L.A. Blooms Again as Citizens Dig In

Whenever Daniel Preciado buys plants for his Mt. Olympus yard, he picks up a few extra, treks down to the Laurel Canyon Boulevard median strip and sticks them in the ground.

The median is public land denuded a few years ago by a utility construction project. But thanks to the private efforts of Preciado and a few of his neighbors, the dusty strip is beginning to bloom with lilies, verbena and agapanthus globes.

“Laurel Canyon is so congested,” Preciado said. “It puts you in a better mood if you see something beautiful rather than blocks and blocks of dirt.”

As Los Angeles’ landscaping and maintenance budget has shriveled, people like Preciado have stepped forward with spade and shovel to chase away barrenness and dinginess.

Whether they are running private irrigation lines down the hill to nurture sapling oaks in the Hollywood Hills, planting trees along a grungy stretch of boulevard in Venice or tending flower beds in Mt. Olympus, residents and nonprofit organizations have taken over a significant share of public landscaping duties.

So much so, that if you see a recently planted tree on a sidewalk or in a park in Los Angeles, chances are it wasn’t put there by city crews.

“We used to plant about 3,000 trees a year. Now we plant less than 1,000,” said George Gonzalez, street tree superintendent with the Los Angeles Department of Public Works. “But in the last four or five years we have been getting a lot of assistance from a lot of community groups.”

He estimates that nonprofit organizations such as the Los Angeles Conservation Corps, and neighborhood groups are now planting 4,000 trees annually in Los Angeles, as well as maintaining them in their early years.

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The self-appointed citizen caretakers sometimes wonder why it has fallen to them to spruce up public byways. But government budget crises have trained them well. Between 1989 and 1995, the city’s tree maintenance and planting budget was slashed about a third. It has been years since the city had a budget for refurbishing median strips. Residents know that if they don’t do it, the strips will remain weedy and ugly, the sidewalks treeless.

The lack of city services may be “a bit disappointing,” said Gary Nestra, whose homeowners association has coordinated a tree-planting project along Outpost and Mulholland drives. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t muster your forces. It’s easier to do it than it is to complain about it.”

Working with the nonprofit group Hollywood Beautification, which supplied most of the trees, the Outpost Estates Homeowners’ Assn. has planted 140 native oaks along winding curbs and slopes, and intends to do more.

It has been a surprisingly gratifying experience for Nestra, who after 30 years in the neighborhood had grown cynical about community involvement and originally opposed the project.

“I thought everyone in the hills was involved with their privacy and their non-commitment,” said Nestra, one of about 25 residents who run irrigation lines from their yards to water nearby young oaks.

“However, it worked,” he said. “We’ve actually gotten donations. Donations!”

In her 17 years of working for City Councilman John Ferraro, field deputy Mary Presby has witnessed more and more such efforts. She suggests that they are not simply motivated by government budget woes.

“People feel a sense of power if they can beautify their environment. . . . It’s a way to touch base with others through a common goal,” Presby said. “And I think we’re all hungry for that.”

Edward Blakely, dean of the USC School of Urban Planning and Development, sees a value in the community projects well beyond the physical transformation of grubby cityscapes.

“I think we’re going to have to do more of this,” he said. “The issue is not cleaning up. The issue is ownership, pride in the community. Even if we had the money, I think this is far more effective.”

It can also be maddening.

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Consider the four years it took the Franklin Hills Residents Assn. to get city permission to landscape an asphalt-covered median strip on Franklin Avenue in Los Feliz. The project wasn’t even going to cost the city money. The thousands of dollars of planting and irrigation work was done almost entirely at the organization’s expense.

“It wasn’t like anybody was out to get us,” recalled Don Waldrop, the association’s board chairman. “But there are so many rules.”

When Yolanda Becerra-Jones’ neighborhood group sought a permit to plant trees along Lincoln Boulevard in Venice, she said, she ran into territory battles between Caltrans, which has jurisdiction over Lincoln, and the city. “I don’t think we should be expected to be caught up in their little problems,” she sighed.

After several homeowner groups banded together to plant flower boxes in the Laurel Canyon median strip, the city sprinklers were turned off for weeks. Everything withered.

“It really looked awful. We called the city a couple of times and they didn’t act as quickly as they should have,” Preciado said.

Disillusionment set in. Most of his neighbors have refused to pour additional money or effort into the project. But Preciado and some others persevered. They raised more money, did more planting--and still have a lot more to do.

In Venice, frustrations over bureaucracy were all but forgotten when the tree truck rumbled into sight on planting day.

“It was like a movie star was coming to town,” Becerra-Jones chuckled.

Becerra-Jones, beautification chair of the Lincoln Corridor Community Watch, went door to door asking businesses for permission to plant the trees, and for their help in maintaining them.

Some of the immigrant owners initially greeted her with suspicion. But ultimately most agreed. During the first round of planting six weeks ago, about 150 local residents and shopkeepers showed up, along with members of the nonprofit Los Angeles Conservation Corps, to heft picks and ease 19 gold medallion trees into the freshly dug ground.

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In an arrangement typical of these community ventures, the Venice group covered the cost of the $50-a-piece tree well covers, the local City Council office donated $500 and the Conservation Corps supplied trees.

Like other beautification groups--TreePeople, Northeast Trees and Hollywood Beautification--the corps receives funding grants from government sources at the federal, state and local levels.

Agreeing that there is “very much” an increase in community landscaping efforts, executive director Bruce Saito says the corps works with more than 50 neighborhood organizations a year.

In some cases, groups are digging deep into their own pockets to brighten things up. While the Hollywoodland Homeowners Assn. is getting some city funding, it is privately raising the lion’s share of the estimated $70,000 it will cost to create a plaza along Beachwood Drive.

“I think that’s what living in a civilization means,” said Marcia Smith, who is on the board of the foundation created to raise the funds. “You can’t sit back and expect someone to do everything for you.”