Calls Grow For Mecklenburg County To Enforce Atrium’s Housing Promises

By Michelle Crouch

A chorus of speakers connected Tuesday urged Mecklenburg County commissioners to usage their constricted leverage to ensure Atrium Health delivers connected nan affordable lodging it promised erstwhile it won $75M successful payer backing for its aesculapian invention district, The Pearl.

“I want to talk to you astir nan surgery promises astatine The Pearl, a spot pinch a history of surgery promises,” said Angelia James, a westbound Charlotte resident. “Where is nan affordable housing?”

In 2021, erstwhile it asked for nationalist money, Atrium said it would group speech 5 percent of lodging connected tract for low-income residents, donate a abstracted 14-acre tract connected North Tryon Street to nan city’s lodging authority and partner pinch nan agency to build much than 400 units there.

But an Oct. 13 Ledger/NC Health News article found that nan city’s statement pinch Atrium does not legally require nan infirmary to grant each of those commitments. So far, location is nary affordable lodging connected nan North Tryon Street tract aliases astatine The Pearl, which opened past summertime and houses nan city’s first four-year aesculapian school.

Atrium has stressed that it is gathering its contractual obligations. The infirmary strategy said it is moving pinch a developer to build lodging astatine The Pearl that would see affordable apartments and has placed deed restrictions connected nan North Tryon land, requiring early improvement location to see affordable housing.

Tuesday’s speakers — members of nan group justness group the Redress Movement — asked why nan North Tryon onshore was not donated to Inlivian, nan city’s lodging authority, but alternatively ended up arsenic portion of a three-way onshore switch that gives Atrium usage of nan tract until 2028. They noted that Atrium received nan onshore from nan region for free successful 1990.

They besides raised concerns astir nan lodging authority’s statement pinch Atrium, which requires Inlivian to subsidize nan affordable units astatine The Pearl. They said that Atrium, nan second-largest landholder successful Mecklenburg, already avoids spot taxes on astir of its onshore and has much than $1B successful reserves.

“Does nan Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority service nan interests of Charlotte-Mecklenburg aliases its C-suite executives?” James asked, drafting applause.

The speakers acknowledged that Mecklenburg County has small powerfulness complete Atrium, which is simply a abstracted authorities entity known arsenic the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority. According to authorities statute, nan board’s only powerfulness complete nan authority is that its chair, Mark Jerrell, must o.k. nominees to nan infirmary board.

“You person nan powerfulness to cull Atrium’s nominees to their board. This is nan azygous lever of accountability that is disposable to america arsenic nan public,” said Greg Jarrell, elder run organizer for Redress Charlotte.

He urged Jerrell to o.k. only nominees who person a way grounds of supporting lodging justice; who are committed to nan county’s goals of honesty, truth, justness and equity; and who will “hold Atrium executives accountable to those values for serving nan nationalist good.”

After nan meeting, Jerrell said he already told Atrium leaders he would for illustration astatine slightest 1 of nan nominees to “have much of a organization focus.”

He besides said nan region precocious received a memo from nan hospital that outlined its “hard commitments and soft commitments” related to The Pearl, and that nan region would analyse it closely. “Do we still person to portion and dice and parse it and get a unit response?” he said. “Yes, that’s nan adjacent step.”

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