Proposed parking lot has neighbors worried on Glen Meade Rd.

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — New Hanover Regional Medical Center is looking to put in a parking lot on Glen Meade Road where there is currently a vacant lot, but neighbors are worried about what that will mean for their community.

“It is an encroachment. It is an invasion of a residential area,” said Mac Cummingham a concerned resident.

The lot is currently zoned residential, but NHRMC is looking for a special use permit to build the parking lot.

“It’s not just what you see, it’s what you don’t see. And those sorts of things include vibrations and noise and lights and odors and emissions and wind currents and heat and those sorts of things,” said Cunningham.

The parking lot is one of two parking projects the medical center is looking to get approved by city council. The other is a parking deck where there is an existing lot on S. 17th Street.

But the lot on Glen Meade is what has people worried.

“They want to convert that to a parking lot and close up any access off of Glen Meade Rd. and have it only go out toward the hospital property onto the hospital property,” said council member Charlie Rivenbark

Residents said they are worried that this could set what one neighbor calls a dangerous precedent.

“This will definitely be a threat to neighborhoods here and I think across the city because the city council is in the driver’s seat,” concerned resident Martha Stein said.

The proposal will go before council tomorrow.