Neighbors Work to Beautify Barren Lot

John Carpenter characterized it as an “eyesore.” He’s lived near the empty space for about 25 years.

The 66-year-old Woodland Hills resident was referring to the one-acre lot that lingered barren near the Mulholland Valley Circle exit off the 101 Freeway for a decade.

That all changed on July 23 when Carpenter and about 20 other neighbors banded together to finally spruce it up. Ground was broken and vegetation was added as part of an ongoing project to beautify the space.

The lot that was littered with weeds now boasts two rows of trees.

“It was pretty wonderful,” he says.

When Carpenter was asked what he learned about his neighbors from what he experienced on Saturday, he put it this way: “I was so impressed when people started pouring out and coming up to me -- ‘Okay, what can I do?’ – and this and that.”

Judith Fischer, another Woodland Hills resident who lives about a mile away, spearheaded the initiative.

“Thank goodness for Judy. She’s very persistent and just barreled through all of the obstacles,” says Carpenter, who attributes the turnout on such a hot day to Fischer’s motivation.

Fischer said the goal is not to build a park, just to visually enhance the lot, which pedestrians will be able to stroll through.

The project culminates three to four years worth of communication with the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

Fischer tried to find someway to enhance the lot’s image ever since the conservancy bought the land from CalTrans about three years back.

She pressed the conservancy to clean it, but the cash-strapped agency was thwarted by budget cuts.

So Fischer took matters into her own hands and turned to the neighborhood to revamp the lot.

In mid-June, Fischer reached out to three residents she already knew, including Carpenter. They held meet ups, kicked around ideas and decided to take matters into their own hands. 

She reconnected with the conservancy and asked about taking the project on along with her neighbors. Her persistence paid off when the agency granted them permission. Fischer felt “delighted.”

“It took quite a bit of perseverance to continue a dialogue with them,” said Fischer, who estimates hundreds of emails were sent regarding the lot. “I’m not interested in taking credit for something, but nobody else took the initiative to do this.”

One resident from each of three streets in the adjacent neighborhood was relegated to handle the logistics of their respective street, such as contacting neighbors and collecting their donations.

Landscaping firm ValleyCrest donated 26 trees consisting of six oaks and 20 sycamores. Green Thumb nursery donated 26 bags of grow mulch.

The volunteers had little time to plant the trees after delivery. The trees arrived on Friday morning and the community was forced to plant them on Saturday, hoping to avert the trees dying in last weekend’s heat wave.

But nonetheless, the galvanized residents braved the elements and got their hands dirty.

Fischer said she hopes to secure more donated trees to finish the project in the coming months.

Paul Edelman, deputy director of natural resources and planning, was the community’s go-to-guy at the conservancy, which now shares maintenance responsibility of the space.

He considers the project an anomaly.

"This is a very atypical thing to have happen, but it’s a very atypical property," he says.