NEWPORT BEACH : Hoag’s Plans Will Be Challenged Again

At a public hearing tonight, Newport Beach residents, including members of environmental groups and several homeowner associations, will challenge a plan to expand Hoag Hospital.

Tonight’s hearing before the Planning Commission is the second of what will be three to four nights of testimony on the Hoag Hospital master plan. The sessions began last month and will probably continue until February.

Among groups expected to make presentations are the Villa Balboa Homeowners Assn., the Friends of Cattail Cove and Hoag 2010, which is supporting the hospital expansion as now planned.

Residents of the Villa Balboa condominium complex, which is next to the hospital, say they will advance an alternative plan to save wetlands and shift a number of new buildings away from their homes.

“We’re just showing that you can come up with an alternative plan that pleases everyone,” said Linda Rice, president of the Villa Balboa Homeowners Assn.

Villa Balboa specifically calls for shifting up to half of the new buildings from the so-called lower campus near the Cancer Center to the upper campus where the hospital tower stands. Residents say the upper campus, with its low structures and single-level parking lots, is underdeveloped.

In addition, residents suggest that less crucial buildings such as warehouses and storage sheds could be relocated on another site.

Villa Balboa wants to save up to three acres of cattail swamps and wetlands as well as some ocean views for homeowners that could be affected under the hospital’s plan. The group further calls for the elimination of an exit onto Superior Avenue to help reduce the potential for traffic congestion.

Rice says Villa Balboa members support the hospital expansion and only want to reduce its impact on their neighborhood.

Hoag’s master plan is an outline for development over the next 20 years. It calls for a row of two- to four-story buildings on a narrow stretch of land the hospital owns along Coast Highway. Some of the upper campus would be remodeled, too.

The plan calls for separate outpatient services, which would be on the lower campus. Long-term-care services would be on the upper campus, but officials have not specified yet which uses would be put in each building.

Hospital officials have rebuffed the residents’ alternative plan in earlier discussions, saying it would cost up to $50 million extra to develop the land the way the residents want it. The officials, however, have not estimated how much their plan will eventually cost.

In addition, Hoag representatives say the Villa Balboa plan does not accommodate traffic well or meet the hospital’s need to separate long- and short-term services.

Friends of Cattail Cove, which is seeking to preserve the wetland on hospital property, also wants the new buildings to be moved to the upper campus instead of being built on open space on the lower campus.

Ultimately, the group’s plan would move half the development to the upper campus or off site. Group members also are concerned about the potential danger of hydrogen sulfide gas leaks from the lower campus.