City, Army Corps to Fund Improvement Projects at 2 Parks : Recreation: The agreements call for major additions at both Hansen Dam in Lake View Terrace and the Sepulveda Basin.

LAKE VIEW TERRACE — The city of Los Angeles and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have signed two multimillion-dollar cooperative agreements launching major park improvements at Hansen Dam and the Sepulveda Basin.

At a groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday, officials with the Army Corps and city Department of Recreation and Parks signed an agreement to share the cost of a long-awaited $10-million revitalization project at Hansen Dam Recreation Center in Lake View Terrace.

Last week, the Army Corps and the city signed another agreement splitting the cost of a $10-million expansion of athletic fields and nature preserves in the Sepulveda Basin, the Valley’s largest recreational area.

The Hansen Dam project, which will take two years to complete, includes construction of a 1 1/2-acre swimming lake and nine-acre boating and fishing lake in the northwestern section of the park, expanded equestrian trails and new picnic and parking areas. Concessions, such as snack bars and a batting cage, may also be brought in to raise money to pay for increased expanded Park Ranger service and security patrols.

A local homeowners’ group and city park officials are also discussing whether to levy a $5 admission fee for adults to pay for park maintenance and security.

The Hansen project returns a major recreation facility to east San Fernando Valley residents who recall fishing, canoeing and picnicking at the former 120-acre Holiday Lake, which gave Lake View Terrace its name.

The former lake was a major recreational attraction that not only served the community, but attracted visitors from throughout the region for about 25 years. But severe rains and floods in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s choked Holiday Lake to death with silt and sand from the Tujunga washes and forced residents to pull their boats out and shelve their tackle.

Without the vibrant lake attraction, the park fell into disrepair and became a haven for gangs and the homeless. More recently, a gravel dirt patch near the park’s main entrance became painfully wedged in the consciousness of Angelenos as the site of Rodney G. King’s beating and was dubbed “King’s Corner” by locals.

Wednesday’s ceremony was imbued with a particular poignancy for many members of the predominantly black and Latino surrounding communities, whose residents have waited for the project for years.

“Back in my day, we used Hansen Dam as a family place. Pacoima was a family neighborhood,” said Tom Montgomery, a 73-year-old Pacoima resident who attended the ceremony. “We’ve been long-neglected. Look at the dollars they pour into the Sepulveda Basin. They’ve got lakes, and those people can afford swimming pools in their own back yards! This will help our community.”

Under the agreement, the Army Corps, which owns the land because it is a federally protected flood plain, will put up $5 million, funds authorized by Congress after years of prodding by Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City). Berman made restoration of the lake a campaign promise when he was elected to the House.

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Berman authored federal legislation in 1986 that expanded the role of the Army Corps from flood control to include recreation projects, and raised about $1.5 million through sales of silt and other materials dredged from the dam’s basin.

The city will match the federal funds with $5 million in Proposition A funds used for parks development.

“My first two children know about Hansen Dam the way it used to be,” said Valerie Moody, a Pacoima resident who lives within walking distance of the dam. “But my youngest doesn’t. The other two remember their grandma going fishing here. . . . This was a real neighborhood back then,” Moody said.

“I’ll be starting a whole new generation on fishing and hiking and swimming, it looks like,” Moody said. “It’s been a long time coming. It was something here that was beautiful and they let it die out.”

Ruth Villalobos, chief of the Army Corps’ district environmental resources branch, said the two lakes will be next to each other, separated by an embankment designed to maintain high-quality filtered and chlorinated water in the swimming lake. The lakes will be built on a bluff in the park, directly south of Foothill Boulevard. The higher ground was chosen to protect it from flooding.

Villalobos said original plans calling for a much larger lake have not been dropped. The Army Corps is studying the possibility of building a 70-acre lake below the two new ones.

“We don’t have the funding yet,” Villalobos said. “We’re estimating the 70-acre lake would cost somewhere between $30 (million) and $40 million.”

Officials said no funding source of that magnitude has been identified.

“You’re not likely to see two $10-million agreements between the Corps and the city of Los Angeles--signed in the same two weeks--in a lifetime,” said Fred-Otto Egeler, a spokesman for the Army Corps. “It was purely coincidence. But it’s a great coincidence for the city of Los Angeles.”