"The new Planned Parenthood clinic on Hydraulic Road is an inconspicuous two-storey brick office with a name that sounds innocent enough—The Herbert C. Jones Jr. Reproductive Health and Education Center. Yet the building has stirred such controversy that the normally dry business of County zoning codes has become enflamed with a passionate debate on abortion rights.

On Tuesday, November 9, the Albemarle Board of Zoning Appeals will consider a challenge to the clinic, which opened on August 4. Renae Townsend, who lives near the clinic in Garden Court Apartments on Hydraulic Road, filed the appeal on August 26. She argued that the clinic is a hospital, and therefore it cannot legally reside on its current site, which is zoned for residential use only.

In another appeal, filed in September, Townsend argues that the County should have ordered Planned Parenthood to cease operations at the clinic until the Board of Zoning Appeals made a decision on her original appeal.

A pro-life group called the Central Virginia Family Forum is backing Townsend in her fight against Planned Parenthood. Both groups have been sending e-mails to supporters, hoping to rally large crowds to speak at the November 9 hearing; anticipating a big crowd, the BZA has decided to move the meeting from the small room it usually occupies to the 585-seat auditorium in the County Office Building.

It’s also unusual for the BZA to hear an appeal on a building that is already built and in use, says County spokeswoman Lee Catlin. Whoever loses the appeal, Catlin says, “We expect that they’ll want to protect their interest and appeal the decision to Circuit Court.”

Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge has established a legal defense fund to pay potential litigation costs.

The debate centers on how the clinic is used. According to County zoning laws, “professional offices” are allowed in residential areas, and Catlin says “medical offices,” such as optometrists or ob-gyn clinics, fall under that designation. Because Planned Parenthood patients do not stay at the clinic overnight, “our determination is that it is a medical office,” Catlin says.

The Family Forum, however, argues that the clinic is, in fact, a hospital. “Our whole objection, from the very beginning,” says Tobey Bouch, a board member for CVFF, “is that they don’t comply with the approved use. Calling it an ‘office building’ does not in any way resemble what they’re using it for.”

“Talk about a detriment to property values,” Bouch continues. “Protestors, threats—that’s what property owners are concerned about.”

In fact, since the clinic opened nearly three months ago, protests have been limited to the sporadic presence of placard-carrying anti-choice activists along Hydraulic Road.

The debate stems from the building’s design. For the past few years, conservatives in the General Assembly have tried to pass a series of bills known as the Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP), which would require abortion clinics to have extra-wide hallways, elevators and surgery rooms that meet hospital standards. Planned Parenthood has opposed TRAP, saying it’s a sly attempt to force clinics to either make expensive renovations or close. Although TRAP has not passed yet, it’s been getting increasing support in the General Assembly. Planned Parenthood designed the Charlottesville clinic to meet TRAP standards, in case the laws ever pass.

“We’re not a hospital, nor do we operate as a hospital,” says Holly Hatcher, Planned Parenthood’s director of statewide organizing.

As she punches a code into one of the electronic locks that guard every door in the clinic, Hatcher reflects on the irony of the situation. Pro-life activists complaining about the clinic’s hospital features also drive the TRAP legislation that makes the features necessary; the same people who worry about protests have protested at the clinic.

But Hatcher relishes another irony — a group of Planned Parenthood supporters have agreed to donate money to the group for every protestor who pickets the clinic. Last week, as CVFF was planning to protest at the clinic on Saturday, October 16, Planned Parenthood staff was planning to count the protestors and send their supporters a bill. The money will be mostly used to help low-income women cover the $300 cost for an abortion.

“It’s kind of poetic,” Hatcher says." (John Borgmeyer, C-Ville Weekly, October 19, 2004)