Trolley Plans Kick Up Dust in La Jolla, University City : Transit: Residents want North Line tracks to parallel I-5. Officials favor route along Regents Road or Genesee Avenue.

The rumbling is just beginning, but a proposed San Diego Trolley route through parts of La Jolla and the heart of University City has residents and property owners in some of the city’s most affluent neighborhoods in an uproar.

Residents in the gated community of La Jolla Colony, with homes valued at upwards of $400,000, are furious with the Metropolitan Transit Development Board for even thinking of putting tracks in Rose Canyon, within 150 feet of their back yards.

“Save Rose Canyon!!!” reads a recent flier. “Don’t let light rail lines slice into the heart of La Jolla Colony!!!”

Leonard McRoskey, who hopes to build a 208-unit residential complex at Nobel Drive and Regents Road in University City, says that, if the proposed center segment of the so-called Mid-Coast Corridor runs on Regents Road--and not Interstate 5, which community groups favor--it would “cripple the neighborhood.”

Opposing the community groups once again is former State Sen. James R. Mills, MTDB’s powerful chairman. Mills said Wednesday he adamantly opposes running light-rail tracks parallel to I-5 and called the widening neighborhood discontent “hysteria bordering on paranoia.”

Mills recently found himself pitted against Harbor View and Little Italy residents who oppose elevating trolley tracks through their neighborhoods on the route that will run from Santa Fe Depot to Old Town.

MTDB will study that issue further at a meeting Oct. 10.

But a La Jolla Colony resident, who asked not to be quoted by name, said Wednesday that the fight brewing in his neighborhood “threatens to make Harbor View and Little Italy look like a badminton match. We’re (angry), and we’re not going to stand for it.”

At issue are three potential routes that would serve UC San Diego, the commercial Golden Triangle and University City, as part of the North Line, extending from Old Town to Del Mar Heights Road, near I-5.

No one seems concerned about the north segment, running from Genesee Avenue to Del Mar Heights, or the south segment, between Old Town and Gilman Drive near I-5.

It’s the center segment to which people object: a vertical alignment within University City on or along one of three byways: Regents Road, Genesee Avenue or I-5.

Already, community groups are meeting, passing out fliers and lobbying elected officials. The widespread fear is of tumbling property values, dangers to children at nearby schools and the compromise of a community whose residents were first drawn to what they call its peaceful, semi-rural nature.

The most recent meeting was Tuesday, when more than 100 property owners and residents packed a conference room in a shopping center to voice their opinions before the University City Planning Group.

Martha Demski, president of the Valencia Homeowners Assn., which represents 146 property owners among the more than 3,000 residents in La Jolla Colony, said MTDB officials disclosed for the first time that a cyclone fence will run along each side of the trolley tracks on the portion through Rose Canyon, thus dividing the canyon.

Demski’s group opposes the Regents Road and Genesee Avenue options, either of which would mean the condemnation of homes in the Valencia Homeowners’ Assn. Demski said no home in La Jolla Colony is more than five years old.

“It limits access to the entire area as well as damaging the environment,” she said. “The fence will follow the entire route (through the canyon). We have owls, rabbits, hawks, coyotes . . . every bit of wildlife in the area will be affected, as well as people doing nature walks. We have one of the county’s most heavily used bike paths. What happens to that?”

“Of the three alternatives, I-5 is the least controversial and does more good to the community,” said Leonard McRoskey, a property owner in University City, who, with his brother Jack, hopes to build the residential complex at Regents Road and Nobel Drive.

McRoskey said many residents believe MTDB favors putting in a “master” station at Nobel Drive and Regents Road because the city has agreed to give it a tract of land at that intersection. He said the station would include a bus terminal with 14 “bays” and would “almost certainly” require additional parking.

“Regents Road is the main entrance to the brand-new Doyle Park, which would be compromised by this project,” McRoskey said. “Immediately south of that is a 1,000-student grammar school (Doyle Elementary), which empties out onto Regents Road.

“You’d have adults and schoolchildren going in and out of this area jeopardized by rail cars rumbling through every 7 1/2 minutes in both directions, with cars being squeezed on the side of the road. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Community leaders are not alone in favoring the I-5 alternative. UCSD administrators recently made public their preference for that route, after bitterly--and successfully--opposing an alignment running up Gilman Drive to the campus, west of the freeway.

Mills confirmed that, in exchange for agreeing to drop the Gilman Drive route, MTDB was able to work out an arrangement with the school to donate land for an I-5 or Regents Road alignment, including a station near the campus.

But Mills said he is mystified by the latest “ruckus” saying MTDB is “merely studying its options.” He characterized his opponents as NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard).

“The NIMBYs came in and said we shouldn’t even study the Regents Road route, even though federal regulations require we look at all alternatives,” he said. “They claim there would be severe environmental effects to go through Rose Canyon, although two tracks are there now (used by passenger and freight trains). We would just build two more,” along the existing Santa Fe right of way.

Residents argue that the daily passage of 16 Amtrak passenger trains and occasional freight trains--whose tracks are not bordered by a fence--hardly compare to trolley cars running every 7 1/2 minutes.

“They claim light-rail trains will go roaring by, right by their windows, which is utter nonsense, complete foolishness,” Mills said. “And this business of endangering schoolchildren is just a lot of hysteria.”

Mills said that, while he chooses not to express a preference for either Regents Road or Genesee Avenue, he clearly opposes the building of tracks parallel to I-5 for the entire section.

“That’s the most expensive by far and doesn’t serve any of the traffic generators,” he said. “What’s within walking distance of I-5? Studies show that rail commuters don’t want a long walk at the end of a destination. If it’s 100 feet from where they want to go, they’ll use it. But if it’s 1,000 feet away, they’ll tell you to forget it.”

Because the project would then be prohibitively expensive, Mills said that MTDB might lose federal funds slated for the North Line. He said MTDB “got to choose one line” in its entire system for receiving federal funds and chose the North Line for its potential of serving the greatest number of riders.

“That whole line depends on federal involvement,” he said. “If the feds don’t come through, I’m afraid we don’t have a line. It’s really that simple.”

Mark Ashton, the general manager of the University Towne Centre shopping center and a member of the University City planning group, said he and most merchants favor the Genesee route, which would run near dozens of commercial developments.

“Community groups don’t want it along Regents Road, and I can’t say as I blame them,” Ashton said. “They feel it would do harm to their neighborhoods. From our perspective, we’d like a route that provides the most service--the most ridership--and has the smallest negative impact. The Genesee route is the most logical.”

Mills said that an estimated cost for the project has not been prepared and that the North Line could not be completed before 1997.