Businessman’s Garden Is Saved by Storms--for Now : Woodland Hills: When the rain ends, David Esser has four days to get rid of planters on a sliver of state-owned land in front of his business.

David Esser feels responsible for this week’s downpour.

He had desperately hoped for a rainstorm so state transportation officials would not be able to move dozens of planters filled with herbs and vegetables that he had placed on a sliver of state-owned land in front of his Woodland Hills business. And he got more than he bargained for.

Esser, owner of Gym for the Mind--a combination gym, chess parlor and library--on Topanga Canyon Boulevard, placed the planters full of mint, rosemary, thyme, carrots and spinach outside his business to create a community garden in 1990.

“Neighbors could come and take anything they want,” he said.

But after a neighbor complained to the California Department of Transportation in August that Esser was using state property for his personal benefit, he has fought to keep the 18-inch tall, two-foot-wide barrels on about a 10-foot-wide strip of grass that separates the street from the sidewalk.

Caltrans removed the planters from the strip in August but brought them back to Esser’s parking lot after being pressured by the office of state Sen. Gary Hart (D-Santa Barbara), said Jim McCullough, chief of permits for Caltrans.

Esser was told he would not be charged for their storage and return, but he later received a bill for $648.72 from the state. At that point, Esser defiantly put the barrels back on the parkway, rekindling the controversy.

Since then, McCullough has determined that Esser will not have to pay the bill.

Last week, the battle escalated when Caltrans told Esser that he had to move the barrels or the agency would move them for him--permanently.

Initially, Caltrans gave Esser five days to move the barrels, a deadline that would have arrived Feb. 7. But it rained that day, soaking the barrels and making them too heavy to move. So McCullough said the deadline was amended to four days once the rain ends.

Placing the barrels on state property is against regulations and could pose a safety hazard to motorists on Topanga Canyon Boulevard, McCullough said. “The barrels are an immovable barrier too close to the highway.”

Esser argued that the planter barrels protect pedestrians from being hit by out-of-control vehicles.

After he received the state’s ultimatum, Esser wrote to Gov. Pete Wilson, asking him to intervene. The governor’s office upheld Caltran’s decision, a spokesman said.

Now, Esser is looking for people interested in adopting the barrels. So far, no one has stepped forward.

“I would like to know they have a good home,” he said.

The garden had fans. Armanda Comacchio, manager of Topanga Pizza, two doors from Gym for the Mind, said she will be sorry to see the planters go. “I go down there and get rosemary for my baked chicken. It’s great.”

But not all the neighbors are in favor of the garden.

“This area of Topanga Canyon Boulevard doesn’t call for a garden on the lawn,” one business employee said.

Esser still believes his community garden could have united the neighborhood to fight bigger problems, such as crime, he said. His idea was that as people gathered to pick vegetables and herbs they would become friends and share information about the neighborhood.

The storm’s are a miracle, he said, because they are helping him buy time to find adoptees for the planters or to develop strategies to prevent them from being moved. But he’s also mindful that when the rain goes, his garden might too.