People living along the rim of Potrero Canyon, along with various other residents who have been following the canyon’s saga for more than 20 years, received some unsettling news last Wednesday evening. Construction and completion of the long-awaited (though not necessarily beloved) city park from Potrero down to Pacific Coast Highway is easily six or seven years away, according to projections by George Wolfberg, chairman of the Potrero Canyon Community Advisory Committee. At the committee’s monthly meeting, members learned that Los Angeles city engineers who have been studying the infill and stabilization project in Potrero have determined that dirt-hauling trucks and land-shaping tractors must return to complete Phase II before Potrero Canyon Park can finally be built and opened to the public. The timeline is grim, said George Wolfberg, chairman of the Potrero Canyon Community Advisory Committee, as he outlined the stages that need to be accomplished by various city departments, not to mention important decisions by the City Council and the Coastal Commission. Wolfberg later provided more detail in the following report to the Palisadian-Post: ‘With the strong support of Councilman Bill Rosendahl’s office and his District Director Norman Kulla, the City has in place a team to complete Phase II [infill and rough grading] of the Potrero Canyon Project. ‘The old manual surveys and grading records are being digitized by City engineers to facilitate completion of design for the grading. It has been discovered that the large conical buttress fill at the end of Friends Street has some geologic issues that need to be remediated. In addition, the City’s project to relocate a sewer main and storm drain impacted by the Via de las Olas ‘killer slide’ will occupy a portion of Potrero Canyon and apparently hold up any further work. The project is presently expected to begin next June with a possible nine-month construction period. ‘The next step will be construction of a buttress fill to protect two properties on Alma Real. This fill will extend across the canyon and cover the former Sun Spot area next to Pacific Coast Highway. The City does not have funds available to complete the Phase II construction. Everyone expects funding will come from the sale of the two surplus properties on Alma Real. ‘Before any property is sold, the Coastal Commission permit for the project must be amended. The permit currently prohibits any sales until the project is completed. It could take up to a year for the City to prepare a package and the Coastal Commission to approve the sale. During this time, it should be possible to determine if the two lots will provide adequate funding to complete the rough grading. The sale of property normally takes about nine months. Every effort will be made to accelerate the timetable. ‘So, realistically, it could be 2010 before serious work is underway to complete the Potrero rough grading.’ Last Wednesday, Wolfberg said that city engineers have determined that Potrero (once a wild, deep canyon) was only 65 percent filled by the previous contractor. Committee member Rob Weber, who joined Wolfberg at a briefing with city engineers a day earlier, noted that the city ‘will need to import a lot more dirt,’ and that Potrero will need ‘significant grading just to shore up the canyon walls.’ This work could take two years, Weber warned. ‘The city is finally of top of the situation and committed to it,’ Weber said, ‘but we were surprised to learn that the project wasn’t as far along as we thought it was.’ Meanwhile, at last Wednesday night’s meeting, the seven-person Potrero recreation subcommittee held its final public discussion about parking and Recreation Center access proposals related to the future canyon park. The subcommittee then voted on 17 proposals, most of them dealing with ways to expand parking and access opportunities at the Rec Center. They voted 6-1 against a controversial proposal to ‘close the Frontera [tennis courts] entrance to all vehicle and pedestrian access,’ which proponents in the Huntington Palisades believe would reduce traffic on residential streets around Frontera. The entire Potrero committee will vote on these various proposals at their January meeting.
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
