Posted: October 29th, 2007

Revelation Is Another Blow for Recreation and Parks Department And Quimby Fees

by Anna Scott

Two Downtown properties that the city Department of Recreation and Parks has earmarked $7 million to purchase for potential park projects may no longer be for sale. The unavailable land is the latest snafu for the department surrounding Quimby fees, the funds generated from developers for green space.

Recreation and Parks officials had been looking at buying a 1.3-acre plot at 410 Center St. (where the brick wall now sits) for a future Downtown park. The site, in an industrial area, may no longer be available. Photo by Gary Leonard.

Two weeks ago, department officials identified two Downtown tracts of land they were looking to acquire for new parks: A less than one-acre triangle at Rose and Third streets in the Arts District, and a 1.3-acre lot at 410 Center St. (near where the 101 Freeway meets the L.A. River).

However, last week, John Hillman of real estate firm CB Richard Ellis, a broker representing both properties, told Los Angeles Downtown News the smaller parcel has been taken off the market by its owner, restaurant supply company Arranaga, while 410 Center St., owned by a private firm, is currently under contract and in escrow.

“The city expressed preliminary interest” in the properties, said Hillman, but did not “formally express interest” until after they became potentially unavailable.

The money earmarked for the two sites accounts for nearly half of the $15.9 million in Quimby fees collected in the Ninth District over the past five years. Area developers have complained vigorously that they have received few results for their expenditures. City Controller Laura Chick has begun an audit of the department and its handling of Quimby fees.

“The city is dealing directly with the owners of these properties and is hopeful that we will be able to turn these properties into green space,” said mayoral spokeswoman Janelle Erickson, speaking on behalf of Recreation and Parks.

More Pressure

Administered by the Recreation and Parks Department and charged to residential developers citywide, Quimby fees generally cost $3,000 to $9,000 per housing unit and must be spent on park projects within two miles of where they are collected.

Citywide, Recreation and Parks has collected more than $120 million in Quimby fees since 2002. Approximately $77 million remains unallocated, according to a financial overview provided by the Recreation and Parks Department.

However, those figures may be no better than estimates: In an Oct. 12 letter to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Recreation and Parks General Manager Jon Kirk Mukri admitted that the department has neither the staff nor infrastructure to efficiently track and manage Quimby funds, which have skyrocketed dramatically with new construction over the past five years.

The department is currently building a database to better track the funds and is conducting a citywide park needs assessment, both expected to be complete next spring.Prior to the letter, the Quimby program came under fire Downtown when some area developers facing an increase in assessments questioned where the millions already paid have gone.

City Council President Eric Garcetti last week asked Recreation and Parks to provide regular updates on unallocated Quimby funds citywide. At the request of Ninth District Councilwoman Jan Perry, Recreation and Parks officials are scheduled to report on how funds have been spent. They will appear at City Hall Nov. 7.

“I was amazed that it was so difficult to get that information,” Perry said last week, referring to the contents of the Oct. 12 letter. If not for the outcry over the fee hike, she added, “we wouldn’t have known at all.”

Two weeks ago Mike Schull, Recreation and Parks’ superintendent of planning and development, defended the department’s management of Quimby funds. In the Ninth District, Shull pointed out, money spent on or slated for improvements at four recreation centers (in South Los Angeles or otherwise outside the Central City), along with funds earmarked for the two Downtown properties accounted for all but $3 million of the total area Quimby funds.

Formally allocating large amounts of Quimby money is a laborious process, Shull said, which can delay land acquisitions. As of two weeks ago, Recreation and Parks had only received permission from its board of commissioners to complete due diligence on the two Downtown properties, which may now be out of reach.

‘Little Green Spaces’Even if Recreation and Parks is somehow able to acquire the two parcels, Downtown Los Angeles stakeholders have mixed feelings. While people in and around the Arts District were enthusiastic about the smaller parcel, part of Joel Bloom Square, many expressed doubt about the Center Street location, on a primarily industrial block heavily traversed by trucks.”If it’s in a place that’s mostly industrial uses and doesn’t have a lot of homes or residential areas around,” said local resident Philip Cybulski, “I would imagine it could get pretty scary at night.”Arts District resident Drew Lesso, meanwhile, noted that if “they build a park with a fence around it, we’ll go to it.”Old Bank District developer Tom Gilmore, who last month appealed the increase in Quimby fees, took a more critical stance.

“The thing that’s so maddening about this is that we’re dealing with a suburban-minded bureaucracy,” he said of Recreation and Parks.

Gilmore criticized the department for pursuing a property as large as the Center Street parcel. “They have no clue how to do an urban park,” he said. “Pocket parks, on a square-foot basis, are incredibly efficient and are an urban model. We need little green spaces.”

By and large, Downtown stakeholders seem to like the concept of smaller-scale parks.

“I think the pocket park idea is the most doable, simplest way to go right now,” said Tim Keating, former president of the Los Angeles River Artist and Business Association. “I think that would be the best interim solution just to see something green.”

Carol Schatz of the Central City Association said she is surprised there are not already more pocket parks around Downtown.

“We did these development strategies in the late ’90s, when things were starting to move,” she said. “Those were our recommendations; that we had to have pocket parks. That is a critical element of open space in a dense area like Downtown Los Angeles.”

Landscape architect Mia Lehrer, who has worked on several city projects, including a study of how to apply park fees generated by the Staples Center, said recently that there are ample under-utilized alleys and parking lots Downtown that could be turned into small parks.

During a panel discussion on Quimby fees hosted by the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce last week, Shull of Recreation and Parks said that pocket parks are part of the department’s long-term plan for allocating Quimby funds Downtown.

Big or small, when it comes to green, many residents say the sooner the better. “There are no parks in this area at all,” said Keating of his Arts District neighborhood. “They’re needed.”

Contact Anna Scott at anna@downtownnews.com.