Sunday, May 9, 2010

Menlo Property: Griffith Park To El Pueblo Trail Is A Wildlife Corridor


Photo: Diane Edwardson, November 25, 2009. There's room for the Griffith Park to El Pueblo Trail behind the Sam Menlo-owned River Glen Apartments. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

The City failed to require convicted slumlord, Sam Menlo & Century Quality Management to dedicate a trail per the Silver Lake - Echo Park Elysian Valley Community Plan. In 1983, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy (SMMC) filed the El Pueblo to Griffith Park Trail corridor alignment with the Secretary of State. At the time, community leaders worked with the SMMC and hiked the trail alignment a number of times. The same alignment was designated as an equestrian trail on City land use maps when the first Community Plan was approved in 1984.

Because the corridor links Griffith Park to Elysian Park through a trail in the hills, with minimal street crossings, it also serves as a wildlife corridor. Judging by routine bobcat sightings by neighbors of Elysian Park, as well as gray fox sightings on Corralitas Drive, this is an important corridor for maintaining biodiversity.

The SMMC is appealing the the City's approval of 120 unit condo development on the Menlo Property. The City Council's Planning & Land Use Management Committee will hear the appeal Tuesday.

PLUM Committee Hearing
Tuesday May 11, 2010
3PM
City Hall, Room 350
200N. Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012

City Council File # 10-0716