Hoag Proposal Reaches Council Tonight : Development: Hearing scheduled on controversial hospital expansion blueprint that has split community.

The City Council will hold a public hearing tonight on the controversial Hoag Hospital expansion project, which has divided this beachside community in recent months and has the potential to affect the city’s look and health care for decades to come.

The proposed expansion has pitted residents against one another in an emotional debate, with supporters arguing that Hoag is a public health care provider that should not be treated like a typical developer, and opponents who question the environmental impact of the expansion saying enthusiasm for the hospital has unfairly translated into carte blanche for its proposals.

At issue is the hospital’s master plan, a framework outlining new buildings proposed to be constructed over the next 20 years. The master plan was requested by the city, whose planners became concerned about continued development at the hospital without an overall guide.

The plan does not detail the types of new buildings and services to be added to the hospital, but lays out building heights, sizes and general locations.

Hospital officials, headed by President Michael Stephens, have long held that its expansion is needed to stay on the cutting edge of health services, and that any concerns have been fully addressed in the environmental document prepared for the city by an outside firm.

“The service provided by the hospital is a service for the entire community,” said Peter Foulke, senior vice president at Hoag. “It’s not for the profit of an individual developer, it’s for the benefit of an entire community, and I think that puts it in a different light.”

Tonight’s public hearing is expected to attract at least 100 residential supporters and opponents of the project. The council will hear alternative development proposals submitted by neighbors who have spent more than $10,000 to present their concerns about building heights, hydrogen sulfide gas leaks, increased traffic and blocked views.

“We hope the council will be more responsive to the citizens’ concerns,” said William S. Jennings, a homeowner in the Villa Balboa complex next door to the hospital. “This is close to home for us. We’re pictured as the bad guys because we’re against Hoag. We’re not against the hospital. We want them to go ahead, but in a good way.”

Countering the neighbors is a citywide group of supporters, many sporting buttons and lapel pins in support of the hospital, who have told heart-wrenching tales of babies born and lives saved at Hoag.

Many of those supporters are members of Hoag 2010, a group headed by restaurateur Jim Dale and former Mayor Jackie Heather.

The hospital’s master plan calls for a new row of two- to four-story buildings along Coast Highway, remodeled buildings near the tower and a new critical-care unit.

The Planning Commission last month approved the project 6 to 0, with one commissioner absent, and changed little of the hospital’s proposal after five nights of long and often emotional public hearings that started in December.

While Hoag is respected countywide for medical facilities such as its homey birthing suites and state-of-the-art cancer center, concerned residents argue that the hospital could be a better neighbor.

They say the size of the proposed buildings on Coast Highway will create a cavelike feeling for neighbors who will see a row of hospital buildings instead of a picturesque view of bluffs. But the hospital counters that ocean and bay views will be improved when the bluff is removed and replaced with new structures.

Residents also want to preserve the swamps along Coast Highway known as Cattail Cove. Hospital officials, however, argue that 1.5 acres of lost wetlands will be replicated elsewhere, as required by state law.

Neighbors are also concerned about the danger of hydrogen sulfide and other gas leaks, which the environmental review calls a “significant” problem but says can be made safe with proper building procedures.

“It turns out there are significant health impacts in the plan, and I think it’s important for the public to know that because Hoag has downplayed it,” said Jan Vandersloot, a physician on staff at the hospital and a member of the environmental group Friends of Cattail Cove. “It’s supremely ironic that a health institution would want to do this.”

Also, the residents question a development agreement between the hospital and the city which allows the hospital to build within the proposed outlines over the next 25 years and only requires public hearings if the hospital exceeds the established building limits.

Hospital officials said those views are unfounded. They say that their project is a detailed, comprehensive sketch and that individual pieces cannot simply be shuffled around without wrecking the overall design.

“We feel the plan approved by the Planning Commission is a good, balanced plan,” said Foulke. “Behind my desk is about a 2 1/2-foot stack of paper. . . . It’s all covered in the (environmental impact report).”

The plan must be approved by both the City Council and the state Coastal Commission.