City Council OKs Hoag Hospital Expansion Plan : Development: Members unanimously approve the proposal that has divided the community for six months.

Months of wrangling over the controversial Hoag Hospital expansion plan came to a virtual close Monday night when the City Council unanimously approved the proposal that has divided the community for the last six months.

The council split on a number of components of the plan--such as building heights, landscape zones and the proximity of new structures to neighboring condominiums--that were main points of contention between the hospital and neighbors.

Overall, however, the council approved most of the hospital’s main requests, such as bigger buildings along Coast Highway and a towering critical-care unit that will come within 54 feet of residential neighbors--but refused other items, such as Hoag’s proposed 40-year development agreement, criticized by opponents as a blank check for building in the area.

The council added a condition that Hoag must prove that it has met all state and local regulations, showing the area is safe for development, before construction can begin. Some residents are concerned about the hospital’s plans to construct some of the new buildings over underground deposits of various gases. Three state agencies have questioned the effectiveness of the hospital’s plans to trap and dispose of the gas buildup.

Nevertheless, hospital officials were happy with the council’s decision.

“I’m gratified, relieved and very pleased,” said Michael D. Stephens, president of Hoag. “I know there are some members of the public who are still dissatisfied. But we can make this a project that will respond to their needs as well as to those who use the health care services.”

Council members said the project has received more scrutiny than nearly any other planning proposal in recent history, and some members said Hoag officials had made many modifications to its plan to appease concerned neighbors.

“Hoag has taken the opportunity to make this look not like a great big, institutional, ugly-looking box,” said Councilwoman Evelyn R. Hart. “It will be a nice addition to the city.”

However, residents ranging from environmentalists who want to protect the Cattail Cove wetlands along Coast Highway, where a row of new buildings for out-patient services will be built, to neighbors within earshot of the hospital along Hoag’s western boundary said that the plan approved Monday night varied little from the hospital’s initial proposal.

“That’s a bomb. I’m very disappointed,” said resident William S. Jennings, a longtime foe of the project. “It’s just a token reduction in building heights and some reduction in setbacks, but not enough.”

The council will give final approval of the plan at its meeting in two weeks.

The hospital’s master plan is its framework for development over the next two decades. It does not detail specific services, but lays a skeleton for building sizes and locations.

On Monday, the council decided on the bulk of the issues that have been points of controversy throughout the hearing process. The items the council approved for the master plan are:

* A three-story limit on the new row of structures to be built along Coast Highway, instead of the two-story limit preferred by the city planning staff and nearby residents.

* A critical-care unit adjacent to the west side of the existing hospital tower that will be within 54 feet of the neighboring Villa Balboa condominium complex. The setback is farther from the hospital than initially planned.

* More room for landscaping between Coast Highway and the new row of buildings. The extra space--more than both staff and Hoag initially proposed--is intended to offer a less-industrial view for nearby residents and motorists on the highway.

* A greater setback from Newport Boulevard for remodeled buildings on the hospital’s upper campus than Hoag initially requested. The hospital originally wanted no landscape buffers in parts of that area, but the council mandated 20 feet of space between the buildings and the road.

* Hoag will give the city $250,000 toward a sidewalk along Newport Boulevard, instead of a pedestrian bridge over Superior Avenue as residents requested.

* A 25-year development agreement that mandates an annual review of Hoag’s building plans and allows for additional environmental reviews of specific parts of the project as needed. The agreement replaces a 40-year pact requested by Hoag that allowed for little additional review of its development plans.

Although those issues were resolved, critics say a number of others have not been fully addressed, primarily concerns about building on an earthquake fault and above deposits of methane, benzene and hydrogen sulfide gases.

Hoag officials say they will line the earth with a tarp to collect the gases in an underground pipe system and either use it or burn it off as needed. But those plans have been questioned by the state Air Quality Management District, the state Environmental Protection Agency and the state Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Hoag’s plan has provoked heated debates among residents divided between those who say Hoag, as a nonprofit health care provider, should not undergo the scrutiny given a typical developer, and those who say the hospital is not the best of neighbors.

Hoag officials have maintained throughout that the expansion is necessary if the hospital hopes to remain at the forefront of state-of-the-art health care in the community.

The plan will still need to win approval before the Coastal Commission.