Relitigating a Fight for Precious L.A. Open Space

For those in Los Angeles who fought long and hard to preserve an area north of the Getty Center and west of the 405 freeway as open space, to find themselves again in battle for what they thought was protected must be beyond frustrating.

Save our Mountains, Inc. was formed 25 years ago to fight for open space in L.A. Through its efforts, a development to build 17 mansions in a gated community was fought successfully. As a result of the work of activist community members, the 1,500-acre Westridge-Canyonback Wilderness Park was created in the eastern Santa Monica Mountains in Los Angeles and is enjoyed by visitors throughout the year. Bordered by upper Mandeville Canyon, Sullivan Canyon, Mission Canyon and San Vicente Mountain Park, Westridge-Canyonback Wilderness Park is contiguous with the 20,000-acre urban wilderness park known as the “Big Wild.”

Joining the fight for preservation within the same area, Canyon Back Alliance, along with multiple community-based, grassroots organizations, also won a long battle in 2006 with developer Castle & Cooke in an agreement that provided unrestricted trail access outside the two residential developments the company had planned.

This area is now under threat again.

Castle & Cooke did not build the housing development that was approved by the city, and in 2014 sold the 450 acres to billionaire developer Nicolas Berggruen for $45 million. Rather than the approved housing plan, Berggruen has a completely different proposal that would house an eponymous think tank. The proposal to build a facility for the Berggruen Institute would encroach on area that cannot be developed per prior agreements. This has sent up red flags with many concerned community members, who have formed Protect Our Wildlands in opposition.

In what some are calling a vanity project, the billionaire is being asked to consider building his institute in a developed area of L.A. instead, and preserve in perpetuity the 450 acres of wild space as natural habitat, a wild animal corridor and walking trails. Community residents are concerned about shutting off public access to trails that they fought to establish, including the Riordan Trail, named for the former L.A. mayor and his wife.

Concerned activists have voiced numerous safety, security and noise concerns as well. In the 1960s and 70s, the area was a massive garbage field, which has since been filled. The landfill continues to produce methane, which is vented. As a methane site, there is fire risk, and the area already has the designation as a very high fire hazard severity zone. The proposed development is near the 2017 Skirball fire which burned through more than 400 acres and destroyed or damaged 18 structures. Fire risks will increase, activists say, if roads and buildings are built atop the former landfill.

As a high-profile private institute expected to draw cognoscenti and intelligentsia, it’s thought a high-level of security will be needed, which may further limit access to areas given public easement. Additionally, as a high-profile venue, it could be a target for radical protests and threats, thus endangering the local residential community. A helicopter pad is one potential element of the design, which area residents say would increase noise levels.

The area includes riparian woodland with ferns, sycamores and oak trees, and among the environmental concerns of what is a wildlife corridor are increasing light pollution that would negatively impact animals in one of the last large wild areas near the city. The area is rich with biodiversity, including cougars, coyotes, deer, falcons, great horned owls, raccoons, redtailed hawks and quail, among other wildlife.

Whether those working to preserve open space or the billionaire ultimately win this battle, or if some mutually beneficial compromise is struck, is yet to be seen. But the unfolding story highlights increasing tensions as wild spaces and wildlife are increasingly under pressure as there’s less and less natural habitat in an overdeveloped, overpopulated California.

Visit protectourwildlands.org to watch a video of the Southern California open space that would be forever altered. Also, visit canyonback.org to learn more about the original battle to save the land.