Study Narrows Possible Hospital Sites to 4 : Development: City officials and residents oppose three of the selections while the Army Corps of Engineers raises objections to the fourth.

Irwindale had plenty of land, but someone was already building an industrial park on it. Bassett had a central location, but no one was prepared to demolish small businesses and 88 homes to clear the land. Pomona seemed prepared to put out the welcome mat but it was judged too far east.

So a year and a half after it began, the search continues for a home for the county’s proposed East Valley Medical Center, a 334-bed hospital that will serve the San Gabriel Valley and parts of southeast Los Angeles County.

The choice of a home for the hospital apparently took a step forward Tuesday when the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to narrow its study to four sites--in the City of Industry, Pico Rivera, South El Monte and an unincorporated area next to Rose Hills Memorial Park and Rio Hondo College near Whittier.

But each of those locations may also prove problematic: City officials in Pico Rivera and the City of Industry do not welcome the hospital, and residents of an exclusive subdivision oppose the unincorporated site.

In South El Monte, residents and city officials are receptive. But the Army Corps of Engineers says the designated site might be in danger of flooding in severe rainstorms.

“It’s a difficult process and it’s a difficult decision,” said William Weitekamp, the county’s hospital project manager.

The proposed medical center is part of a plan approved by the County Board of Supervisors last year to replace dilapidated facilities at USC Medical Center in East Los Angeles. Under the plan, the USC hospital will be rebuilt as a smaller facility, with many of its patients dispersed to the East Valley Medical Center.

Low-income residents of the San Gabriel Valley and the Southeast region are expected to be prime users of the new hospital.

After stumbling with their initial selections, county officials asked the Los Angeles County Hospitals Commission to conduct a series of hearings on nearly 50 possible locations. It passed on its four recommendations to the supervisors this month, after finding that other sites either were not central, lacked ready access to freeways or would have required demolition of homes and businesses.

The supervisors Tuesday agreed to study all four locations, asking for a more detailed report on each in November.

Some protests are already looming for the four proposed locations, which are all within a little more than a mile of each other. For instance:

* The South El Monte location, at the intersection of Santa Anita Avenue and the Pomona (60) Freeway, is favored by city officials and local health-care activists who say it would provide ready access to patients. But the Army Corps of Engineers questioned the wisdom of building the hospital, estimated by the county to cost $386 million, on land that is part of the Whittier Narrows Flood Control Basin.

Col. Charles S. Thomas told the supervisors that a hospital might be built safely on the property but that construction costs could be prohibitively expensive to assure the facility was not flooded. The hospital might also interfere with future flood control improvements in the area, Corps of Engineers spokesman Bob Armogeda said.

Developer G. Sydney Barton, who owns most of the 31-acre site, has commissioned his own engineering study. It shows that the hospital could be safely built outside the flood plain.

The property in unincorporated territory, on Workman Mill Road, has good access to freeways, and Rose Hills Cemetery, which owns the land, may be interested in selling, county officials said.

But neighbors in the nearby Spyglass Estates subdivision are opposed to building the hospital there, saying it would bring too much traffic to Workman Mill Road, a thoroughfare already used by the cemetery and Rio Hondo College. The neighbors also ridicule the proposed location as inhospitable to patients--within earshot of noisy train tracks and overlooking a cemetery.

The City of Industry site is at the far west end of the city, east of the San Gabriel River (605) Freeway and also next to Rose Hills Memorial Park.

The owner, who sells heavy equipment on the property, has expressed an interest in selling.

But Industry officials oppose construction of the hospital, since development of a public facility would remove the land from the property tax rolls.

The Pico Rivera property is west of the 605 Freeway, next to the Pico Rivera Golf Course.

Residents of nearby single-family homes say a hospital would not fit into their community--bringing too much traffic and perhaps transients who might use the public health service.

The Pico Rivera City Council also has expressed its opposition to the plan, as has the El Rancho Unified School District, which owns the 38-acre property. The school district hopes to develop the property itself, perhaps with homes, to raise money for its anemic budget.

Weitekamp said the Board of Supervisors will have to make at least a few people unhappy with its final decision.

“There may be other sites out there we haven’t seen yet,” he said. “But I’m beginning to wonder.”