Westlake council approves zoning overlay change for old hospital site




Westlake council approves zoning overlay change
for old hospital site
By Gregory Koteles
Acorn Staff Writer

The Westlake Village City Council approved a zoning modification for the site of the former Westlake hospital, adding a minimum 75-unit "special needs housing" overlay to the 6.5-acre site, despite a public outcry against it.


The zoning ordinance, which passed 4-1, met with considerable opposition from citizens at last week’s Dec. 11 meeting.


Westlake resident Thelma Ploesch, who blasted the council at its November meeting for even considering the proposal, led off the string of public speakers calling for the rejection of the zoning overlay. Accusing councilmembers of "greed" and "conflict of interest," she argued that hospital site should have been purchased by the city to maintain it as a dedicated healthcare facility and that the state-mandated housing element could have been met with zoning changes elsewhere.


Referring to campaign pledges by incumbent councilmembers to try to reopen the Westlake hospital trauma center, Ploesch said, "We elected them for promises they made but never meant to keep."


Wilma Rosenberg, who said her life was "saved in the little Westlake hospital," asked the council, "If you’re allowing 75 houses, what else are you going to allow?"


Said resident Leon Woods, "Our arborists take care of out trees; our city council needs to take care of our community, our senior citizens, our children."


Half a dozen other audience members who spoke before the council voiced similar concerns and urged the council to reconsider the zoning overlay.


Ultimately, however, the council passed the resolution and first reading of the ordinance, which included a definition of special needs housing as "individual or group housing available to persons, who by virtue of income, circumstance or disability, require housing not otherwise available within the greater Westlake Village community." That group includes low-income individuals and families, seniors 62 and older, disabled persons, battered women and abused children.


Planning Director Bob Theobald noted that despite the overlay, the council will retain "complete discretion" as to what to allow at the site and is under no obligation to actually provide special needs housing to meet state requirements.


City Councilman Bob Slavin was the only dissenting vote, concerned about what might be allowed at the site, despite promising initial talks by a regional hospital committee with an unnamed healthcare company to open a new hospital in the Las Virgenes/Conejo Valley region at a different, unspecified site.



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