Posted: March 24th, 2008

News Brief, Los Angeles Downtown News

The issue of park creation and the use of developer fees to fund park projects came before City Council again last week. On Tuesday, March 18, the Council heard a presentation on the city’s park status from Downtown-based nonprofit The City Project, which in 2006 released a report that mapped and detailed which portions of the city and county are most in need of green space. The organization recently updated its report by breaking down the data by council district. The issue rose to prominence last year after reports that the city Department of Recreation and Parks has failed to properly track and allocate the more than $130 million it has accumulated in Quimby fees, the formal name of the money collected from residential developers, since 2002. Last month, City Controller Laura Chick released an audit lambasting the department’s handling of the program. “The ultimate goal is basically just to assist the City Council in their decisions about where to allocate funds,” said Meagan Yellott, program director for The City Project, “and to make sure that as they revise the Quimby ordinance, that those funds actually are allocated based on need.” The Department is currently working on its own study of the city’s park needs, expected to be finished in approximately a year. In the meantime, The City Project will work with the Bureau of Engineering on an even more detailed district-by-district picture of L.A.’s park facilities.