Planners Envision Patches of Green in East Hollywood

City planners and local environmentalists want to transform at least 50 east Hollywood vacant lots into “pocket parks” over the next decade as an ambitious test of whether the concept can be employed one day across all of Los Angeles.

The proposal is contained in a Department of City Planning report on economic development and beautification of east Hollywood. The open space concept represents a departure from what officials called a long-standing practice of requiring that new parks be at least 5,000 square feet.

“We could try to build a five-acre traditional park with eminent domain, but we’d end up taking out so much affordable housing that it would be seen as a villainous act,” City Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg said at a news conference Tuesday. “We’ve got more than our quota of concrete. It’s time we got a little grass under our toes.”

Planners use the term pocket parks to describe tiny green spaces between buildings in densely populated areas.

The report, which will be discussed at a City Planning Commission hearing Thursday, asks the City Council to create a “Parks First Trust Fund” that would take in public money, acquire land and make improvements to such pocket parks.

Goldberg said the fund also could solicit donations of land and money from developers, perhaps in exchange for community approval of any new plans for market-rate housing. The councilwoman estimated the total cost of creating 50 new pocket parks at $10 million to $15 million.

The targeted area is a densely populated two-square-mile section of the Vermont Avenue corridor along the Red Line subway route. It extends from Franklin Avenue on the north to 3rd Street on the south and from Virgil Avenue on the east to the Hollywood Freeway on the west.

It is populated by growing communities of Thai, Russian, Korean and South American immigrants, and 90% of the estimated 50,000 residents live in apartments. City maps show no neighborhood parks, no community pools and no recreation centers in the area.

Resident Edith Narvaez said she lives in an apartment and regularly takes her four children on a half-hour bus ride to a park off Beverly Boulevard. Total round trip cost for the family: $10.80.

Ana Rivera, 27, weary of drives to Griffith Park, has reluctantly consented to let her 8-year-old son Lito use Lockwood Avenue as his playground.

“I agree the street is dangerous,” she said, “but what else do we have?”

In a survey, city planners found a possible solution--88 vacant or abandoned lots that might be suitable for pocket parks.

The planners’ report also calls for a new soccer field on Santa Monica Boulevard and for adding narrow strips of grass and walkways beside 15 to 30 blocks of existing roads. Under the plan, community groups would be responsible for maintaining the new park space.

City officials cautioned that the plan is new and faces several obstacles, including approval from the City Council and mayor. The city has yet to check the vacant properties for tax delinquency and environmental contamination that could slow, if not stop, park conversions.

The area’s soon-to-be-formed neighborhood council, created by charter reform, could eventually weigh in, and some older residents expressed concern on Tuesday that the parks could become magnets for trash and crime.

The city refused to identify the addresses and owners of the 88 parcels, citing the need to be sensitive to the landholders. Supporters of the plan say they are worried that property owners could emerge as a vocal opposition.

That concern wasn’t raised during Tuesday’s news conference by Goldberg and Angela Johnson Meszaros, executive director of the California League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, a key backer of the pocket park concept.

With a clear view of downtown L.A. behind them, Goldberg and Meszaros stood in front of a vacant lot on Mariposa Avenue that they said is an example of the kind of land they were looking for.

Left unmentioned was that the Mariposa lot is just outside the east Hollywood area targeted for pocket parks and thus would be ineligible for money from the proposed trust fund. City officials said they didn’t use a real park site because they feared tipping off land speculators, and because they thought TV cameras would prefer a lot with a view.