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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

CARE Members Protest Hospital Expansion

Valley residents opposing an expansion at Providence Holy Cross urged Los Angeles City Council members to reject the Planning Commission’s decision to allow the hospital’s $146 million project to proceed without an environmental impact report. In September, Community Advocates for Responsible Expansion appealed the commission’s July 26 decision on the 101-bed addition at the Mission Hills hospital. Now, the council’s Planning Land Use and Development Committee will review the appeal and have hearings, tentatively scheduled for Oct. 23, according to Greg Good of Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, a member of the CARE coalition. “They will hopefully recommend that the full [city] council take a vote, and we hope that they’ll recommend overturning the Planning Commission’s decision,” Good said. Good said that CARE does not oppose the expansion but simply wants Holy Cross to build its South Addition in a manner that safeguards the community. “It’s impossible to do this level of project without doing the requisite environmental protective reviews,” he said. CARE also argued that it was telling that the hospital wants to forgo an environmental impact report in a community that is predominantly low-income and populated by ethnic minorities. Holy Cross spokesman Dan Boyle bristles at the insinuation. “We care for the poor,that’s our mission,” he stressed. Boyle added that hospital expansions of similar sizes in a variety of communities have been built without environmental impact reports. If the hospital were to conduct such a report now, Boyle continued, the new expansion could be delayed by at least 18 months. Because Holy Cross is in a medically underserved community that’s a wait the community can’t afford, according to Boyle. “Two weeks ago, we had 50 people waiting for a bed,” he said.

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