Hermosa Beach overhauls South Park, removes skate rink, adds garden and play equipment
Hermosa Beach City Council has set aside $150,000 to begin remaking South Park by removing a closed and unused skate rink, along with its bleachers, and adding children’s play equipment and a community garden.
The council also formally approved the placement of three charging stations for electric cars on upper Pier Avenue, near broad pedestrian “bulb-out” areas, along with a fourth station at Hermosa Beach City Hall. Drivers typically charge their cars at home overnight, and use the stations for one- or two-hour boosts between trips, officials said.
The money for improvements at the four-and-a-half acre South Park, located onValley Drive in the south part of town, came from the Los Angeles County Regional Park and Open Space fund.
The specific improvements are not set in stone. The council added the community garden element to the park’s master plan on Tuesday, and public hearings will be held before final decisions are made.
The master plan, spearheaded in part by Jessica Guheen of South Park Mothers, was approved by the council in October 2009, but no funding was initially found for the improvements.
The removal of the skate rink bleachers will be done right away, at the suggestion of Councilmember Jeff Duclos, who said they were being used as unsafe play equipment by kids who go to the park and find a broad expanse of open lawn and little more.
Before the skate rink is removed, it will house soil bins and serve as a temporary garden, according to the council’s plan. The permanent garden would be placed at the northeast corner of the sprawling park.
The placement of a community garden, where residents could plant veggies and the like, has not been without controversy.
Last year the city considered sites including the one-third acre Bicentennial Park, across the greenbelt from South Park. Neighbors of Bicentennial Park complained that a garden takeover would erase the patch of green that had become in many ways their own, and 74 residents have signed a petition to that effect.
They said a community garden would occupy the whole of Bicentennial, not just a portion, although proponent Scott Powell said one third of the park would remain open to the general public. Powell is founder of Earth Club, which promotes sustainable gardening of edible plants with water-saving irrigation techniques.
Neighborhood kids and parents play at the park, small picnics are held, and adults meet to walk dogs or eat lunch at the park’s lone table, under the shade of trees that residents themselves planted decades ago. Three homes with fences abutting the park have gates that open onto it from their backyards.
At the time, community garden supporters also were considering portions of South Park and the 5.3-acre Hermosa Valley Park to the north. But attention was focused on Bicentennial, at Fourth Street and Ardmore Avenue, when it was listed as the proposed garden site in documents that were drawn up quickly to meet a deadline to apply for a grant for the project.