Property Owners Vow to Fight MTA in Court

They stormed out of the meeting vowing to take their fight against the subway tunneling project to the courts. And by Thursday dozens of Hollywood Hills property owners began gathering their legal stones and slings to prepare for battle against Goliath--the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

“As far as all of us are concerned, we’d like the project to be stopped,” said Mark Hennessy, who has lived in his Multiview Drive home for eight years.

“But if it’s going to go through, let’s at least be decently compensated for the value of the house and if any damage should occur,” he said. “I just want what’s fair.”

What’s fair is the issue between the homeowners and the MTA.

Hennessy is among more than a dozen Hollywood Hills residents who have already met with an attorney to discuss their possible arguments against the MTA in an effort to obtain what they consider fair compensation for access to the land 200 to 700 feet below their homes.

The MTA has already purchased the rights to tunnel under 22 properties--situated directly above the tunnel route--for $1,000 to $2,000 per homeowner. Hennessy is one of the 72 property owners who rebuffed the agency.

Thursday, MTA attorneys began preparing papers for condemnation lawsuits against those homeowners, as directed by the MTA’s board of directors. The board ordered the seizures under the city’s power of eminent domain in a 12-1 vote Wednesday night, as homeowners at the meeting protested vociferously.

The MTA plans to file the complaints in sections, starting with property at the northern end nearest the construction alignment and heading south. The 2.6-mile tunnel will pierce the Santa Monica Mountains in the Cahuenga Pass area, linking Universal City with Hollywood.

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The condemnation actions employ the city’s power to seize an underground easement--the right to tunnel under residents’ homes--but does not apply to the residences themselves or land on the surface.

The first batch of complaints will be filed next week in Superior Court, MTA spokesman Steve Chesser said.

Also, the agency will deposit $144,000 with the court, which represents the $2,000 settlement still being offered for the 72 holdout properties. Chesser said MTA attorneys also will ask a judge to grant a three-day order for immediate possession of the subsurface property beneath the hillside residences. If granted, workers can begin tunneling three days after homeowners are served formal notice papers.

Once served with the complaints, homeowners will have 30 days to accept the MTA’s money offer, answer the condemnation complaint by calling for more money for the easements, or ignore the agency’s notice, said Kevin Brogan, an attorney specializing in condemnation lawsuits.

If the homeowners challenge the MTA’s settlement agreement and win, they could receive far more than the $2,000 the agency initially offered, Brogan said. The MTA could also settle out of court with the property owners.

In condemnation cases the MTA filed against property owners during the construction of its first Red Line segment downtown, pretrial settlements and jury trials cost the agency three times the value of its original offers.

Regardless of what the property owners eventually receive, the MTA can still move ahead with the tunneling, Chesser said.

The homeowners, however, can also fight the MTA’s right to take possession of the land, said Brogan, who will represent more than a dozen people who did not take the MTA’s initial offer.

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Whatever happens, homeowners say, it will be an emotional struggle and no settlement will ease their concerns on the safety of their property, the drop in the value of their homes and the possible ecological damage that tunneling could cause, especially by reducing the amount of water in the subsoil.

“I didn’t want to get a lawyer, because we were really hoping that with the voice of reason and enough people we could band together and try to stop it,” said Blue Andre, a homeowner and active opponent of the tunneling plan.

Andre and a group of about five other homeowners have been working since last January to organize property owners against the tunneling project. Now there’s no choice but to fight it out in court, Andre said.

“We’re certainly going to seek lawyers. We’re not going to sit down like this,” Andre said. “We’re going to meet with some attorneys and we’re going to seek an injunction to stop it. I’m ready to throw my body on the tracks to stop this.”