5/9/2010 update/summary: If you are not able to make it to the Planning Commission Meeting Monday night, you can still make your concerns heard on the key issues discussed below, by e-mailing Los Alamitos’ Community Development Director, Steven Mendoza, SMendoza@ci.los-alamitos.ca.us.
(5/7/2010, Los Alamitos) The community gets some great opportunities to express their concerns and insights into At their 7 p.m. meeting at City Hall the Los Alamitos Planning Commission will hold public hearings on three items that could significantly impact the city for decades to come:
- An initial “scoping” meeting in advance of the Environmental Impact Report for the proposed 25-year plan for the expansion of the Los Alamitos Medical Center (more on that below).
- A request by the City Council for the planning commission to consider changing the land use designations and concurrent zoning districts on the Katella parcel that was once planned to house an upscale Melting Pot restaurant. One of the options would be to return to a non-retail zone. To some this appears to be an unfortunate step that could lead to reduced sales tax income for the city.
- A request to allow motorcycle sales at the “Clock Tower” building at 10571 Los Alamitos Blvd.
The Medical center application obviously has the greatest implications long term for the city. Over a 25 year period Tenett plans to build two parking structures, two 4 story hospital buildings and a larger Medical Office Building to replace the old two story structure at the corner of Kaylor and Katella, just west of the 4 story brick building.
The plan would result in more than doubling the square feet of office and hospital space for a total of 582,000 square feet, and would double the number of hospital beds to 331.
Some citizens have expressed concerns about traffic and limiting retail sales, and hopefully they will give share their perspective in the comment section below.
Regardless of your perspective, this is an excellent opportunity to express your concerns publicly for the record.
A quick intro to the L.A.M.C. plan:
To go directly to the consultant’s Initial Study of the Los Alamitos Medical Center Specific Plan, click here. I suggest you start out by scrolling down directly to the 3 maps following page 11, using the page numbers on the bottom of each page of the document (actually pages 15 – 17 according to my browser). These how the build-out will progress:
- p. 15 (per my browser–following p. 11 on the document) shows the current buildings and the first phase, taking place over the next 2 -3 years, with the addition on a second parking structure and a fourth Medical Office Building.
- p.16 (the 2nd map of the facility) shows phase 2, over the following 5 – 10 years, where the oldest Medical Office Building (just west of Kaylor) will be demolished and converted to parking and a new 4 story hosipital building will be built east of the current Emergency Room, with Kaylor being turned into a cul de sac at that point.
- p. 17 is the end result, as currently planned. This could be 25 years from now, probably sooner. By this time a second 4 story hospital building and a third parking structure plus a new central plant will complete the plan.
I suggest you study that last map: enlarge it, ponder it, pretend you’re driving through the area, walking through the facility, and consider the implications.
If you put your thoughts into an e-mail to Los Alamitos’ Community Development Director, Steven Mendoza, SMendoza@ci.los-alamitos.ca.us, or express them during the Scoping Hearing at the P.C. meeting Monday night, you’ll be giving the people doing the Environmental Impact Study a head’s up to consider issues of importance to the community.
Time well spent.
Related posts:
Mr. Emerson, you say that there are concerns about traffic, yet the Traffic Commission has cancelled their meetings for the last few months for lack of business. What traffic concerns are you talking about?
As a class M driver I’m all for #3. I hope that they will sell the The Aprilia Mana 850 which I really really want for my birthday present from the wife and mother…
As for #2. I don’t feel a need to detail here what I have detailed elsewhere on this site. So I will cover it with a few points… I want to know why this is even an issue. I want to know who wants to derail the current zoning and why. I want to know what the city plans to do if the current people who invested money into the property based on the approved zoning were to do in the case of litigation against the city, and why we (the city) are even considering opening ourselves up to this potential litigation.
Finally on #1. Unlike the City of Los Alamitos, the LAMC has been openly transparent in their process. They have held community meetings in which they discussed their plans and listened to the community for input and concerns. As displeased as I have been with the City Council majority and their opacity I have been very pleased with the LAMC’s open process and transparency. They have been a very good neighbor and they have shown that they care about being a member of this community that listens and works with the community for the long term good of the community. [now to see how well that process has worked for them, go back and read some of my earlier comments about them when this whole thing was being done in the dark and back room. Big change in tone and tenor in my posting... that is what happens when you build trust through transparency].
We still have a problem in that the LAMC has done an excellent job in defining a long term vision for their piece of Katella, but that the City of Los Alamitos in the same time period has presented absolutely NO VISION for the Katella corridor. But that is not the issue for this meeting, although I’ll be there and will be mentioning that as a major concern point from the community’s standpoint.