Hoag, neighbors talk on expansion

Two years after opening the Sue and Bill Gross Women’s Pavilion — what hospital officials have called the first major milestone in its expansion — Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian continues to redevelop its campus while working with Newport Beach officials and neighbors to update its plan.

In the next 10 years, Hoag plans to build its new Neuroscience Institute as well as bring more outpatient services to its campus.

But in order to stay its course, the hospital is looking to transfer up to 250,000 square feet of its previous allotted entitlements from its lower campus to the upper campus. The hospital has abandoned a request to expand by almost 30,000 square feet.

The hospital wants “to restructure the campus so buildings on the upper campus are inpatient services and the ones on the lower campus are for outpatient services,” Hoag spokeswoman Debra Legan said. “That way it’ll separate the traffic — people coming in and out of the lower campus are coming for outpatient services and we can concentrate the inpatient care on the upper campus.”

Hoag, which shares a property line with the Villa Balboa Condominiums, held a meeting at the community’s clubhouse Wednesday night to present its plan for redevelopment, as well as to try to alleviate any concerns neighbors might have.

Some of the issues for Villa Balboa residents include noise coming from the hospital’s loading dock, senior planner James Campbell said, “And there’s the emergency power plant…. We’re working very hard to reduce the noise levels there.”

About 60 residents attended the meeting at which Legan and representatives from Government Solutions Inc., the consulting firm hired to help Hoag better communicate with neighbors, presented the hospital’s solutions to noise, smoking at a nearby park, construction and views.

“It was the first time in 25 years Hoag has put on a presentation like this,” Mary Petropoulos said during a break in the meeting. “Government Solutions is really a class act, but that parking structure is still bad.”

Other residents were similarly concerned with the proposed parking structure that will be just east of the Cancer Center.

Villa Balboa residents’ main concerns were with seeing cars and hearing car alarms and traffic. The structure will not stand as high as the Cancer Center building, which no building’s height can exceed under an agreement with the city. Hoag is working with civil engineers to put up “story poles,” which will let neighbors know how high various structures will be upon completion.

The cogeneration plant, which will allow Hoag to be its own power source, will have landscaping to mask some of the concrete walls. The Air Quality Management District will conduct tests on the plant to monitor its emissions April 13.

Many who attended the meeting were pleased with Hoag’s response to their concerns. Margarita Stephanou was pleased to hear that the hospital plans to put up bougainvillea along a retaining wall currently under construction. The hospital also plans to plant other shrubbery to make the wall look “softer,” Government Solutions principal Carol McDermott.

Hospital representatives have been working with a subcommittee appointed by Villa Balboa’s homeowners association board of directors, to address issues raised by residents, Legan said.

The hospital has already removed, relocated or trimmed 18 trees that blocked some homeowners’ views. In its 1992 agreement with the city, the hospital promised to build all the facilities below a certain height requirement — on the lower campus the buildings must not exceed the height of the Cancer Center.

“There is a strict height limit that was put in place in 1992, and Hoag isn’t suggesting to build anything [taller] than its entitled to do,” Campbell said. “The real issue here is Hoag is now building the lower campus, which it got the entitlements to in a development agreement back in 1992…. Now residents are starting to see the results and a lot of these folks either don’t remember the agreement or bought into the area more recently and may have not known about it.”

But Villa Balboa homeowners won’t be the only residents who will get to chime in on the issue. After the hospital’s environmental report draft is completed — it’s scheduled to be finished in July — residents will be able to make public comments to both the Newport Beach planning department and the City Council, which will have to approve the report before it heads off to the California Coastal Commission.

CONSTRUCTION SCHEDULE

Leveling the lower campus site and building the retaining wall: Due to be completed by September