Transit Panel Backs Purchase of Land Along Rail Route

Key transit officials Tuesday endorsed a plan to begin buying property along a railroad right of way that stretches from North Hollywood to Warner Center, although they insisted that the move is not a commitment to build a mass transit line along the controversial route.

The vote by the Transit Committee of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission was immediately criticized by homeowner leaders fighting to prevent construction of a rail line in the densely populated corridor, which roughly follows Chandler and Victory boulevards across the San Fernando Valley.

“It’s an objectionable action,” said Tom Paterson, a North Hollywood homeowner leader. “But it does finally confirm that they are setting up the North Hollywood community.”

The committee, which discussed the issue in closed session, voted 3 to 0 to recommend that the 11-member commission, which meets June 28, authorize buying the properties from the Southern Pacific railroad, which owns the 14-mile-long freight corridor.

Commissioners would not identify the sites that they wish to buy, but a staff report said the properties are “ideally located for station sites and one of the sites would be particularly suited and needed for a yard and shop.”

The commission is studying two cross-Valley routes for a rail line, both of which would terminate at Warner Center. Both have drawn strong opposition from adjacent homeowners.

Residents say the trains would bring noise, ground vibrations and traffic congestion to what are now in many cases quiet single-family neighborhoods.

One route, which would begin at the Universal City station of the downtown-North Hollywood Metro Rail subway, would be built on pillars along the Ventura Freeway across the Valley.

The other is the so-called Chandler-Victory route, which would begin at the Metro Rail terminus in North Hollywood and cross the Valley on the Southern Pacific right of way.

Preliminary results of a $1.2-million study to determine cost, ridership and potential harmful effects of the two routes are expected in September. The commission has said it will select a route by March and will determine whether the line should be part-subway or ground-level light-rail.

Commissioner Mike Lewis, who chairs the Transit Committee, said after Tuesday’s vote that commissioners “merely want to keep our options open if this route is selected.”

He said that if the Chandler-Victory route is not chosen, the properties will be “easily marketable. In fact, there are other buyers for them right now.”

In addition to endorsing the purchases along the Chandler-Victory route, the committee is recommending that the commission buy land that Southern Pacific is selling along its Exposition branch line, a freight line that runs from downtown to Santa Monica.

A light-rail line is also under consideration along that route.

Encino homeowner leader Gerald A. Silver called the committee’s recommendation a “very foolhardy move,” maintaining that the Chandler-Victory route, if selected, “is going to be tied up in litigation for years.”

He said the action “puts all people along the line at risk as far as their property values are concerned.”

But Kurt Hunter, president of the North Hollywood Homeowners Assn., said the purchase of property along the Chandler-Victory line “isn’t in and of itself upsetting because that route has always made a lot of sense to me.”

“The real question is whether they are going to properly mitigate the effects on residents by going underground and taking other measures,” he said.

Hunter has been an outspoken advocate of placing the proposed rail line underground in residential areas.