Last evening’s third of four community meetings seeking comment on City Hall’s creative Urban Forest master plan for the business districts drew a smallish crowd, table-size, to the Dan Patacchia.
Not an owner turned up.
“Many of our businesses are restaurants, and the 6 o’clock starting time probably was not good,” Charles Herbertson, the Public Works director and orchestrator of the tree-planting strategies, said this morning.
He expects a considerably larger audience Saturday morning at 10, in the same ground-floor room at City Hall for the fourth and final community gathering, also exploring tree strategies for Culver City commercial districts. (By contrast, crowds were “very high” for the two meetings on residential neighborhoods.)
“The people who did come last night contributed thoughtful ideas about an urban forest,” Mr. Herbertson said. They spoke energetically “about what they liked for the commercial corridors.”
Best suggestions?
“There was a lot of comment about continuing to improve some commercial areas where we have started, like West Washington with the medians.
“We discussed the zone on Sepulveda where we recently did some planting, between Culver Boulevard and Ballona Creek. They would like to see more of that improvement in districts,” Mr. Herbertson said.
“They particularly mentioned an area farther south on Sepulveda, around the Albert Vera market, and across the street, the properties that Bob Champion was talking about developing a few years ago. People said they wanted to see that neighborhood improved and beautified.”
The Public Works director replied that at issue was finding beautification money – but that was not the subject. “We were more focused on trees,” Mr. Herbertson said.
“People were talking about the tree selection for that area. The trees are not growing well.”
Planting new and different types of trees may be the panacea.
“We had a lot of discussion about challenges of trees in the commercial areas. One challenge is signage, We think trees enhance an area, but it is more complex than that,” Mr. Herbertson said.
(To be continued)
