Accord Nears on MTA Tunneling Plan

In a blow to opponents of Metro Rail subway construction, the Los Angeles city parks department has tentatively decided to end its resistance to tunneling under Runyon Canyon Park in the Hollywood Hills and sell an underground easement to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The MTA will pay $150,000 for the subterranean pathway--about $5 million less than the parks department had called “nonnegotiable” only a month ago, but far more than the $1,000 originally offered.

The deal--brokered over the past week by County Supervisor and MTA board member Zev Yaroslavsky--included the promise of fast access to a $4-million trust fund to fix any damage that digging might cause to the popular hillside park, as well as an acknowledgment from the MTA that it will also be liable for damages in excess of that amount.

“We got what we needed,” said Steve Soboroff, Board of Recreation and Parks Commission president. Soboroff helped negotiate the accord, which will be presented for approval to the parks commission on March 6 and the MTA board on March 27.

Tunnel opponents expressed regret over the accord because the city had been a powerful ally in the fight against the MTA’s ambitious plans.

“We don’t feel happy about this. We think they should get more,” said Joseph T. Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which had provided the parks department with the scientific underpinning for its opposition so far.

The tentative agreement comes after a year and a half of strenuous debate over the value of easements directly under two 2.3-mile tunnels that will connect Red Line stations in Universal City and Hollywood.

The MTA has appraised the ribbon of dirt 200 to 800 feet below the Earth’s surface at a value of $1,000. Most private landowners in the ritzy hillside neighborhood, where houses sell for $300,000 to more than $1 million, have contended that the digging and blasting would diminish the value of their homes by up to 25%.

The city parks department had wanted even more, demanding that the MTA purchase three nearby parcels of open space for about $5 million as a sort of environmental insurance policy. Backing up their demand was an analysis prepared by the conservancy that suggested tunneling could drain water from the park and leave it barren.

With the start of tunneling only two months away, Yaroslavsky said Wednesday that he wanted to break the stalemate between the MTA and the parks department and prevent a condemnation lawsuit that could end up costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“A payment of several million dollars was just not in the cards,” Yaroslavsky said. “The last thing we needed was for two public agencies to sue each other and expend all those additional funds for nothing.”