Let Greenery Win One

Los Angeles needs few things less than another parking lot. So city officials should think carefully before accepting a politically connected auto dealer’s bid to lease eight acres at the north end of the Van Nuys Airport and turn them into a lot to park 1,600 cars waiting to be sold at a nearby dealership.

Ordinarily, the kind of deal proposed by Galpin Ford owner Bert Boeckmann would be a good one: $200,000 a year for a tract not much good for other money-making enterprises. Except that for the past two decades, the land has proven to be good for the Van Nuys Airport Garden Club, a casual collection of 60 families growing everything from sunflowers to romaine lettuce. Leasing the lot to Boeckmann of course would mean digging up the garden.

The community gardeners certainly can’t compete with Boeckmann’s offer on financial terms. But they offer a much better--though less bankable--quality-of-life deal in a city starved for green open places. The garden at Van Nuys Airport provides one of those rare opportunities for Southern California residents to defy the dividing forces of race and class and act like a community, sweating together over artichokes and okra under the whine of departing planes. It’s tough to put a price tag on that, but it’s probably worth more than $200,000 a year.

Supporters of the parking lot argue the garden can find a home elsewhere. If that’s true, then so can the parking lot; it’s easier to spread asphalt than to start a garden over. For once, it would be nice to see a little green win out over more blacktop.