Universal Is a Growing Nuisance to Neighbors : Expansion plans promise to exacerbate the noise and intrusion created by the huge entertainment facility. Traffic and crime are certain to worsen too.

I strongly protest the expansion of MCA Inc.’s entertainment complex atop the hill in Universal City. I feel certain my sentiments are shared by most of my neighbors and residents of the neighboring communities.

I bought my home here in Toluca Lake, a then-peaceful, green and gracious, somewhat countrified-feeling neighborhood, nearly 19 years ago. At the time, it was on the outside edge of what my budget would allow, but with great optimism about my career (in a somewhat precarious business), I plunged ahead anyway. Thankfully, I have been able to sustain myself here.

It is my dream home--an old Spanish house set on an acre of land, with gardens which I tend myself as time permits. I have been able to open it to friends and family for weddings, for holiday gatherings, for happy occasions and sad. My mother came to spend the last weeks of her life, and died within its walls. I have invested tremendous emotion and tremendous resources here.

It was my intention to stay forever, even though it is more space than I now need. It still is my castle, my hobby, my happy home that I love to share with friends. The neighborhood has continued to be green and gracious. It is my shelter from the stormy world out there.

Or, rather, it was.

The stormy world, in the ever-present form of Universal Studios and Tours, has little by little been forcing itself over my wall, into my garden, through my windows and into the peace of my hearth and home, until it is a constant and growing disturbance to my life, a daily annoyance and blood-pressure booster.

It began subtly more than 15 years ago, when we heard in the distance the “Hulk” roaring at fans from up on top of the hill. But we heard him as clearly as if he were a guest at our Fourth of July barbecue. Maybe we didn’t complain loudly enough or soon enough.

The noise and intrusion have increased over the years, and I have no doubt that if the proposed expansion of the Universal properties is approved, it will grow worse and worse, further changing the already-changed complexion of our neighborhood, destroying our property values so that even if we finally buckled and were forced to move on, we wouldn’t receive what we should for our homes.

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One Sunday afternoon last summer season I tried to work in my garden but found myself growing so irritated and angry from the intrusion of loud music, speaker announcements, crowd cheers and so on that I said to hell with it and decided to go for a walk to get away from the noise.

(I couldn’t get away from it by going inside, because I could still hear it inside, just as I always can on summer nights when people in distant parts of the city are enjoying the warm evenings with their doors and windows open. I have to close my windows and turn the television up.)

So I set out along Valley Spring Lane, up Ledge, along Moorpark to Clybourne, circled back around Toluca Lake, back to Valley Spring Lane and home. In all those blocks, moving farther away from the golf course and from the hilltop, I never escaped the noise.

I am fearful of the encroaching traffic and related problems, of the increase in crime and house break-ins in our neighborhood, which is the first residential street the gang of kids comes to when it leaves Universal for neighborhoods north. I have already witnessed the effect the noise has had on friends whose house was on the market with an offer withdrawn when the buyers visited on a noisy afternoon.

The double murders in the parking structure on Mother’s Day, it turns out, were not gang related. But obviously the killer chose that spot because it seemed to present a safe opportunity to commit a violent attack.

Unless you have lived in a similar situation, you have no idea how upsetting, how annoying and frustrating, this constant reminder of Universal’s encroachment into our lives can be. I am sure the city and the county stand to benefit economically from the proposed expansion. But the benefits come at the price of a flagrant disregard for individual rights to peace and privacy and the security of their homes.

I have gone up to the top of the hill, trying to determine which shows are the loudest offenders. Speakers are at such unnecessarily high levels that I don’t know how their visitors can stand it. With or without the expansion, these annoyances are not likely to change.

Good, honest people need to give the issues honest, compassionate thought. This is not fair to the thousands of citizens whose lives are being disrupted daily by Universal’s activities.