Greenlight contention focuses on hospital

Mathis Winkler

NEWPORT BEACH -- As the battle between competing growth-control

measures enters its final rounds, the question of what will happen to

Hoag Hospital’s expansion plans has become a hotly debated issue.

Measure T supporters have stated in newspaper advertisements and

campaign literature that the opposing Measure S jeopardizes Hoag’s future

growth by potentially forcing a citywide election on its expansion plans.

“I find that to be unconscionable,” Tom Edwards, co-chairman of the

Measure T campaign, said of a possible halt to Hoag’s plans.

Should Hoag propose “anything outside their development agreement,

they need a general plan amendment,” he said.

Debra Macalello Legan, the hospital’s spokeswoman, said Hoag plans to

remain neutral regarding both measures.

She added that a 309,000-square-foot Women’s Pavilion -- scheduled to

open in 2004 -- and a planned heart institute should fit within the

hospital’s master plan approved by the city in 1992.

“If we need something larger, we would need to go back to the city,”

Legan said.

Measure S proposes to put before a citywide vote any development that

allows an increase of more than 100 peak-hour car trips or dwelling units

or 40,000 square feet over the general plan allowance.

Measure T would add parts of the city’s traffic phasing ordinance to

the City Charter and nullify Measure S, should voters approve both

measures.

The debate between the two sides has gone deeper -- and further back

in history, as well.

A Measure T newspaper advertisement had stated that “... supporters of

Measure S vigorously fought to delay or stop [Hoag’s] Master Plan. Here’s

just one sentence from an eighteen page letter they sent... ‘Above all,

no development should be granted for so vague a proposition.”’

While Measure S supporters acknowledge that the hospital might be

subjected to a citywide election on future expansion plans, they rejected

their opponents’ claim that they had opposed Hoag’s master plan.

Phil Arst, a spokesman for Measure S, said the letter referred to in

the ad had been written by Stop Polluting Our Newport, an environmental

activist group.

He added that while the group had opposed the vagueness of the

development proposal, it did not oppose Hoag’s expansion in general.

Arst also referred to a letter dated July 5, 2000, that Measure S

supporters sent to the hospital’s executive committee.

In it, Measure S proponents stated that they supported “Hoag’s entire

health center expansion plan as filed with the city government.”