NEWPORT BEACH : Council to Vote on Hospital Expansion

After months of public wrangling, the City Council is scheduled to vote tonight on a controversial expansion plan for Hoag Hospital.

Council members will have to cast straw votes on about a dozen individual components of the expansion plan before deciding on the overall project. No further testimony will be heard.

The hospital’s proposal continues to divide the community even after dozens of hours of public hearings since last fall before the Planning Commission and the City Council. Hundreds of people have spoken out at these hearings.

At issue is the hospital’s master plan for developing its property during the next two decades.

It could eventually double the size of the hospital, adding a new facility for critical care and outpatient services, among other features.

Supporters maintain that the hospital has tried to appease concerned neighbors by compromising on some elements of the plan.

They also argue that as a nonprofit public hospital, Hoag should be treated differently than would a private developer pitching a proposal before city officials.

However, those opposed argue that Hoag has made few concessions about building heights and sizes in its expansion plans, and it has failed to adequately address such concerns as the safety of putting new buildings on an earthquake fault and in an area with high levels of dangerous gases, such as methane and hydrogen sulfide.

The Planning Commission unanimously approved the project, after about five nights of hearings on the issue.

Before considering the expansion plan as a whole, City Council members tonight will vote one by one on project components ranging from the length of the development agreement to the size of the buildings on hospital-owned wetlands.

For example, council members will need to determine a program for replacing wetlands along West Coast Highway that may be lost to make way for a row of new outpatient services.

The Council will also have to decide whether those buildings along the highway will be about three stories tall, as Hoag has sought, or smaller sizes ranging from one to three stories, as residents living next door have proposed.

Also, the Council will determine how far from the streets the hospital will have to put the buildings along the highway and on the upper campus near the hospital tower.

This has been a crucial issue for nearby residents who argue their views will be blocked.

Other issues such as landscape improvements, funding for a bicycle bridge over Superior Avenue and the size of a tiny park that Hoag will donate to the city will also be decided individually during the straw-vote session.

If the Council approves the hospital’s master plan, it will still need to win approval from the California Coastal Commission.