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| Baldwin Hills Park Colossal Project Residents Put In Their Two Cents Worth By Stacy Kaper The last of six community workshop meetings designed to gather input from local residents and city officials regarding the design of the envisioned Baldwin Hills Park was held Saturday at the Veterans Memorial Building in Culver City. Earlier in the week a similar workshop was held at the Fox Hills Mall. |
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 Throughout the July workshop meetings about 400 people have contributed their opinions, questions and particular interests to Community Conservancy International the organization that facilitated the discussions. Community Conservancy International is the chief non-profit organization that has been vying to create the Baldwin Hills Park and has local environmental, parks and recreation and other community groups as allies."There has not been a great state park built in this nation within the last 100 years," said Esther Feldman of Community Conservancy International. The vision is for Baldwin Hills Park to be on a more colossal scale then Central Park in New York City. "It has been interesting to see the wide-ranging spectrum of diversity of ethnicities, socio-economic backgrounds and specific individual interests that have come out of these workshops," said Al Austin, district representative for state Sen. Kevin Murray (D. Culver City). "Everyone has their own priorities and ideas for what they want to see go in to a park," Austin said. "Seniors want to make sure senior activities will go into the design and that the park will include a senior center. Golfers are adamant that they want to see a golf course go in to the park. Environmentalists want to restore the land to its most pure and natural form possible with a "green" emphasis. The one thing that everyone seems to want is an extensive trail net-work to allow for walkers, hikers and joggers." About $500,000 in private funding has already been poured into the project for research on the design plan ideas for the park, said Feldman. Feldman said the next step is for Community Conservancy International to finish compiling the data that has emerged from the workshops and come back to the community early next year with potential design plans for the park. An architectural design team has been present at all of the workshops with this interest in mind. State Sen. Murray has been a chief advocate behind the development of a Baldwin Hills Park. He has stated that it is essential to have open urban land where youth can safely participate in recreational activities. "There is a complete shortage of park space in that area of California," Murray said. Of the hopeful Baldwin Hills Park location Murray said that it is the last large plot of open land with access to the inner city of Los Angeles. Locally, former Mayor Albert Vera has been in the forefront of the effort. The Baldwin Hills fall between Inglewood and the Crenshaw district, and between the Westside and South-Central. The land is located in Los Angeles County with parts of it comprising unincorporated Los Angeles and Culver City. According to Feldman, as it stands now, $32.5 million was included in the state budget this year as part of the urban parks package for the development of Baldwin Hills Park. The county budget has earmarked $7 million for the park and there remains an additional $4 million leftover from last year’s state budget also for the proposed park. Currently 500 acres are publicly owned, including the 350-acre Kenneth Hahn state recreation area, but Baldwin Hills Park advocates say they still need to acquire 700 acres of privately owned land for park purposes. The acquisition of only 100 of these acres could potentially be covered by the $32 million from the state budget, but much more money needs to be raised to purchase the remaining privately owned acres. Community Conservancy International and Murray say the process of purchasing the land could take several years and couple hundred million dollars. "As early as next year something could start to happen," said Murray of the time-line for the park’s development. "I guess what’s at the crux of the matter is that it could take a while to finish negotiations to purchase the land." Much of the privately owned land is used by local oil companies and other sites serve as residential homes potential residential development. Landowners in the proposed Baldwin Hills Park area include Stocker Resources Inc., Vista Pacifica, Chevron, Artesian Co., Bank of America, Inglewood Hills LLC, Lloyd Properties, Plains Resources Inc., Baldwin Stocker, Vickers Group, the Cone Family and the Airey Family Trust. |
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