T.O. Planning Commission approves hospital expansion

The end of a six-hour Thousand Oaks Planning Commission hearing on Monday night saw commissioners unite to support expansion of Los Robles Regional Medical Center. The 34-year-old hospital will now add a 202,000 square-foot, 90-bed patient wing with private rooms, bringing the total number of beds to 277. A 520 space parking structure complete with roof-top helipad is also planned.

Commissioner Randy Hoffman made the motion to approve the project. He said the community must have a top-rate healthcare facility. Project opponents have until the end of this month to appeal the decision to the T.O. City Council.

During the evening, a string of residents opposed the proposal. The opponents have homes near the hospital and they protested the size of the addition and the increased traffic that it will generate. However, hospital officials, volunteers and physicians also lined up to testify that the current facility is insufficient to meet the healthcare demands of Conejo Valley/Las Virgenes.

Robert Shaw, hospital president and CEO, said that Los Robles’ parent company, Nashville-based HCA, will spend $120 million on construction. The expansion was desperately needed, Shaw said, because the local population has grown and the hospital hasn’t.

"In 1968, there were 30,000 people living in the Greater Conejo Valley," Shaw said. "Now, there are 155,000 … that’s a 416 percent increase."

In its first year of operation, Los Robles treated 2,340 inpatients, Shaw said. Last year, the hospital housed 13,095 inpatients, a 460 percent increase, and surgeries surged from 1,140 in 1969 to 7,752 in 2001, a 580 percent increase.

Bernie Klein, the facility’s medical director, said that doctors constantly complain—because of lack of beds and other amenities—that the hospital doesn’t meet their needs and is therefore substandard.

Commissioners approved the project’s first phase which will allow the parking structure and a three-story addition to be constructed. Because of residents’ concern for privacy and protection of their view shed, the commission specified that the planned fourth floor must return for planning commission review and approvals.

Some speakers asked that instead of enlarging the current hospital that a separate facility be constructed somewhere else.

Shaw answered that physicians should be close to hospitals. Keeping resources centrally located also reduces overall costs, he said. The "extraordinary price of commercial land and the lack of suitably-sized parcels in the Conejo Valley," Shaw said, makes a separate facility impossible.

There is, however, currently a push to bring a second hospital to the Westlake Village/Agoura Hills end of the Conejo/Las Virgenes area.

Additionally, the commission conditioned that the hospital must hire an outside expert to monitor dust and pollution at the site. Also commissioners said that, whenever possible, the contractors should use alternative fuel machinery to mitigate for air pollution.