Lee County working to meet hospital bond deadline; sets moratorium on health care, liquor, storage facilities

Carlton Fletcher, The Albany Herald, Ga.
·3 min read

Oct. 1—LEESBURG — Teams of attorneys stretching from New York to Leesburg are working "full-speed ahead" on a bond deal that would allow the long-delayed Lee County Medical Center to move forward, Lee County Commission Chairman Billy Mathis said Friday.

County officials received a letter of determination from the Georgia Department of Community Health on Aug. 5 granting an extension of LCMC's certificate of need, initially granted in November of 2017. The extension sets a deadline of Dec. 15 to complete Phase I — financial requirements — of the proposed hospital. If that requirement is met, the county has until March 15, 2024 to complete construction of the 50-bed, $136 million facility.

"It's an all-or-nothing thing now," Mathis said of the race to secure bond issuance by the December deadline. "We have our county attorney, Jimmy Skipper, working on the legal details and our bond attorney, Roger Murray, working on those details. There are law firms in New York working on the issue — about 75 people in all — so, obviously, there is a lot of work involved.

"We lost a couple of years with the virus, and we've been working like crazy since 2017 to keep our heads above water."

Lisa Davis, the executive director of the Lee Development Authority, said she feels the momentum shifting in the county's favor as attorneys and financial experts work to put the bond financing together.

"It definitely feels good right now," Davis said Saturday. "It feels good to clear a couple of important hurdles, but we've got a couple of more to go.

"It takes a team to make a project like this work, and I feel good about the team we have in place. Everyone's focused on working to get us past the finish line."

While work continues to put hospital financing in place, the Lee County Commission is ready to sign off on a temporary moratorium on health care facilities in the county. Excepting dentists, optometrists and physical therapists, no ancillary health care facilities will be allowed in the county at least through Jan. 20, 2023.

The board of commissioners, Mathis said, will use that time to determine if changes are needed to the county's Land Use Plan or zoning ordinances.

"When Lee County started growing about 20 years ago, it exploded," the Lee Commission chairman said. "We've been trying to catch up ever since because, frankly, there were no real zoning ordinances in place. What we're looking for — what our county needs — is orderly growth.

"We're being proactive by placing a moratorium on ancillary health care facilities, on liquor establishments and on mini-warehouses that are taking up a lot of business frontage in the community, and we're going to see if there are things that need tweaking in the next few months. With each new development, there is a demand for roads, water connections, sewer connections ... we have to protect our infrastructure, so we've put the moratorium in place for a few months to determine what action will best serve our community. We're protecting the public interest."

Davis, who also is director of the Lee County Chamber of Commerce, said she sees the moratorium as a positive.

"Some don't see it that way, but I do," she said. "I think what our board is doing is being proactive rather than reactive. I think the idea behind this move is to set every kind of business up so that we can continue to have success."