The former Brook Hill School at Chamberlayne and Azalea avenues is planned to be razed to make way for a new Planned Parenthood health center. (BizSense file photo)
A plan for a third Planned Parenthood clinic in Richmond is moving forward following a unanimous approval Monday evening.
City Council declared surplus and OK’d the transfer of the former Brook Hill School site at Chamberlayne and Azalea avenues to the Virginia League for Planned Parenthood, which is planning a $6 million health center on the Northside property.
The approval provides the 1-acre property to VLPP for $10, a point of contention for some opponents as well as supporters of the project who were among 40 people who spoke in a hearing before the vote.
While most of the 30 speakers in opposition to the project focused their comments on arguments about abortion, several questioned why the city was selling the property for $10 rather than its assessed value of $1.24 million, contending that such funds should benefit Richmond Public Schools.
Among them was former councilman Marty Jewell, who said a city ordinance had been passed to require that proceeds from the sale of surplus school properties be used to benefit the school system.
“You’re giving it away for $10,” Jewell said.
Following the hearing, council heard from Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Sharon Ebert, who said the decision to sell the property at a nominal cost was made in light of VLPP’s commitment to develop the new center, as well as the city’s commitment to support VLPP in light of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
In 2022, council approved a resolution expressing the city’s opposition to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that made abortion a protected right under the Constitution.
The new center will be similar to VLPP’s East End Health Center on 25th Street. (BizSense file image courtesy VLPP)
The resolution called for the Virginia General Assembly to protect and expand abortion access in the state, and Mayor Levar Stoney and the city’s human services department extended their support to VLPP, which worked with the city to identify the Chamberlayne site as a suitable location for a new clinic.
Noting that VLPP made an unsolicited offer for the property, Ebert described the $10 sale amount as a contribution to help the group raise the funds needed to demolish the existing building and build the new 10,000-square-foot center, which VLPP projects will cost $6 million and accommodate at least 12,000 visitors per year.
Ebert added that the existing building had previously been declared surplus when the city accepted it from RPS in 2022. She said the building was already in bad shape at the time and had since worsened due to a pipe break and mold and mildew damage from a leaking roof. Lead paint and asbestos are also concerns, she said.
Councilmembers did not offer any comment ahead of the vote, which Stephanie Lynch called for following President Kristen Nye’s invitation for discussion. Katherine Jordan asked to be added as a patron of the ordinance with her vote, joining fellow patrons Andreas Addison, Ann-Frances Lambert and Nicole Jones, along with Nye, Lynch and Stoney.
Following the unanimous vote, Stoney’s office issued a release applauding the approval.
Levar Stoney
“Access to affordable, quality health care, including reproductive services, is essential to the well-being of our residents,” Stoney said in the release. “I am proud the City Council unanimously voted to approve this land transfer. Richmond is leading the way in the South for protecting reproductive rights and increasing access to health care.”
The release also included comments from VLPP CEO Paulette McElwain and from Lambert, who represents the Third District that includes the site at 4929 Chamberlayne Ave.
“This new Planned Parenthood Center will not only improve access to reproductive health care, but also ensure that we live up to our promise of addressing health inequities in our city,” Lambert said in the release. “I am proud that this center will be in the Third District and I look forward to seeing all of the benefits it will provide Northside and beyond.”
According to the city, the facility will create 20 jobs and provide “family planning, primary care and gender-affirming care with subsidized fees to make care affordable to city residents who do not have insurance or whose insurance doesn’t cover the care they need or have high deductible plans.”
The facility would be similar to VLPP’s East End Health Center at 1122 N. 25th St. The group also has a West End facility at 201 N. Hamilton St. A project timeline has not been established.
The former Brook Hill School at Chamberlayne and Azalea avenues is planned to be razed to make way for a new Planned Parenthood health center. (BizSense file photo)
A plan for a third Planned Parenthood clinic in Richmond is moving forward following a unanimous approval Monday evening.
City Council declared surplus and OK’d the transfer of the former Brook Hill School site at Chamberlayne and Azalea avenues to the Virginia League for Planned Parenthood, which is planning a $6 million health center on the Northside property.
The approval provides the 1-acre property to VLPP for $10, a point of contention for some opponents as well as supporters of the project who were among 40 people who spoke in a hearing before the vote.
While most of the 30 speakers in opposition to the project focused their comments on arguments about abortion, several questioned why the city was selling the property for $10 rather than its assessed value of $1.24 million, contending that such funds should benefit Richmond Public Schools.
Among them was former councilman Marty Jewell, who said a city ordinance had been passed to require that proceeds from the sale of surplus school properties be used to benefit the school system.
“You’re giving it away for $10,” Jewell said.
Following the hearing, council heard from Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Sharon Ebert, who said the decision to sell the property at a nominal cost was made in light of VLPP’s commitment to develop the new center, as well as the city’s commitment to support VLPP in light of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
In 2022, council approved a resolution expressing the city’s opposition to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that made abortion a protected right under the Constitution.
The new center will be similar to VLPP’s East End Health Center on 25th Street. (BizSense file image courtesy VLPP)
The resolution called for the Virginia General Assembly to protect and expand abortion access in the state, and Mayor Levar Stoney and the city’s human services department extended their support to VLPP, which worked with the city to identify the Chamberlayne site as a suitable location for a new clinic.
Noting that VLPP made an unsolicited offer for the property, Ebert described the $10 sale amount as a contribution to help the group raise the funds needed to demolish the existing building and build the new 10,000-square-foot center, which VLPP projects will cost $6 million and accommodate at least 12,000 visitors per year.
Ebert added that the existing building had previously been declared surplus when the city accepted it from RPS in 2022. She said the building was already in bad shape at the time and had since worsened due to a pipe break and mold and mildew damage from a leaking roof. Lead paint and asbestos are also concerns, she said.
Councilmembers did not offer any comment ahead of the vote, which Stephanie Lynch called for following President Kristen Nye’s invitation for discussion. Katherine Jordan asked to be added as a patron of the ordinance with her vote, joining fellow patrons Andreas Addison, Ann-Frances Lambert and Nicole Jones, along with Nye, Lynch and Stoney.
Following the unanimous vote, Stoney’s office issued a release applauding the approval.
Levar Stoney
“Access to affordable, quality health care, including reproductive services, is essential to the well-being of our residents,” Stoney said in the release. “I am proud the City Council unanimously voted to approve this land transfer. Richmond is leading the way in the South for protecting reproductive rights and increasing access to health care.”
The release also included comments from VLPP CEO Paulette McElwain and from Lambert, who represents the Third District that includes the site at 4929 Chamberlayne Ave.
“This new Planned Parenthood Center will not only improve access to reproductive health care, but also ensure that we live up to our promise of addressing health inequities in our city,” Lambert said in the release. “I am proud that this center will be in the Third District and I look forward to seeing all of the benefits it will provide Northside and beyond.”
According to the city, the facility will create 20 jobs and provide “family planning, primary care and gender-affirming care with subsidized fees to make care affordable to city residents who do not have insurance or whose insurance doesn’t cover the care they need or have high deductible plans.”
The facility would be similar to VLPP’s East End Health Center at 1122 N. 25th St. The group also has a West End facility at 201 N. Hamilton St. A project timeline has not been established.
yes, liberals love abortion
wow, so clever and original
but so true.Cultural fascination with the power over life and death. Abortion, assisted suicide, withholding healthcare from the elderly because “we can’t afford it”,(Obama) gender reassignment for minors, eugenics and sterilization policies in the 1920s and 1930s, planned parent centers targeting the most poor urban areas. Think you will ever see planned parenthood in Short Pump? We really have not come that much farther than the Aztec mountains of skulls from religious sacrifices.
Wait . . . Eugenics is a “liberal” concept?!! I think you’ve conflated strategies of the Nazis with the rights of women to control their own bodies.
Bruce – The Nazi party in German was leftist — far left, in fact. The party’s official name: “National Socialists German Workers’ Party.” Also, you misused the word “conflate.” And lastly, though I am not opposed to early term abortions, framing this issue in terms of the “rights of women to control their bodies” ignores the rights of the unborn.
Respectfully, as someone with graduate degrees in history focusing on Nazi Germany, World War II and the Holocaust (and with years of study in this area), I must push back on your assertion that Nazism was leftist. It was not. It — along with Mussolini’s original fascist movement/government — was from the far right. Nazism was a brand of fascism, full stop. By its very nature, fascism is a right-wing phenomenon. There are hundreds of well-researched, well-documented scholarly works written during the past 80 years that break this down, analyze and explain it well beyond the scope of a discussion… Read more »
Only being able to live life through a text book and being unable to be a free-thinker is your downfall.
There are very different things going on currently than what was going on during those times.
Your labels are arbitrary, telling people they are using them incorrectly serves no real purpose but to undermine the message. Focus on the message and the behaviors people are trying to address, and you would be able to more effectively understand people’s concerns.
But here’s the rub: facts matter and accuracy counts. Understanding history is perhaps the best way we can work to avoid the mistakes of the past and chart our course forward into a future that holds the potential for a better and brighter existence.
Peace
This is the consequence when subjective truth and subjective morality is the main philosophy of the day.
Planned Parenthood provides low-cost access to gynecology/reproductive services to women. It is far, far more than just abortion. The clinics are intended to address healthcare needs in underserved areas. This is why this is not going to Short Pump.
Sorry, I know you copied that word for word from their website. They make their money on abortions. This has been documented time and again. Why can’t you all just admit that abortion is the legal death of a human being for 90% of the abortions and are done because bringing a human to term is inconvenient to the Mother and/or Father involved. We have legal murder in US: right of self-defense, capital punishment, wars. So what is the problem? and by the way, science has pretty much ruled out it not “human” after 15 weeks.
I did not copy this comment, I copied the one below. Aggregating those issues does not support an argument against low-cost healthcare services.
He ain’t wrong, is he? Look at the platforms of the major mayoral candidates.
You don’t know what you are talking about
And more innocent babies are being killed right and left…. SAD!
This is a sad mark on Richmond’s legacy.
The people who are posting protests on this thread about women’s healthcare are all men.
Takes two to tango.
The crooks who run the City of Richmond just stole $1.24 million from the taxpayers to give to a political group. They are like the mafia.
12,000 visitors per year, is that before or after you subtract out the babies eliminated at the center?
Below are the (other) services provided by Planned Parenthood. These clinics are a huge asset to underserved communities.
General Health Care: This includes services like anemia testing, cholesterol screening, diabetes screening, physical exams, flu vaccines, help with quitting smoking, high blood pressure screening, tetanus vaccines, and thyroid screening.
Men’s Health Services: Services such as colon cancer screening, erectile dysfunction services, premature ejaculation services, testicular and prostate cancer screening, and vasectomy.
Women’s Health Services: This includes breast exams, cervical cancer screening, hormone replacement therapy, infertility services, and other women’s health services (including prenatal care).
Y’all don’t want to fund sex education or birth control in schools, and you definitely don’t want to support those babies growing up in poverty. So quit it with the morality police.
It sounds like you’ve done some in-depth research. Just assume the worst about those you disagree with. Good job.
I’m on here using my real name so if you want to debate issues like adults I suggest you do the same.
J.D.Vance would have been a candidate for termination under your rules.
Why is the right-wing so intent on the left-wing procreating?
Also, if men (XY) could get pregnant there would be Planned Parenthoods on every corner… inside every beacon of civilization: Sheetz!… in Short Pump and beyond
This is called a red herring fallacy. Your premise is not possible so the conclusion is irrelevant. If pigs could talk it would be wrong to eat bacon. See what I mean, irrelevant.
Precisely, as is the appeal to god’s desires.
Not possible. Irrelevant.
My comment à week ago got deleted.
Anyway, it’s about the $10 bldg.
As former President Reagan once pointed out,,. notice all these people arguing for abortion have never been aborted.
So if PP gives money to a political party, and then said politicians give them a sweetheart deal on a building…. how is that not money laundering or bribery? Maybe im the stupid one here idk.