Opposition to Rail Line Reasserted by Homeowners

A meeting Saturday of San Fernando Valley homeowner leaders, their elected representatives and Los Angeles County transportation officials broke no new ground but reaffirmed the homeowners’ staunch opposition to two rail lines under consideration for the Valley.

“Our association is opposed to rail; it’s a bad idea and we should scrap it,” said Gerald A. Silver, president of the Encino Homeowners Assn. “If you folks want to go ahead, you’ll have to face the political consequences when people say we’ve been taken for a real ride.”

The county Transportation Commission is studying two possible rail routes that would traverse the Valley. One runs along the south shoulder of the Ventura Freeway. The other is Southern Pacific railroad’s Burbank line, which crosses the Valley roughly parallel to Chandler and Victory boulevards.

Both would end at Warner Center and connect to the downtown-to-North Hollywood Metro Rail subway--the freeway route at Universal City and the Chandler-Victory line in North Hollywood.

The commission has voted to purchase three parcels along the Southern Pacific route and to begin negotiations on the purchase of two parcels along the Ventura Freeway.

State Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana) said during Saturday’s meeting that the Transportation Commission should lend money to the city of Los Angeles so that the city could purchase at least some of those parcels on the county’s behalf. He said such an arrangement would serve to persuade residents that the commission has not already chosen to build the line along the Southern Pacific route.

“It’s better if the property in the area were sold to the city,” Robbins said. He said residents “feel safer with elected officials” while members of the Transportation Commission are appointed.

The commission is scheduled to release a preliminary study of the routes in October and decide on one in March. At that time, it is also scheduled to decide between transportation methods that include light rail and monorail.

The commission’s plans thus far have picked up little support from Valley homeowners, who voice fears that a line would bring noise, crime and blight to their neighborhoods.

“The purpose of this meeting is to articulate concerns,” said Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. and organizer of Saturday’s meeting. “This gives groups the opportunity to get ammunition to lobby for a solution.”

Robbins and Los Angeles City Councilman Marvin Braude used the occasion to push a plan to require transit officials to build the rail line partly underground from North Hollywood to the Sepulveda Basin. That plan is part of a Robbins bill that is scheduled to go to a vote next week in the Senate and the Assembly.

Robbins said the bill had not received enough public support to persuade all of the Valley’s state legislators to back it.

“My message is, ‘Let’s all reach out, hold hands and work together,’ ” Braude said.

Togetherness, however, eluded the group.

While some leaders of the 17 homeowner groups invited to the meeting pledged to support Robbins’ bill, others said it ignored their neighborhoods.

Don Schultz, president of the Van Nuys Homeowners Assn., which represents 500 households, said the bill’s requirement that a rail line be built underground does not cover enough of Van Nuys.

“If we support it, we’re dividing Van Nuys,” he said. “We can’t look at something that only protects half of us.”