Homeowners, City Set for Tunnel Fight With MTA

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is headed for a showdown with the city of Los Angeles and Hollywood Hills homeowners this week over tunneling in the Santa Monica Mountains, after a year of debate has failed to resolve a disagreement over whether underground blasting for the Red Line subway will ruin popular Runyon Canyon Park and nearby houses.

The MTA has made at least two attempts to compromise with the city Department of Recreation and Parks and homeowners in the past three months over the amount the transportation agency should pay for the right to dig under their properties.

The city and the homeowners, however, have so far declined MTA offers, leaving them millions of dollars apart.

Time is running out for negotiations, since the MTA has said that if easements are not acquired by the time two tunnel-boring machines are ready to roll in April, the agency will be obligated to pay its contractor $90,000 a day for no work.

As a result, the MTA Board of Directors may be forced at Wednesday’s meeting to condemn the underground easements and face the city and homeowners in court. This process, known as an eminent domain action, would allow the MTA to proceed with the project as scheduled while the value of each easement is decided by juries.

Today, Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, an MTA board member whose supervisorial district includes the Runyon Canyon area, is expected to introduce a proposal that could break the stalemate. Details of the plan were not released Sunday, and any plan would require MTA board approval.

In an example of the futility of the negotiations so far, city and MTA executives were scheduled to meet more than two weeks ago, but a communications lapse left them each waiting at their respective offices for the other side to show up, a source said.

The main dispute centers on whether the MTA should have to pay the city and homeowners in advance for possible damage to structures and the mountains as a result of building a tunnel from Universal City to Hollywood. The MTA believes that it should pay only $2,000 for each underground easement now, and pay for real damage if it occurs.

Staff at the city Department of Recreation and Parks, however, have belittled the $2,000 MTA offer for the easement under Runyon Canyon Park as a “slap in the face.” Park commissioners have demanded instead that the MTA mitigate potential damage to the historic park by purchasing 110 acres of nearby open space from three private landowners--then turn it over to the city for parkland. The land has been estimated to be worth $4.5 million to $5.5 million.

The reason: An analysis prepared for the department by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy determined that MTA tunneling and blasting “presents an enormous gamble to the integrity of the mountains” because miners will be forced to pump out 7 million gallons of water a day for years.

The 110 acres would amount to an insurance policy, guaranteeing the public a new place to hike in chaparral-covered hillsides.

In its most recent compromise offer, the MTA proposed in a letter to the Board of Recreation and Parks Commission that it would create a trust fund of $4 million that would stay in place for five years after the completion of the tunnel.

The letter, signed by MTA Real Estate Director Velma C. Marshall, said the money would be available to “assure that any damage to parkland resulting from construction of the tunnel is immediately remediated.”

The letter added that the MTA’s environmental consultants considered such adverse impacts “unlikely.”

The letter did not persuade Steven Soboroff, president of the parks commission.

“Our offer is non-negotiable--it is very fair,” he said. “In fact, if I had to do it over again, I might have made our conditions even stronger.”

The MTA’s offer to the 96 people who own property directly above the tunnel alignment likewise centers on the notion of insurance.

In a document signed by Ronny J. Goldsmith, the agency’s chief financial officer, the MTA proposes to create a $10-million insurance program that would cover the 96 property owners for direct physical damage arising from tunnel construction.

The proposal calls for immediately handling claims of up to $200 and working out claims between $200 to $10,000 through a dispute-resolution procedure.

The MTA proposes to create a three-person panel, including a community representative, a property claims specialist and an engineer, architect or contractor, to meet once a month to hear claims.

Kevin Brogan, a condemnation attorney representing 12 of the homeowners, called the insurance offer “vague.”

Los Angeles City Council President John Ferraro has tried to assist homeowners and protect the park by asking for a halt to construction until the MTA supplements its original environmental impact report with research that reconsiders the potential damage dewatering might inflict on the area’s ecology.

MTA construction executive Stanley Phernambu has dismissed Ferraro’s concern, saying that the original EIR did consider ecological issues.

The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, however, insists that the MTA has not thoroughly examined the dewatering issues.

John A. Diaz, the conservancy’s land acquisition chief, said the MTA’s 1983 final environmental impact report contains “zero analysis” of the potential tunneling impact on Runyon Canyon.

The MTA’s thick supplemental report filed in 1989, he said, included just 239 words on Runyon Canyon. The report devotes just 84 words to a discussion of dewatering, he said, noting that it concludes with: “The Metro Rail Project will avoid potential adverse impacts on urban flora caused by a lowered water table.”