To Some Neighbors, MCA News Sounds Like a Horror Movie : Cahuenga Pass: They dread prospect of increased traffic, noise and bright lights. But merchants and entertainment professionals see opportunity.

Across the street from Nancy Rowe’s hilltop Cahuenga Pass home, grass grows where there used to be houses, and below that is a gigantic parking lot carved from a mountainside.

With Universal City, Rowe said, came the beginning of the end of her quaint Hollywood Knolls neighborhood, where homeowners tick off their houses’ long, star-studded pedigrees as easily as they introduce themselves. Now, as MCA Inc. formulates plans to double the square footage of its mini-city over the next 25 years, Rowe and others who live and work around Universal wonder how much worse the traffic, noise and bright lights can get before life becomes intolerable.

“We’ve been stuck with a monster,” Rowe said, waving to a neighbor whose only greeting was to shout: “We’re moving!”

“Everyone from here down, their life, their home is going to be ruined,” Rowe said.

But not everyone is dismayed at the prospect of Universal City drawing more people and more money. Business owners along Cahuenga Boulevard worry about traffic but delight in the prospect of new customers.

Besides merchants, the livelihood of many others in the area--writers, designers and others connected to the entertainment business--are tied to the fortunes of their powerful neighbor.

But quite a few, even those who promise to keep an open mind, say they are concerned that development, tourists and still more cars will choke off life in the Cahuenga Pass.

“This is what Studio City and old Hollywood was,” said Marki Costello, gesturing at the neighborhood along Cahuenga Boulevard where she walks from her casting-company office to her favorite Mexican restaurant, Poquito Mas. “It seems like all of that is not going to be here anymore. It’s going to be all for tourists.”

That does not sound so bad to restaurant manager Edgar Escalante, who revels in the idea of new customers for his popular Mexican restaurant.

“We love it,” he said of the expansion plans. “We get lots of business from Universal, a lot of big orders and catering, plus all the employees walking around.”

And not all area homeowners are pessimistic, either.

Richard Carr, who lives down the street from Rowe in the hills above Universal and sits on the neighborhood committee that negotiates with MCA, said past discussions with the entertainment giant have gotten results.

The view from Carr’s deck used to be a hillside, he said. When MCA razed the hill and erected a parking lot down the slope from Carr’s house, he and others fought for and won an agreement to plant grass and fully grown trees to hide most of the concrete.

“We live in a city and we live next to a studio,” Carr said. “They have been willing to talk and if they continue that, they will be doing a good thing.”

He agreed that some in his neighborhood are not so forgiving. There are a few people who have refused to talk to him since the last round of negotiations for the greenbelt, calling him a sellout.

Patrons at the Good Neighbor Restaurant on Cahuenga Boulevard, whom the owner greets by name at the door, worry that Universal is not interested in being a good neighbor.

“Every now and again they throw a crumb to the people who live here and send a coupon or something,” said Don Vuday, who has lived on Lankershim Boulevard for 23 years. “It’s just a monolith that’s mooning the public.”