NEWPORT BEACH : Planning Panel OKs Hospital Expansion

The Planning Commission has approved a proposal to build a two-story, $5-million addition to the emergency care unit at Hoag Hospital, despite opposition from nearby residents.

The planned addition would double the hospital’s emergency room capacity. Totaling about 13,700 square feet, the addition would include a new basement-level service area and loading dock, an expanded emergency room, new staff offices, locker rooms and lounges. Additionally, the current emergency room would be renovated and updated to handle more patients.

Some residents next to the hospital have criticized the plan as too big and too close to their homes. Others have expressed anger that the project is not included in an upcoming review of the hospital’s master plan.

Hospital officials say the addition is necessary because demand for emergency care services has skyrocketed since the facility was built in 1974. The emergency room, they noted, was designed for 18,000 patients annually but handled 38,000 patients in 1990.

“There’s a tremendous need” for the expansion, said Peter Foulke, a senior vice president for the hospital.

Residents of the Villa Balboa condominiums on streets leading into the emergency care unit have said the expansion will bring more noise and traffic to the neighborhood and will require construction close to their homes.

“We bought here because the hospital is here,” said Dr. William R. Ingles, a Villa Balboa Homeowners Assn. board member. “But they have a lot of land. They don’t need to build in our faces.”

A few dozen neighbors spoke against the plan at Thursday’s meeting, but the Planning Commission approved the plan 5 to 0 with two members absent.

The distance between the homes and the current emergency care unit is about 75 feet, including a service road and a small grassy strip that is used by the homeowners as a landscape buffer, according to hospital officials.

The proposed building is the last addition the hospital will make under its existing master plan, which has been amended a number of times to allow for new developments, such as the Cancer Center. The plan is scheduled to be updated by the Planning Commission next month.

Neighbors of the hospital have said that the expansion of the emergency room should be delayed until the Planning Commission update, but Foulke said the delay would prevent the groundbreaking from taking place as planned next spring and would be “more of a burden on the patients needing those services.”