Land Trust Formed to Build and Run Parks

Citing statistics that Los Angeles ranks last among major cities in per capita open space, a coalition of private and public organizations announced plans Tuesday to form a nonprofit urban land trust to develop and manage neighborhood parks.

“Everybody in L.A. deserves to have a park within walking distance,” said Councilman Eric Garcetti, who co-chaired the Urban Land Trust Task Force with Councilman Ed Reyes. “What this trust would do is to democratize the parks in our city, and invite community groups into the design, maintenance and construction of parks. We are turning the smallest lots into jewels in the center of the city.”

“We are talking about bringing together private, public and government entities to explore how we can be creative about our land use,” said Jerilyn Lopez Mendoza, of Environmental Defense.

The group released a report Tuesday, “Walking to the Park,” outlining how an urban land trust might be formed to serve the city.

If the organizers behind the new land trust get their way, the “emerald necklace” of small city parks proposed for Los Angeles by the sons of famed 19th century urban planner Frederick Law Olmsted may finally be realized in Los Angeles’ urban core.

Much of the land trust’s focus will be on the city’s poorest areas. The National Recreation and Parks Assn. recommends that a city offer 10 acres of park space per 1,000 residents. According to Environmental Defense, the five poorest of Los Angeles’ City Council districts have just 0.455 acres of park space per 1,000 residents.

Creating neighborhood-based parks and gardens is a primary recommendation for the new land trust, said Misty Sanford, author of the Environmental Defense report. “We are trying to hand over the control to the community groups and organizations on the ground who are in the community on a daily basis.”

According to Environmental Defense, a number of methods will be used for land acquisition--including conservation easements, full-market purchases and arrangements in which landowners might donate unsalable property to the land trust. Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and New York all have similar land trusts.

Mendoza said she expects that funding for the land trust will come from a combination of private and public funding. The Ford Foundation financed the initial study, and Garcetti has directed the city’s chief legislative officer to explore ways to supply some of the land trust’s start-up costs.

On Tuesday, the nonprofit urban land trust received Mayor James K. Hahn’s endorsement during a morning ceremony at the Rosewood Community Garden in Hollywood, and later in the day, two key City Council committees asked the city attorney and the Planning Department to begin assembling a list of surplus properties that might be turned over to the trust. A goal was set, Garcetti said, to create five pocket parks in the next year.

Sanford, who has been working since the task force first met in April, welcomes the strong support the plan has received from city government--especially because it seems to go against the status quo.

“There has been a top-down model of agencies making decisions about land” in Los Angeles, she said. This new model, she said, “is something outside the way the city usually does things.”

The complete text of “Walking to the Park” is available on the Environmental Defense Web site, www.environmentaldefense.org.