Swain Community Hospital has announced plans to change how it operates its Emergency Department, but administrators say the hospital will continue to provide the same level of 24-hour emergency care to patients.

Harris Regional Hospital saw its tax value slashed by 36 percent in the minutes before Jackson County’s Board of Equalization Review adjourned for the year, and while its new $27.2 million value is still more than twice the $13 million the hospital had argued it was worth, it’s quite a drop from the original $42.3 million appraisal.  

Despite a perfect score on its application, Haywood County was not awarded tax credits that would have helped developers turn the old county hospital into low-income housing units for the elderly, disabled and veterans. 

In not every town do the children of doctors and lawyers go to the same schools as the children of teachers and mill workers, but in Haywood County, that’s the case. When I was teaching full-time in the classroom, I taught students whose parents owned boats and vacation homes, and I taught students who slept in a car and ate meals at The Open Door.

When Jackson County sent out bucketloads of mail this spring announcing new values for every property in its borders, Harris Regional Hospital got a piece of paper declaring that its campus was worth a little over $42.3 million — the tally rises to $48.9 million with all the auxiliary holdings included.

A dispute over how much Haywood Regional Medical Center owes in county property taxes is headed for a showdown this month.

Haywood and Jackson counties could have a long road ahead in their property tax disputes with Duke LifePoint, which owns Haywood Regional Medical Center and Harris Regional Hospital.

A massive load of debt left the shoulders of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians last week following enactment of legislation to pay off $96 million in loans accrued for the new Cherokee Indian Hospital and the tribe’s wastewater treatment plant.

Haywood County commissioners will hold a public hearing next Monday on whether to give away the “old hospital” to a developer who will turn it into an affordable apartment complex.

The plan to convert the old hospital in Haywood County into low-income apartments isn’t a done deal. It’s contingent on both historic preservation and low-income housing tax credits to make it financially viable.