Tenants Upset by MTA Plan to Take Their Shangri-La

To the studio people, it has been Shangri-La: a small row of apartment buildings tucked away on an island defined by the Hollywood Freeway, the Los Angeles River and Universal Studios.

Over the years, it has developed a special character as animators, film editors, sound technicians and actors moved in to take advantage of the one-block commute to the world’s largest movie studio.

But now it’s doomed.

The complex of about 25 buildings on Willowcrest Avenue has been targeted by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority for the future North Hollywood Metro Red Line station, scheduled to open in the year 2000. And its residents, who estimate their number at about 200, find themselves cast adrift in the twilight zone of eminent domain.

The residents say they learned almost two years ago that they would have to move. But they say the MTA won’t tell them when.

“We just want to know where we can predict our lives to be in a year from now,” said Britton Payne, a resident who is a personal trainer for people at Universal Studios.

Payne and dozens of her neighbors clamored in vain for answers Thursday when a team of MTA officials held a four-hour open house on the future transit station site to establish formal relations with the community.

Signaling that the 10-year-old plan for the station is at last warming up, the transit agency plans to open a field office July 7 at 3939 Lankershim Blvd., one of the 10 commercial properties scheduled for demolition.

MTA Public Affairs Manager Arthur Gomez led the delegation, bringing along several associates plus a gallery of aerial photos, maps, color brochures, cardboard fold-up Metro cars for the kids and a selection of pastries and soft drinks.

The residents accepted the hospitality, but generally went away as angry as when they came.

“Surprise, they’ve got a lot of food for us,” actress Lorna Scott told one of her neighbors. “But the people that know the answers and don’t want us to know, they’re not going to show up.”

Jim Wiley, the MTA’s manager of real estate, said in a telephone interview Friday that it is impossible to tell tenants individually when they will be contacted to begin relocation negotiations. However, he said, the first contacts will probably be by August and the last tenant may not move until next June.

The MTA is required to pay relocation benefits, which include moving costs and a 42-month subsidy based on the difference between each tenant’s current rent and comparable rents in the area.

Some of the tenants are counting on the money to help them buy homes, but cannot look seriously until they know how much they will get and when, Scott said.

Most of the residents were simply depressed about losing what they consider to be one of the last great rental deals.

The out-of-the-way community has only two access routes. It has a virtually private park-- South Weddington--and a bank and a post office within walking distance. And rents are low--as little as $350 for a two-bedroom unit--because tenants seldom move.

“The biggest thing of all is that it’s a social little community,” said Payne, who has lived there 15 years. “ . . . We really know how to look after each other a lot.”

“Just think about coming home and there’s a note saying ‘Please call me in the next day or two to talk about your moving out,’ ” said animator Michael Foley, who said he is the leader of a Neighborhood Watch group dubbed the South Weddington Attack Team.

Foley said some tenants are still hoping the whole thing will just go away, as it has always seemed to do in the past 10 years of studies and public hearings.

“I’ll tell you, there’s a lot of denial in this neighborhood,” Foley told public affairs officer Robert Mooney, one of half a dozen MTA officials at the session.

Not everyone was angry about homes being taken. MTA officials also fielded anxious inquiries from owners of the nearby Universal Park condominiums, who are not currently on the agency’s purchase list, but want to be.