Planning and Zoning Commission Hearing Tuesday on Country Club Proposal

The first steps by the city of Las Cruces in determining the future development of the former Las Cruces Country Club will be taken this week as the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission will consider an application to rezone slightly more than 30 acres of the 110-acre property.
The commission will meet 6 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 700 N. Main St., and it’s already become obvious there will likely be extensive discussions about the proposed project. Tuesday’s commission meeting will focus on plans to build a 42-bed hospital. Residents of the country club area have argued that ownership plans for the proposed hospital do not comply with federal healthcare law.
The proposed project has already raised numerous concerns from residents who live in the country club neighborhood. Project developers have said the final sale of the 110 acres will be contingent upon the city rezoning 30.745 acres of the property from its current R-1a designation, which allows for only one single-family house to be built there, to C-3, commercial high intensity.
Approval of rezoning would then enable developers to submit a Planned Unit Development (PUD) for the remaining acreage. The PUD would likely include a mix of uses for that portion of the property, including multi-family housing, townhouses and condominiums, a charter school and a retail area.
“This will be a mixed use, multi-generational facility,” said Robert Pofahl, chief executive officer of Community Builders International, a full-service real estate and development company in Las Cruces. “This is going to allow our aging population to live in a walkable community and live independently for years. We’re going to have a signature concierge service to the community. Whether young or old, it’s going to be convenient to use the services.”
The proposed in-fill development would be focused around a health care campus. The medical campus is designed to offer a wide variety of inpatient and outpatient services including rehabilitation, wellness, fitness and sports medicine facilities. It would be anchored by a continuum of care retirement center that would have assisted living, memory care and independent living facilities.
Members of the Country Club Neighborhood Association (CCNA) have obtained a legal opinion from Alston & Bird, LLP, a Washington, D.C. law firm that specializes in issues dealing with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), perhaps more commonly known as Obamacare.
“Based on the facts that we have been provided and available guidance, the proposed arrangement appears to be an effort to “end-run’ both PPACA’s prohibition on the new physician-owned hospitals and the 2008 “under arrangements’ rule changes,” a portion of the legal opinion from Alston & Bird said. “Given the clear congressional policy behind the PPACA revisions to the whole hospital exception, and the other guidance discussed, we believe it is likely that regulators would construe the proposed arrangement as creating an ownership interest between any physician investor and the proposed hospital, thereby implicating the Stark Law.”
But Pofahl has adamantly denied the proposed 42-bed hospital will be physician-owned. Despite an informational brochure provided to city officials by Dr. Joseph Galichia, co-founder and chief executive officer of Galichia Hospital Group, LLC, which said a full-service hospital “would involve partnership with over 20 local physicians who are investing in the real estate and equipment,” Pofahl said “people deserve the truth,” and no such plans exist. If there are any Las Cruces or southern New Mexico physicians who have been courted as potential investors, none have publicly come forward.
“That information in the brochure was included perhaps before the federal legislation went into effect,” Pofahl said.
Pofahl also argued that a new hospital on the former country club property would not adversely affect Memorial Medical Center and MountainView Regional Medical Center, Las Cruces’ two major hospitals.
“There is exploding growth in health care needs,” Pofahl said. “We’re going to have to find ways to deliver those services. This project is an opportunity for Las Cruces to be at the cutting edge.”
Steve Ramirez can be reached at 575-541-5452. Follow him on Twitter @SteveRamirez6
Park Ridge rezoning
— The Las Cruces Planning and Zoning Commission will meet 6 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 700 N. Main St., to consider the rezoning of 30.745 acres at 2700 N. Main St., the former Las Cruces Country Club
— An application to rezone a portion of the property from R-1a, single-family residential, to C-3, commercial high intensity, has been filed with the city of Las Cruces Community Development Department
— The rezoning is sought to allow for the construction of 42-bed hospital
By: Steve Ramirez (Las Cruces Sun-News)
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