City Gets Land for Parks in Deal With Edison

For the grand sum of $1 per year, city officials have acquired a long-term lease on more than three acres of new park land.

In exchange for allowing Southern California Edison to build a storage facility elsewhere in town, city officials will take a swath of weed-strewn, broken-glass-littered dirt under massive power lines. Their plan: Turn it into two new parks, which officials said could be completed as soon as the end of the year.

Council members last week approved hiring a landscape architect to design the half-acre park on Walnut Avenue and the three-acre park on Washington Street between Mariposa and Holly avenues, said Greg Johnson, director of parks and recreation.

Though designs are not complete, no ball fields or play structures are planned for the land. Instead, they will likely be full of native plants and feature meandering walking paths and benches, Johnson said.