ANAHEIM : Landowners Wooed for Transit Project

City officials are seeking cooperation from downtown landowners who control prime acreage in the city’s convention and tourism areas in their bid to create an inner-city transit system or “people mover.”

City officials invited landowners to a private meeting Thursday at Anaheim Stadium to involve them in a consultant’s effort to design routes and choose transportation technologies and funding formulas for the project.

The system, expected to cost more than $200 million, is intended to link up in a 7-mile circuit: Anaheim Stadium, the city’s convention complex, a soon-to-be built sports arena, major hotels and Disneyland.

The support of major area landowners is expected to be a key factor as the project proceeds. Property is needed for system transfer stations or route easements, city and real estate sources said.

City staffers and representatives of Kimley-Horn & Associates, a private consultant firm hired by the city to study ways of implementing the plan, presented property owners with an outline for the study, which is expected to be completed in five months.

County Supervisor Don R. Roth, who also attended Thursday’s meeting, said that the presentation was only a preliminary briefing and that the need for possible land acquisitions was not discussed.

Roth said a monorail system in Anaheim would only enhance his interest in creating a high-speed rail system between Las Vegas and Anaheim, establishing the Orange County city as the Southern California terminus for various forms of mass transportation.