Residents displaced for hospital expansion

Four Newport Beach mobile homes will have to either be torn down or moved to make room for a new traffic signal on Superior Avenue.

The mobile homes have to go because of Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian’s expansion into what used to be the Newport Technology Center on the 500 block of Superior Avenue. Hoag bought the office center in 2006 to move medical offices there. As part of an agreement with the city, Hoag is required to widen the road and add a traffic signal to accommodate increased traffic.

The homes, part of the Harbor Mobile Homes, jut onto Superior Avenue, blocking any street widening project.

Jim Frazier, who has lived in the mobile home park since 2000, said he is grateful his home would only have to be moved and not torn down. Even so, officials have told him that he and his wife could be out of their home for anywhere from three to six weeks later this year because of the construction. Three of his neighbor’s homes will have to be completely torn down, he said.

Frazier said there were no public hearings to notify him and the other residents, and he feels the city and Hoag have left him in the dark.

“I feel lucky that I get to at least stay where I want to live,” Frazier said. “They really haven’t told us much of anything.”

Hoag officials said Monday they hope to begin a project to widen Superior Avenue near Dana Road and add a traffic signal there beginning this fall.

The hospital is now in the process of talking to the residents and the owner of the park to negotiate deals for the land, said Hoag spokeswoman Debra Legan.

“The owners are either considering the offers right now or have accepted an offer,” Legan said.

Legan declined to say how much the homeowners had been offered for their homes.

All the homeowners will receive compensation for their trouble, she said.

Councilman Steve Rosansky said Frazier has been the only homeowner to contact him with concerns about the impending street-widening project.

Most Newport residents will benefit from the street widening, he said. Newport recently completed new street medians in the area.

“It will be nice to complete the street there,” Rosansky said. “It’s just unfinished right now and we [the city] just spent a whole ton of money repaving the street and putting in dividers.”

BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at [email protected].