The Corralitas Red Car Property was a private right-of-way through Silver Lake (Los Angeles) for the Pacific Electric interurban streetcar. The “Big Red Cars” ran until 1955 when the Glendale Line was decommissioned for freeway construction. For more than 40 years, a series of developers tried and failed to develop the Corralitas Red Car Property. It's not a park, it just looks like one.
Photo: Corralitas Neighbor, May 15, 2020, 1:34 AM. "Must you crash outside my bedroom window? Must you and the police and tow guy yell to each other? Must you?"
Neighbors of the 2 Freeway between the 5 Freeway and the 2 Freeway Terminus at Glendale Blvd have heard many high speed crashes and seen the aftermath. Fortunately, this crash did not ignite the dry brush on the southbound 2 Freeway adjacent to Corralitas Drive.
Request brush clearance or other maintenance issues on CalTrans property (on the freeway side of the fence) on the State's website: https://csr.dot.ca.gov/
Photo: Corralitas Neighbor, December 5, 2017. Tuesday, neighbors who parked on the Freeway side of Corralitas Drive, in defiance of the Red Flag Day No Parking signs, got $68 tickets. The point of the freeway side of the street being clear on Corralitas, where vehicle access is extremely limited, is to have consistent access for emergency vehicles while leaving the street open for neighbors to escape safely. After first lifting Red Flag parking restrictions 8 AM today, LAFD has called a Red Flag Day for tomorrow, Thursday December 7, 2017, beginning at 8AM. Text of the message sent: DATE/TIME: 12/06/2017 / 03:11:53PM
SUBJECT: RED FLAG PARKING RESTRICTIONS IN EFFECT
The City of Los Angeles has declared that Red Flag No Parking Restrictions to be in effect starting 8:00 AM on 12/07/2017 and will remain in effect until further notice.
For additional information please visit our website at: http://notify.lafd.org/redflag OR call 3-1-1. Thank you for your cooperation.
Note: The Call Center's operating hours are from 08:00 AM to 4:45 PM daily including weekends and holidays.
Photo: Diane Edwardson September 9, 2009. LAFD declared a Red Flag Day starting at 8AM, Tuesday, December 5, 2017. LAFD's website has become difficult to sign up for, or change how you receive notices. Some of us, who've been signed up for alerts since the program began, got notice; others did not. Once again, I got a call and email but not a text. I used to receive all three. I recommend following @LAFDtalk on Twitter.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor June 19, 2016. The Silver Lake Fire illustrated why Corralitas Drive is a Red Flag Day No Parking street. There is only one access road, Rosebud Ave, to about 52 homes on Corralitas Drive, a substandard Hillside Street with hairpin turns. If you didn't drive out before the Fire Dept arrived, you could not drive off the hill. June 19, 2017 was not a Red Flag Day. Neighbors a half a mile away, reported 6" embers blowing past their homes. The recent fires in Orange County, Napa Valley and Santa Rosa were wind driven fires.
Photo: Diane Edwardson, November 15, 2017. The huge pine tree in a Lake View Ave backyard never recovered after the June 19, 2016 Silver Lake Fire. The Red Car Property line runs along the power lines.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, November 30, 2017. Thursday, the sounds of chainsaws caught the attention of neighbors as the tree was finally being cut down. Neighbors had complained to LAFD Brush Unit as well as CD13 since before the May 1 deadline for brush clearance as nothing on the Lake View Ave lot, including the castor bean forest, was cleared this year.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, December 1, 2017. By Friday they were chopping up what was left of the huge pine tree.
Video: Red Car Property Neighbor, December 1, 2017. A better sense of scale is gained with the number of huge trunk slices laid out on the Red Car Property.
Photo: Diane Edwardson, November 17, 201. In case there was any doubt the big pine tree was dead, here's another angle.
Photo: Diane Edwardson, November 15, 2017. Neighbor reports the toilets, bumper and aquarium arrived on Lot C of the Red Car Property at India Street, as soon as the previous pile of dumping was picked up earlier this month. They are still there now.
Photo: Diane Edwardson, November 15, 2017. Perhaps the dumping would be curtailed, if the Red Car Property was closed to all motorized vehicles, except emergency vehicles, with steel gates similar to those on every fire road in Griffith and Elysian Park.
Photo: Diane Edwardson, November 15, 2017. There aren't too many Eucalyptus left on the north end of the Red Car Property near Adelbert. More keep dying. This is a fire hazard. Adelbert is a very narrow substandard Hillside street with only one access point for vehicles, hairpin turns and no place to turn cars around without using driveways.
We're not sorry to see Eucalyptus go, since they are non-native and do not hold hillsides together in the rain. However, we mourn the loss of shade and radical change in the ecosystem on the north end of the Red Car Property. It's a lot hotter and drier now.
Photo: Diane Edwardson, November 17, 2017. Despite their death, the Eucs are a host for shelf fungi. Here, seen with what appears to be a dried up Chicken of the Woods. Editor's note: This post was published December 18, 2017, and backdated to the the week the photos were shot since they show hazardous conditions on the Red Car Property, in the Very High Fire Severity Zone (VHFHSZ). The first photo also may indicate evidence of erosion along the middle of the slope.
Photo: Diane Edwardson September 9, 2009. LAFD declared a Red Flag Day starting at 8AM Tuesday, Oct 24, 2017. LAFD's website has become difficult to sign up for or change how you receive notices. Some of us, who've been signed up for alerts since the program began, got notice, others did not. I got a call and email but not a text. I used to receive all three. I recommend following @LAFDtalk on Twitter.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor June 19, 2016. The Silver Lake Fire illustrated why Corralitas Drive is a Red Flag Day No Parking street. There is only one access road, Rosebud Ave, to about 52 homes on Corralitas. If you didn't drive out before the Fire Dept arrived, you could not drive off the hill. June 19, 2017 was not a Red Flag Day. Neighbors a half a mile away reported 6" embers blowing past their homes. The recent fires in Orange County, Napa Valley and Santa Rosa were wind driven fires. 9:15 PM: Typos were corrected.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, September 15, 2017. Last week, LA City Fire Department began posting "No Smoking, No Discarding of Burning Objects" signs in the Hillside Area surrounding the Red Car Property and Semi Tropic Spiritualists' Tract (above photo at Allesandro and Rosebud - the sole vehicle entrance to the steep Semi Tropic hillside).
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, September 15, 2017. The municipal code sections are referenced on the signs, here seen at the site of the 2016 Silver Lake Fire at the end of Corralitas Drive. The LAFD has the authority to place these signs in Hillside Areas.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, September 15, 2017. While brush may be cleared in many of the areas now, brush is often often dry for months before it is cleared. Neighbors who've seen the same signs all over the Hollywood Hills for decades, noted their more recent proliferation in Beachwood Canyon and requested the signs for our neighborhood. Several neighbors provided a list of suggested locations to the LAFD fire marshal overseeing the placement of the signs.
Photo: Jay Lieske, September 23, 2017. Indeed, the fire marshal compared parts of our neighborhood to neighborhoods in the Hollywood Hills. We have many isolated areas like this one on Adelbert, right up against brush areas on narrow winding Hillside streets with no through traffic, in addition to public staircases and paper streetsthat are hidden and open to the Red Car Property.
Neighbors welcomed the signs as a reminder we live in a tinder dry hillside neighborhood. Neighbors hope the signs get the attention of smokers who carelessly discard their cigarettes in dry brush areas. At least one neighbor documented discarded cigarettes in parts of the neighborhood in the request for signs. Neighbors noted areas where partying, homeless camps and squatter houses have attracted problems. I've asked for these signs for 25 years. I'm grateful to the Red Car Property Neighbor who was able to devote time and energy into spearheading this project to making it a reality.
Video: Red Car Property Neighbor, September 14, 2017. While it's technically OK per LAFD to spread the tree shred/mulch around to help retain moisture on the slopes, it's not exactly the best thing for air quality during the chipping or shredding. There's also the question of spreading pathogens of the dead trees. After consulting a neighbor who is a landscape designer, and reading up on some of the local insects and pathogens, I can wholeheartedly say, if you have a sick, dead or dying tree, consult a certified arborist. This issue is way beyond my skill set to simplify beyond the following advice. There are too many ways to infest/infect other trees depending on the insect and or pathogen, and you may be able to save your trees. Your mature trees are an investment in not only your home's resale value, but also the future of our neighborhood and local air quality. We've lost a lot of large trees in the neighborhood in the past few years. Take care of your large and native trees. Every tree counts.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, August 30, 2017. Workers took a break from the insane heat and brush clearance on the slope below Lake View Ave, in the shade of a protected Native Black Walnut Tree. It's hard to tell in this photo, but it looks like some more of the recovering Black Walnuts were chopped yet again.
The Red Car Property line goes, roughly, along the power lines.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, August 28, 2017. When the weeds are taller than the workers doing the weed whacking, you understand why neighbors have been bitching about the brush clearance. Hope they know the slope on the 2 Freeway side of that hill going down to the sidewalk is part of the Red Car Property too. This slope is where the 2016 Silver Lake Fire started.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, June 28, 2017. Yup, that's a second worker among the brush. Enlarged from first photo. Hear the sounds of weed whacking in short video: @Red Car Property
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, August 13, 2017. Neighbors are fed up by the Red Car Property owner's failure to pick up the debris left behind after the squatters vacated their camp. These photos and email (excerpted here) are from one of many concerned neighbors contacted CD13 and LAPD. "Someone slept again last night on the old Red Car squatters encampment -
I know because they left a new red blanket and new trash (see pics)."
Neighbors raised the concern that so much debris left behind will only attract new inhabitants. "Does the owner really want to leave an open invitation for squatters to come live, sleep, and trash his property?"
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, August 13, 2017. Pictured here: dry brush right next to the campsite. Neighbors continue raising the alarm over brush clearance. Out of self-interest, a few neighbors cleared some of the slopes near their own homes. "I see the [brush] clearance is still not completed, or even started
(Rose Scharlin did their own hill themselves rather than wait)."
Considering the number of cigarette butts discarded in and around the camp, neighbors are justified in their alarm. "This is a danger to the whole neighborhood, especially with smoking squatters sleeping there." The neighbor continues, "Does our whole neighborhood have to go up in flames before someone enforces the Brush Clearance ordinance!?! Has LAFD even inspected this negligent property that is putting our neighborhood at risk for a catastrophic fire?" Yes, LAFD has cited the owner several times this year.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, August 13, 2017. Adding insult to injury, last night's homeless left new bags of trash.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, August 12, 2017. A number of neighbors were very concerned about a newer red pick up truck suspiciously parked in the middle of the dry grass on the Red Car Property for hours, earlier tonight. Brush has yet to be cleared from the Red Car Property. There is nothing preventing vehicles from driving onto the Red Car Property.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, August 12, 2017. Several neighbors called LAPD's non-emergency 1-877-ASK-LAPD. At least one stayed on hold for an hour before giving up. However, it only made neighbors more creative. They shined lights on the truck, annoying the people inside, and the truck finally took off. Note: We're playing catch up for the month of August. This was post was actually published 8-26-17 and backdated to the date the photo was shot and originally published on Twitter.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, August 11, 2017. LAFD Brush Inspector Perez, CD13's Hector Vega met the Red Car Property Owner and his son, at the Corralitas end of the Red Car Property. In no uncertain terms Inspector Perez instructed to do the brush clearance and remove fire hazards like dumping and abandoned homeless debris. According to CD13's Vega, the owner said it would be done next week. Worth noting in this photo: the green slope directly above the cul-de-sac, is the southbound 2 Freeway. November 30, 2016, a car flew off the freeway and crashed onto Corralitas Drive. CalTrans merely replaced the damaged guardrail, rather than extend the guardrail further south. After the 2016 fire, CalTrans removed all the trees that prevented cars from landing on the street or on the Red Car Property.
CalTrans has not seen the need for even temporary K-rails to prevent cars from flying off the freeway. The guard rail is there to protect the overhead sign across the southbound lanes, not to protect neighbors. A chain link fence is at the bottom of the hill. Note: We're playing catch up for the month of August. This was post was actually published 8-24-17 and backdated to the date the photo was shot and originally published on Twitter.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, August 4, 2017. Neighbors are understandably nervous about fire on the Red Car Property. Weeds are taller and more dense than before the 2016 Silver Lake Fire. (Click on photos to enlarge.)
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, August 4, 2017. Most of the protected native Coast Live Oaks and California Black Walnuts are returning to the slopes. Looks like there are still a few upslope neighbors on Lake View who still have not done their brush clearance. You'd think after last summer's fire, they'd be the first to do brush clearance. But then no one can believe the Red Car Property owner hasn't done the brush clearance yet.
Perhaps part of the problem is the fines for failing to do brush clearance are the same - no matter what size lot you have - 5000 sq feet or 5 acres. The fine from LAFD is per lot, not per square foot. You still have to pay for brush clearance, but you'd have to pay for brush clearance, whether or not you did it on time.
Raise the potential fines for non-compliance on the large lot owners to encourage prompt brush clearance. Track the non-compliant lot owners every year. Each year the lot is fined for non-compliance, increase their penalties. Prioritize the routine scofflaws.
There is no incentive for large lot owners to take responsibility for their own property. LAFD has the potential to bring in more fees from fining up to 135 adjacent lots, than from the 5 (or 6 according to APNs) lots of the Red Car Property. There's not a lot of impetus for LAFD to red tag the Red Car Property owner, other than a fire starting on or spreading via the Red Car Property, would endanger the whole neighborhood. In 2016, 200 firefighters, wildland fire crews and a massive air assault (water dropping helicopters from at least 3 agencies) kept the 2016 Silver Lake Fire from becoming a major disaster.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, August 4, 2017. The Red Car Property goes up to the telephone poles running across the middle of the slope. In some cases the adjacent property owners cleared well beyond their property line.
Unfortunately, last December, LAFD Brush Clearance contractors also took out a lot of native Black Walnuts when they did clearance. Some very native large trees on this slope were cut down to the ground, even though they were recovering. Most of the walnuts are recovering are coming back despite the butchery (the green shrub like plants midway up the slope on the left.) There was no need to cut them down as they were already recovering from the fire. Native trees are fire resistant.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, August 1, 2017. Tuesday morning, neighbors discovered a new camper/trailer parked next to the Red Car Property on Corralitas Drive. (Click on photo to enlarge.)
Video: Red Car Property Neighbor, August 1, 2017. First posted on Twitter, also available on YouTube. Not only is the camper parked next to the dry brush of the Red Car Property, the sidewalk is blocked, there's a propane tank in front and what appears to be a bag of charcoal briquettes at the the back of the camper (see video below). The white Saturn parked behind the camper, is associated with the squatters who recently abandoned their camp on the Red Car Property near Rose Scharlin.
Send your concerns about brush clearance, vehicle access and any other concerns regarding the Red Car Property to hector.vega@lacity.org in City Council District 13. Include your name, street address and phone number.
*UPDATE: August 4, 2017, LAPD Senior Lead Officer Lenny Davis spoke to the woman living in the trailer yesterday. The trailer was gone today.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, July 28, 2017. Neighbors are wondering how long it will take to get brush clearance done. The LAFD brush inspector told a neighbor on Corralitas Drive, the Red Car Property owner will be noticed once again for failure to clear brush. All neighbors who were here for the 2016 fire cannot understand why any property owner wouldn't do their brush clearance by May 1.
Photo: Jay Lieske, July 13, 2017. The grass is dry and mostly mashed down but not cleared between the construction fence and Fletcher on the Red Car Property. Protected native Black Walnuts are repopulating the slope. A number of trees died after five years of drought. (Click on photos to enlarge.)
Photo: Jay Lieske, July 13, 2017. The Red Car Property is between Riverside Drive and Fletcher and Adelbert Ave. Adelbert is a substandard Hillside Street with a number of hairpin turns to reach Lake View Ave. It has only one means of access. We don't know why Adelbert is not a Red Flag No Parking street.
Photo: Jay Lieske, July 13, 2017. The construction site appears to have done brush clearance on the portion of the Red Car Property behind their fence. It also looks like a few native trees are returning and recovering to the flat portion of the Red Car Property above the construction site. Neighbors have expressed concerns that the native saplings and recovering native trees should be preserved as the brush clearance contractors are not known for their care with young trees.
As with other parts of the Red Car Property, neighbors want to know why the property owner is allowed to get away with not doing brush clearance by May 1, every year? Click here for all our brush clearance posts.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor #1, July 17, 2017. Around 10 AM the sound of chainsaws echoed through Red Car Canyon. Luckily, there was no accidental sparking of fire. (Click on photos to enlarge.)
Red Car Property Neighbor #1 documented the canyon's dry brush on video (posted on our Twitter feed) with the sound of chainsaws grinding away in the background. The video missed the tree going down, however the neighbor witnessed it happen, texting, "This guy chopped down a dead tree and NARROWLY MISSED THE POWER LINES." With so much dry brush on the Red Car Property, neighbors are always on fire watch and alert to potential hazards.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor #2, July 6, 2017. We published this photo last week. Here, the photo is enlarged, with arrows added showing the location of the two dead trees that died prior to, but were also burned in the 2016 fire. They appear to be on Lake View Ave lots near the power lines. The smaller of the two trees is the one Red Car Property Neighbor #1 witnessed falling to a chainsaw today. However, because the property lines have an odd arrangement right about there, it's hard to tell which lot the trees are on from the photos.
AT&T has been doing work on their lines on the telephone poles on the slope. LADWP trimmed trees in April. We were surprised DWP left the larger of the two trees, considering we'd had two fires in less than two years on the same slope. We know LAFD cited the Red Car Property owner as well as adjacent property owners who had not done their brush clearance. Deadline for at least one adjacent property owner to comply with brush clearance was July 16, 2017. According to the LAFD website, The Red Car Property owner was sent notice twice, and they failed to meet their compliance date of June 28, 2017.
Since the first week of May, neighbors have been reminding LAFD Brush Unit and CD13, brush clearance had not been done on the Red Car Property. We wonder when the property will be red tagged. But it's not like the Red Car Property owner hasn't ignored the red tags for many years. Even after last year's fire, they ignored the LAFD red tag order to comply. LAFD brush clearance contractors cleared the property in December. Click here for all our brush clearance posts.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, July 6, 2017. Neighbors are downright angry that the Red Car Property owner still has not done brush clearance. (Click on photos to enlarge.) Little has changed since May except a few more neighbors cleared brush back from their property lines on the Red Car Property out of self preservation. In many places the dry grass has been mashed down by people driving cars and trucks across it.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor July 6, 2017. The large protected native Coast Live Oak is still showing dry branches and leaves toasted by the fire. However, there is a lot of new growth on the tree. Looks like LAFD brush clearance contractors and adjacent property owners went a bit overboard cutting down Black Walnuts on the Red Car Property.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, July 6, 2017. Some Lake View Ave property owners did their brush clearance last week. Looks like their trucks mashed down the dry grass or they cleared some of it so they wouldn't inadvertently spark a fire with their trucks on the flat part of the Red Car Property.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, July 12, 2017. Lest you think things are different today, reports from neighbors along the entire property, as well as photos from above, confirm they still haven't done brush clearance on the Red Car Property.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, July 6, 2017. Corralitas Walk, a public walk street is sandwiched between the 2 Freeway (to the right of the chain link fence) and the Red Car Property (upslope from the sidewalk). The upslope neighbor appears to have cleared some brush from the Red Car Property adjacent to their home. However the brush still needs clearing here too. The protected native Black Walnuts and Coast Live Oaks on the slope are recovering here too.
Community Residents’ Association for Parks is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization formed in 1997 by our Silver Lake neighborhood. We are dedicated to acquisition and preservation of the Corralitas Red Car Property as a park in partnership with the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.
Contact: redcarproperty@gmail.com
