive resident Janet Graham said her main concern is why the commission and council won’t look at a hospital site plan first before discussing zoning.

“The residents are concerned only because of what’s going to happen in the site plan,” she said. “You’re not giving the residents in the area the opportunity to talk about the site plan first and then rezone it. I don’t think that’s right.”

Economic Development Director Tom Krueger said the city always tries to look at the overall impact changes have on the community.

“The emergency room system is critical. The vitality of that system is critical,” he said. “It’s no longer 1917. This county is the fourth or fifth largest growing county in the state. As this community grows and gets to a point where we’re getting older, we need to consider that.”

He added he loves trees and landscape but those are renewable resources and people’s lives are not.

This is the same rezoning request the hospital made in 2006, and while the planning commission recommended the change to council then, the rezoning came to a stop last year after council’s vote was contested.

A 3-2 council vote in 2006, with two abstentions, approving the rezoning was challenged as improper due to a discrepancy over how abstentions are counted and because of conflicting parts in the city charter.

After reviewing the case, Common Pleas Judge James L. Kimbler declared the vote improper, but since it hasn’t been declared a “final and appealable order,” the hospital and the city can’t move on.

However, if council, with a different makeup than two years ago, denies the rezoning request, the hospital has taken out an initiative petition to put the question before voters in November. The hospital has yet to file any petitions.

Shofar may be reached at 330-721-4044 or cshofar@ohio.net.