A parking lot with more than 100 spaces at University High School was closed recently to make way for the construction of a new gym, but some students wish the school had waited until the summer to start building.

The West Los Angeles high school gym is located on a fault line, so the school is moving the structure from its current location on Westgate Avenue to Ohio Avenue on what was, until March, a student parking lot.  There are two smaller parking lots off Barrington Avenue offering free and permit-less parking for those students who arrive early enough, but others still try parking on the streets.

“Fridays are horrible,” said senior Golmah Zarinkhou, who used to park on the streets near school.  “One day I had to spend an hour-and-a-half looking for parking.”

Most streets near University High School have street cleaning on Friday, meaning students who leave their cars there between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. that day could get tickets or worse.

“I do notice quite a few people get towed,” said one resident who lives across the street but preferred not to be identified.

A total of 2,218 students attend University High School, but parking is primarily an issue that affects some of the 483 seniors.

Parking regulations on the streets that surround University High School – including Barrington, Texas, Westgate and Ohio avenues – vary.  On the school-side of Westgate Avenue, for example, only loading is permitted on school days between 6:30-9:00 a.m. and 1:30-4:00 p.m.  The school-side parking lane on Texas Avenue is reserved for buses, but there is some mostly unrestricted parking on Barrington Avenue opposite the school.

The school-side of Barrington Avenue does not allow any parking from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., but this restriction could be loosened.  According to Mo Blorfroshan, a transportation engineer for the western district office of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, changing that restriction on the school-side of the street would require a letter from the Los Angeles Unified School District requesting different parking regulations.

“We would have no problem with that,” said Blorfroshan.

After the LAUSD request letter is received, Blorfroshan explained it would take approximately 8-10 weeks to put the new regulations into effect and install new signs.

Changing street cleaning to weekends might also ease the parking situation at the high school.  Alternately, a dirt lot once occupied by bungalows could be converted into a parking lot.  These plans, the school’s student newspaper reports, are scheduled for construction in May.  The newspaper said the lot, in its current state, is inadequate for students due to its “unsafe entrance gate, uneven ground and falling pinecones.”

Assistant principal Dan Blank declined to comment for this story.

Jim Nakabara, a 33-year teacher and the school’s athletic director, believes the issue is overstated.

“Once [people] get used to parking in a certain area, it’s a habit and they don’t want to break the habit,” he said.

Students’ reluctance to park elsewhere might also be related to the conditions under which they were told about the large parking lot’s closing.  Zarinkhou said the school left notes on vehicles one Friday explaining the lot would be closed on Monday.

“Previous notice would have been definitely nice,” Zarinkhou said.

Some students and faculty wonder why construction could not have started in the summer, but with the school already behind the initially proposed construction schedule, high school officials might have wanted to expedite the construction process.

“I just think the district is playing it safe,” said Nakabara, who also attended University High School.  “There is a fault they found when they were researching it a few years ago and they said in a major earthquake there’ll be less than a one percent chance of major damage to the building.”

Once the new gym is completed, the West Gym presently serving students can be demolished.  On that space, tennis courts or a new parking lot might fit, Nakabara said.  With demand for student parking far outstripping the supply of available spaces, the school might also introduce paid parking permits with the potential new lot.  For now, though, students who drive to school can choose from the two lots on Barrington Avenue or try street parking.

Turning South Los Angeles into an oasis that can provide healthier food to South L.A. communities was the subject of a two-day conference hosted by the California Endowment April 8-9.

The conference, titled “Food Desert to Food Oasis,” brought together a number of activists looking for feasible ways to help South L.A. residents, who are underserved by an inadequate number of markets.  Speakers answered questions and took audience suggestions about how to solve the lack of healthy market food available in the area and simultaneously spark local business development.  Event organizers hoped to show how difficult and complex the issue can be to address.

“We need you to engage with your ideas and your concerns,” said Mary Lee, senior associate of event sponsor PolicyLink, as the second day of the conference began on Friday.  “Before we’re through with this exercise, we may not have all the answers—we couldn’t possibly have all the answers.”

Even so, Lee stressed that all the obstacles preventing the construction of more markets offering healthy food in South L.A., such as various zoning regulations and business owners unwilling to move, were surmountable.

“The reality is we have…developers who are ready and able and equipped to do this work and bring these stores into our community,” Lee said.

On the second day of the conference, two underutilized lots were presented as case studies of places in South L.A. that could use a grocery store.  The first location, at 4401-4455 Slauson Ave., is a 3.2-acre site with 11 parcels.  The second site, at 1626-1654 Florence Ave., is just 0.77 acres and contains 10 parcels.

The diversity of many South L.A. neighborhoods could get in the way of a community presenting a clear list of requests to a developer considering the construction of a large market on a vacant lot. 

“Most frequently, the community voice is one that is uneven,” said speaker Jackie Dupont Walker, president of Ward Economic Development Corporation. 

Learning what a community wants in a soon-to-be-developed market is in the developer’s best interest, she added.

“The community voice must stay at the table.  In fact, it’s in the best interests of all parties because those are the actual people who are going to … make the venture profitable.”

Before a supermarket developer becomes serious about potentially building at a specific site, census data will often be pulled to determine how many people could be served.  This presents a problem for South Los Angeles, said speaker Carolyn Hull of the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles.

“Often times the census data undercounts our community.” Hull said.  “So it’s very important that we actually get present data … that can accurately represent the buying power of our community.”

Instead of attracting more big chain stores like the Ralphs supermarket at Vermont Avenue and Adams Boulevard, one audience member questioned the focus on attracting larger stores to fill the approximately $60 million of unmet need for healthy food within a two-mile radius of one of the two project sites.

“That could be 60 little corner stores each selling $1 million of fresh, healthy, affordable food or 30 stores with $2 million each in revenue,” he said.

Again underscoring the difficulty of the issue, moderator Brenda Shockley, president of Community Build Inc., pointed out that larger stores can offer healthy food for South Los Angeles residents but also start an economic “development ripple effect” in the area. 

Conversely, adding a smaller market like a Fresh & Easy – currently with no South L.A. locations – could provide healthier foods in a shorter time frame than it would take to plan and build a market or full-service supermarket.

“I want to know how we get the timetable sped up a little bit in this area because we have got all the resources in the room to do it,” said another audience member, frustrated at the slow or nonexistent construction progress of South L.A. projects like the Marlton Square shopping center in Crenshaw.

Introducing farmer’s markets was another short-term solution suggested by audience member Erin Banks, the office manager of Los Angeles-based Local Initiatives Support Corporation.

“You can rotate [the farmer’s market location during the week] until you can figure out the bigger picture,” Banks said.

Those wishing to share their opinion on the issue will have another chance May 7 at a Food Resource Development Coalition meeting at 10 a.m. at 3731 Stocker Street (Suite 201) also confronting the lack of grocery stores in South L.A.

Venice residents tired of Recreational Vehicles and converted vans lining their streets and increasing crime might soon see some progress on the issue, depending on the results of an upcoming California Coastal Commission vote.

For years, people living in RVs and old converted vans have parked in Venice around homes and businesses, sometimes frustrating locals who complain that the transient population leave litter on the streets and is an eyesore.  Venice residents recently had a chance to vote on a neighborhood council proposal about the RVs and establishing permit-only overnight parking. And while the vote attracted record turnout, the California Coastal Commission will have ultimate say on the issue when a vote is taken in June.

“Until you’ve lived with this stuff right in front of your house, [from] when you walk out of your house and got this right in front of you day after day, you have no concept of what it is [like],” said Stuart Oscars, a Venice resident since 1995.

Oscars, a local activist who serves on two sub-committees within the Venice Neighborhood Council, said he witnessed drug use and theft when RVs parked in front of his house before his street established stricter parking regulations.  It took years to make that happen, Oscars said, and might take even more time to resolve the issue on a more widespread level.

“Everyone thought this would be a quick fix,” he said.

Estimates of RVs in Venice vary from 100 to 300, depending on season.  Some contend the troublemaking RV owners are in the minority.   

“There are some people here that abuse this,” said Anthony Lamonea, who lives in his RV in Venice.  “They throw their trash everywhere, but there’s a big percentage of us that watch people and say ‘Hey man, you’re making it hard for us.’”

Officer Theresa Skinner of the Venice Police Department specializes in the Oakwood area of the city and says 80 percent of her calls are about people living in RVs and converted vans.

“We have had several instances of prostitution and narcotic use, finding paraphernalia laying around [and] condoms. … You come here, you stay here from street sweep day to street sweep day,” Skinner said, as if speaking to an RV owner, “there’s trash all over, the generator’s running all night, they hear your radio … if you moved every two days and went to another place where you weren’t congregating, nobody would even notice they were there.”

Even so, Skinner does not think homeowners realize there are many respectable RV owners on the streets.  Lamonea maintains that most RV owners are good neighbors to Venice homeowners and businesses.

“Actually, we’re security for most of those people.  If we see any activity going on, to keep the heat off us, we’ll confront some moron [who’s] trying to do harm,” Lamonea said.   

Finding an affordable alternate place for these RV owners to go at night has been a problem.

“Where do you find this limited space in an ocean beach area?  We’re working on it,” said Los Angeles Councilman Bill Rosendahl.

One option is the Dockweiler Beach RV Park, which currently has space for 117 RVs and is a 15-minute drive from Venice.  Unlike the free and generally unrestricted parking in Venice, however, the park charges at least $34 a night per RV until May 23, when the cheapest summer rate will be $41 a night per RV.

Other parking lots near the RV park could serve as the future site of a free overnight lot for RV parking if Skinner’s proposal is accepted.  Senior Lead Officer Skinner thinks the beach lots at Dockweiler Beach – across the street from a public waste facility – would be the perfect place to start a pilot program.

“Let’s try it for 6 months.  Let’s see how they police themselves—are they going to pick up their trash, are they going to pick up their urine, let’s see how it works,” Skinner said.

Alternatively, Rosendahl said his district is considering the application of a program modeled after rehabilitation programs successfully employed in areas with a high RV concentration like Santa Barbara, Calif., and Eugene, Ore.  The Eugene program allows RVs to park in private parking lots, but the vehicle owners “must prove they have a plan and want to improve their lives,” Oscars said.

If the California Coastal Commission votes that Venice residents can establish permitted parking zones, RV owners would have to find another place outside the city to park overnight.  A “Yes” vote would then leave the decision to establish overnight parking zones up to each Venice city block.

“Hopefully the Coastal Commission will give us the approval to go forward, then we’ll deal with it block-by-block,” Rosendahl said.

This multi-step process is set in place because of what Rosendahl calls “dual jurisdiction issues.”  Introducing permitted parking in most of Venice might restrict beach access, something that goes against the California Coastal Commission’s permanent responsibilities.