Panel OKs $8.8 Million More for Tollway : Transportation: Contractor, hindered by court delays, would use money to assure opening on schedule.

Court-ordered construction delays on the San Joaquin Hills tollway would result in paying another $8.8 million to the prime contractor under a proposed agreement intended to have the tollway open as scheduled in January, 1996.

The extra money will come from a $100-million emergency fund created when the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency last year borrowed $1.2 billion from investors to pay for the road. The borrowing in the form of bonds will be repaid by future toll revenue.

The contract amendment was approved Tuesday by a committee of the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency board of directors, with a vote by the full board in two weeks.

Added to $11 million in previous design changes, the proposed amendment would bring total construction costs about $20 million above the original construction contract of $743 million. With other, non-construction costs taken into account, the total project is expected to cost $1.1 billion.

Already partly under construction, the 15-mile, publicly owned toll road would connect the Corona del Mar Freeway with Interstate 5 near San Juan Capistrano.

The prime contractor, Kiewit Pacific, had sought $34 million to prevent postponement of opening day due to an injunction issued by a federal judge last fall.

Issued at the request of environmentalists long opposed to the tollway, the injunction allows construction at both ends of the 15-mile corridor, but not near Laguna Canyon and adjacent greenbelt areas in mid-route. Because the injunction changes the original work plan, Kiewit said it would need an accelerated work schedule to finish the project on time.

U.S. District Judge Linda A. McLaughlin is expected to soon hold a final hearing on whether to lift the injunction or make it permanent.

A ruling against the tollway agency would force tollway officials to prepare new environmental reviews, possibly delaying the project six months to a year or more.

Newport Beach Councilman Phil Sansone, a tollway committee board member, said he is alarmed by the original $34-million bill for court delays submitted by Kiewit Pacific. The fact that it was reduced substantially, he said, shows that such bills “ought to be closely scrutinized.”

Tollway executive Greg Henk explained, however, that Kiewit Pacific helped greatly by finding more efficient ways to keep the project going despite the court’s preliminary injunction.

In a separate development, Corona del Mar residents continued their campaign to have proposed toll booths eliminated from Newport Coast Drive, which is scheduled to become part of the toll road.

In a report to the tollway board’s operations and finance committees, tollway Finance Chief Wally Kreutzen said it would take an endowment of $69 million to generate interest income equal to toll revenue that would be lost if the booths aren’t installed.

Tollway officials said they have no idea where to get the $69 million.

Sansone, the Newport Beach councilman, has been pressing the agency to remove the booths on behalf of Corona del Mar constituents who argue that tolls will divert traffic to toll-free Coast Highway as an alternative route, thus increasing congestion there.

California Atty. Gen. Daniel E. Lungren’s staff recently decided to issue an opinion on the legality of adding Newport Coast Drive to the tollway. Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) and Corona del Mar homeowners have persuaded Lungren to examine several issues, including whether the county had legal authority to turn a publicly owned toll-free road over to the tollway agency, and whether there was adequate public notice of the action.

If they can’t kill the tolls on Newport Coast Drive, residents have asked the county to provide a second free bypass.

One alternative, which would involve a Z-shaped extension of several surface streets, is a “non-parallel route” and is “not adequate,” Yvonne Houssels, president of the Harbor View Hills Homeowners Assn., told the tollway operations committee Tuesday.