City May Sell Surplus Land to Reduce Brush Fees

Faced with a price tag of nearly $1 million to clear brush from city-owned properties, a Los Angeles City Council panel recommended Monday studying the sale of surplus land to reduce future bills.

About 1,200 of the city’s 8,000 properties are in the Mountain Fire District and about 200 remain to be cleared, many of them in the Santa Monica Mountains, with the total cost approaching $1 million, said Assistant Fire Chief Al Hernandez.

“Do we need to own all of these properties?” asked Councilwoman Laura Chick, chairwoman of the council’s Public Safety Committee.

The panel asked the General Services Department on Monday to identify all surplus property, and estimate the sales price, along with the cost of keeping the land.

“We’re at a point now where we probably need to step [sales] up,” agreed Reginald Jones-Sawyer, an assets manager for the department.

Jones-Sawyer said it would take a year to inventory all 8,000 city-owned parcels, but Chick asked for a report in 30 days, charging that the city has known for months about the need to get a handle on the cost of maintaining a large portfolio of surplus land.

“I am dismayed, to say the least,” Chick said. “It doesn’t sound like terribly much has been done, short of spending significant taxpayer dollars to clear brush from properties that possibly the city can find a variety of ways to not be burdened by.”

The issue is politically touchy, because the city has sparked a storm of outrage by asking 180,000 private property owners to pay a $13 brush inspection fee.

Carl Olson of the United Organizations of Taxpayers told the committee that the city is not as quick to clear its own brush as it is to ask private property owners to act.

“The inspection and brush clearance for these [city] parcels seem to be lagging way behind residential inspections,” Olson said.

Hernandez said the 200 remaining city properties will be cleared in the next few weeks by contractors hired by the Fire Department.

Another resident complained about the fire hazard in Griffith Park, where the city is still in the process of fixing the water and fire hydrant system.

Chick and Councilman Mike Feuer said they would not be likely to support sales that would lead to more development in the hillsides.

“In my district, such sales are going to be few and far between, if they are to developers to be used for hillside development,” Feuer said.

Jones-Sawyer said some of the properties may be sold to adjacent property owners to maintain as open space, while others might go to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

Chick said she has doubts about turning city properties over to the conservancy, which has said it does not have the money and, as a state agency, is not required by city law to clear about 70 parcels it owns.

“We already have the situation with the conservancy where they clearly don’t have the funds to clear their property,” Chick said.