Concepts for Clustered Housing and Park Near Orange Line. Part 2.

East of the 405, south of Erwin, west of Sepulveda, north of the Orange Line are 12 acres of asphalt paved parking which was constructed in 2004 by Metro Los Angeles to accomodate a large of amount of parked cars that never arrived. These vehicles were, illogically, imagined to be driven by those bus riders who would then park their cars and take the Orange Line!

For many years, the car dealers of Van Nuys Boulevard rented the parking lots of Metro, in an obscene arrangement of prioritizing automobile storage over the needs of Angelenos who are ravenous for housing, parks and other uses of land which are not parking lots.

The auto dealers’ cars are gone. But the parking lots, weed-filled, empty, and providing nothing of aesthetic or functional use to the community, just sit and decay in the sunshine.

The environment around the parking lots is lovely to the north where the frequently filmed street of Orion Avenue presents an imaginary vision of Americana with its ye olde New England architecture, picket fences, and abundant rose bushes.

But Sepulveda is a mess. CVS (Erwin/Sepulveda) is a rundown, ugly, homeless encampment drug store, on its last legs, with empty shelves and anything on the shelves frequently swiped by shoplifters.

The 405 is the noisy, polluting, cancerous fact of life that provides deafening, daily helicopter, truck and automobile noise and air pollution to the community. It has been blocked out by sound walls to assure our waning sanity.

And to the south of the site where the empty parking lots sit, is the Orange Line Bus Route, soon to be turned into electric light rail line when a new transportation line is completed connecting Van Nuys Boulevard to Pacoima.

Everywhere there is trash, homeless, RVs, illegal dumping, tent cities, discarded fast food wrappers. The usual tale of Van Nuys and greater Los Angeles.

What can be done to transform 12 empty acres into something that enhances and uplifts our community instead of just using it for exploitation and degradation?

A possible answer is a residential area with parkland. These would be architecturally designed and environmentally friendly, and become an asset because their residents would assist in the care of this new neighborhood.

Family Run Parks

If the city were to devise a plan to have a family (which lived in one of the homes) run the upkeep of the park for a salary, based on a performance review, then it is more likely that the parkland would be cleaner, safer, and better maintained, unlike the sickeningly disgusting public parks that bring Los Angeles ridicule and shame like MacArthur and Westlake.

Having the people who use parks or schools clean the parks or schools they use, is something that the Japanese practice in their spotless country. It is an imported idea that could bring an upgrade to our city.

In any case, the transformation of the 12 acre parking lots should be done with sensitivity, care, and with the idea of providing recreation, housing, shade, and pleasant surroundings within a walk of public transportation.

To make these architectural renderings a reality, there will need to be rules, enforced rules, about what kinds of behavior will not be tolerated. This will perhaps be the most difficult part of the experiment, for we are far down on the road to hell in a city of red light runners, loud music, all night parties, marijuana moms, pizza boxes and McDonalds thrown along the curb, and the vagrants who ignite fires in the parks. To see discarded sofas and mattresses on the grass, or shopping carts with cans and bottles, and refrigerators on balconies will obliterate the possibilities of paradise.