Since the day my wife and I moved into the Hellman neighborhood, I have been an advocate of open space. Living in one of the most overcrowded communities in Long Beach as well as one of the areas in the city with the worst access to parks, I and others were constantly seeking ideas to create more open space in the neighborhood. From the Armory Park proposal to the soon-to-be new pocket park on Orange Avenue, the cornerstone of our efforts was to uncover any opportunity to set aside some patch of grass for our communities. Using maps and statistical analysis, I could tell you where the most park-poor communities were located and was ready with ideas for tackling the problem. These included concepts big and small, straightforward and less straightforward, all generated in the hope that if enough ideas were thrown up against the wall, a few might “stick.” However, it was only after our son Carter was born that I realized how I had taken for granted the importance of public open space for the health of a community.
In the summer of 2008, when Carter was a little more than a year old, my family moved to the Alamitos Beach neighborhood. From our new home it is about a ten-minute walk to our nearest parks, the “Miracle on 4th Street” mini-park and the larger Bixby Park at Broadway and Cherry Avenue. We frequent the parks because Carter has reached the age where there are few things more exciting than slides and swings. Watching his blonde, curly mop of hair flop around while he is pushed back on forth on swing, giggling with abandon, always brings a smile to my face. Around us there are typically families picnicking, people using the exercise equipment (installed at Bixby Park), or kicking a soccer ball around in the grass. I had always assumed such things took place in parks, if for no other reason than there were pictures to prove it, but I had never really appreciated what those activities meant to people.
It is with this qualified and quantified understanding of the need for open space that I approach the current discussion about the proposed “land swap” for the Los Cerritos Wetlands and various city properties. A fundamental issue that must be taken into consideration is that the three largest existing parks in Long Beach are all located east of Redondo Avenue, despite the fact that around a quarter of the city’s population lives on that side of town. This proposed land swap would result in yet another large parcel of open space on the East side of Long Beach, in this case a parcel over 150 acres in size. The proposal stipulates that in return, the city would turn over a number of properties, including two-thirds of the land in central Long Beach slated to possibly become a sports park to a local developer who currently owns a large portion of the remaining Los Cerritos Wetlands. The city would then cede the wetlands area to the Los Cerritos Wetlands Trust. The city’s goal in seeking this deal is to obtain sufficient financial resources to develop the remaining sixteen acres of the proposed sports park as a nature park, and also to complete acquisition and restoration of 27 acres of wetlands along the east bank of the Los Angeles River, in what is known as the “Dominguez Gap Wetlands.”
In terms of simple math, the tradeoff for Long Beach is 50 acres of recreational open space versus nearly 200 acres of open space for preservation. However, when the geography of the city is taken into account, this proposal is problematic, because it perpetuates the current environmental injustice in terms of park space distribution. The East side of Long Beach would gain even more park space, while the rest of the city, home to 75% of residents, would gain far less open space. It is possible to push the analysis in terms of environmental injustice even further. If we factor in the reality that the city’s greatest air polluters–the Port of Long Beach and the highways and other infrastructure associated with it–are all located on the Westside, the environmental inequality becomes even more obvious. In short, central and west Long Beach bear the brunt of this city’s economic sector, while east Long Beach is the greenest region of the city.
Despite these harsh realities, realities that nonetheless bear repeating because they are too often swept under the rug, there are additional factors to consider when assessing this proposed land swap. We must ask who these various open spaces would serve. The Los Cerritos Wetlands is surrounded in large part by commercial activity along Pacific Coast Highway. The nearest residents to the wetlands live in the few hundred units located behind the Marina Pacifica shopping center, as well as those residents living on boats in the municipal marina. Yet the proposed located for the Sports Park is less accessible still, with not a single home located within a quarter mile of the parcel. Only the Dominguez Gap Wetlands would be directly accessible to an underserved community.
It is true that in both the Los Cerritos Wetlands and the proposed sports park could serve as regional open spaces. As a built-out city, Long Beach has few opportunities beyond the Los Cerritos Wetlands, the hillside portion that remains of the Sports Park land and Dominguez Gap Wetlands to allow its residents to rediscover nature. There is also an obvious shortage of dedicated space for sports and recreation in the city, and it is hope that the proposed sports park could help alleviate this problem. More broadly, the fundamental problem is not just that Long Beach lacks open space, but that this lack of open space is most severe in the most populated regions of the city. Possibilities to redress this imbalance are limited; there is no large surplus of land in Long Beach. It will thus take creative solutions to find more than small pockets of new open space in central and western Long Beach.
The city controls a portion of the Dominguez Gap Wetlands area along the Los Angeles River, but there are few resources to acquire the remaining portion and restore them. Additionally, there is no money available for the city to purchase the 150 acres of wetlands beyond those they currently control. The proposed sports park will continue to sit empty because of the cost of regrading a hillside so that it can become playing fields. We are in a “down market,” a period of economic crisis and uncertainty, but it is in this kind of environment that smart developers make their money. The City of Long Beach should take a similar approach: there are deals to be made for land that developers can no longer carry. Otherwise, ten years from now there will be East Long Beach residents and environmentalists fighting a proposed development on the Los Cerritos Wetlands. While not the perfect answer, this latest effort through a proposed land swap is certainly a step in the right direction and should be given a chance to succeed.
