L.A. Unified Plan to Raze Garden Draws Protesters

Standing by the flower-packed garden that they have fussed over for the past five years, community organizers Wednesday protested school district plans to bulldoze the central city site for more classrooms.

The garden plot and adjacent 1920s-era apartment building are owned by the Los Angeles Unified School District, which says it needs the land to expand an adjacent grade school.

But at a news conference, members of the nonprofit Eco-Village Center insisted that the district could have its extra classroom space without sacrificing a community project born in the aftermath of the 1992 riots.

“They are not looking at alternatives,” said village Executive Director Lois Arkin, who says that the district simply has to rearrange school parking to gain the room it needs to expand the White House Place Primary Center, a school for kindergarten through grade two that serves one of the city’s most densely populated sectors.

The organic garden, at the corner of White House and Bimini places, is the most visible of the group’s efforts to promote a sense of community and environmental awareness in the working-class neighborhood of apartment buildings.

The center also has organized neighborhood potlucks and cleanups. Its parent organization, the Cooperative Resources and Services Project, recently bought a 40-unit apartment complex across the street with the intention of converting the units into affordable cooperative housing.

School district spokesman Erik Nasarenko said alternatives to razing the corner site have been considered and rejected as too expensive or too short-term. For example, the parking lot Arkin wants converted to classroom space has already been earmarked for future school expansion needs, he said.

He added that the district intends to find another plot in the neighborhood where a community garden can be cultivated.