Former Foes Unite Behind a Proposal to Turn Old Reservoir Site Into Park

A onetime city reservoir in northeast Los Angeles with picturesque views of the downtown skyline may soon become a public nature preserve under a plan gaining momentum among politicians, parks officials and urban environmentalists.

Conservationists and community groups have long squabbled over plans for the Ascot Hills, an oasis of rolling grasslands bordering the communities of El Sereno and Hillside Village. Environmentalists and students at adjacent Wilson High School repudiated plans to turn part of the land into a sports complex four years ago, pointing out that pristine hillsides would be sliced to level the land for soccer fields and baseball diamonds.

But many of those same groups are now unifying behind a proposal to have the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy manage the city-owned land, adding a park ranger, building nature trails and restoring the area’s former flora and fauna.

“L.A. has less park space than any big city in the country. We’ve got to preserve more open space for passive as well as active parks,” said Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, who held a town hall meeting on the idea last week and found strong support. “This is the largest piece of undeveloped open space left on the Eastside that is not already dedicated as parkland.”

The proposal to convert the land into a 100-acre park, which would require $3 million in state bond funding, would represent the further eastward expansion of the ever-growing conservancy, whose holdings have spread down from the mountains and into the northeast Los Angeles portion of the Los Angeles River in recent years. The conservancy hopes to replant “little ecosystems of oaks” along the largely barren hillsides and also reintroduce native grasses to reinvigorate the area’s natural character, said Stephanie Landregan, its chief landscape architect.

“We tend to think of the Santa Monica Mountains when we talk about the mountains surrounding Los Angeles, but when you look east of the city, there are hills there, too, and they are largely untouched aside from a few radio towers,” said the conservancy’s executive director, Joe Edmiston. “When you get up to the top [of the Ascot Hills], it is an absolutely stunning view of downtown, absolutely stunning. It will be very, very popular with hikers and mountain bikers.”

The Ascot Hills received their name from the former Legion Ascot Speedway, which was Los Angeles’ most popular auto racetrack during the 1920s and 1930s. Part of the land where the preserve would be located was once an open city reservoir. The Department of Water and Power still maintains an underground water tank on the site.

Though the DWP was not always the best steward of the land, and much of the native vegetation was stripped away long ago, it spared the Ascot Hills from development. Conservationists say the hills now represent an exciting opportunity to bring nature back to a heavily urbanized area. In fact, they already serve as a wildlife sanctuary of sorts for hawks and other animals, and several neighboring schools use it as part of environmental awareness programs.

“It’s a good use for the land,” Lynette Kampe, executive director of the group Northeast Trees, said of a nature preserve. “If you can restore what used to be there, it has a lot more value as a teaching site.”

“When you are in an urbanized area like Los Angeles, any time you can save a hillside, say hallelujah,” added Melanie Winter of the conservation group the River Project

Attorney Robert Garcia, executive director of the Center for Law in the Public Interest, which has represented the Anahuak Youth Soccer Assn. in its battle for more playfields, said soccer aficionados also support maintaining the hills as a nature spot instead of a sports complex because of the area’s relatively unspoiled character.

The conservancy and the city this week will submit paperwork asking state officials for money from Proposition 40, a $2.6-billion statewide parks bond approved by voters in 2002, to finance the land’s conversion. However, officials said the project will face stiff competition from other proposals -- including city plans to build soccer fields at Taylor Yard northeast of downtown.

Nonetheless, supporters argue that all of the Los Angeles urban parks projects should receive funding, noting that their cost is a mere fraction of what the state spent to acquire the Ahmanson Ranch and the Ballona Wetlands in more affluent parts of Southern California.

“All Los Angeles is park poor. But in East L.A. itself, the largest open space is Evergreen Cemetery, which basically sends a message to kids: ‘If you want open space, you have to die first,’ ” Garcia said. “People have been talking about this site for 30 years. There is no community opposition [to the latest plan]. Now the big question is whether the governor will support it.”