Residents Envision More Open Space

The pride of Hermosa and neighboring cities are the local coastline and public parks where the natural beauty of the South Bay shines through.

A group of researchers and residents are now exploring ways in which more parkland can be brought to the Beach Cities.

A was held Wednesday next door in Redondo Beach at the Veterans Park Library to discuss the idea.

The sponsor of the workshop was the South Bay Parkland Conservancywelcomed a member of the California State Coastal Conservancy as the night’s featured speaker.

Among the more than 50 participants were two 12-year-old boys who seized the opportunity to lobby for a skateboard and BMX bike park to be included in any plans for new recreational areas.

Hermosa Beach already has a on Pier Avenue next to the Community Center.

“Skating is a big part of the South Bay’s culture and we have few places to go, none in our city though allowing scooters and BMX bikes,” Griffin Keith, a student at , told the group. He lives in Redondo Beach.

His classmate, Jaydon Abate, read a list of suggested sites for such a park. He appreciated the opportunity to voice his opinions and to hear others, he told Patch.

“It was pretty fun. It was cool to hear everyone’s ideas,” he said. 

Varying ideas that ranged from forming native plant gardens and exercise parks to establishing skate venues and waterfront parks flowed through the night. 

“I think we had good representation from different stakeholders throughout the community,” said Jim Light, president of the South Bay Parkland Conservancy, following the meeting. “The turnout was more than we had expected.”

Light’s organization is pushing for a waterfront regional park in Redondo Beach among other things, but the hearing showed that the public is interested in not just the waterfront park but other ecological and environmental approaches, which include Hermosa Beach, such as extending the greenbelt and bike paths.

Light added that exploring those varied options and producing a feasibility study are now the mission of Studio 606, a consortium of faculty and graduate students from California State Polytechnic University in Pomona. 

The students and faculty from the school’s department of landscape architecture organized the two-hour public hearing and are working with the California State Coastal Conservancy to identify opportunities for parks and open space throughout the South Bay.

The state agency is working closely with the Studio 606 group, whose name derives from the course number, and is paying the university’s nearly $50,000 cost of the South Bay analysis, said Peter Brand, senior project manager at the Coastal Conservancy. 

Brand invited Cal Poly students to take part in the analysis after viewing their earlier work in other communities, he said.

This new project is not just about the Beach Cities, but “we’re also trying to help people from inland communities get to the coast,” Brand added.

The four students working on the South Bay project started gathering information in September, said Professor Susan Mulley, one of three faculty advisers on the Studio 606 project.

They researched the area’s biophysical characteristics and sociocultural data before meeting the community to hear the views of local residents, she said.

The four graduate students and their faculty advisers will produce a “vision plan” or feasibility study to show the community. 

“We have to think about things now,” Mulley said. “Now the real work begins of analyzing the data.”

One of those third-year graduate students who will be doing that analysis is Brian Baldauf who said there is a clear need for additional parkland and open space in areas surrounding Hermosa.

“The South Bay is critically underserved in terms of the state looking at the amount of parkland per thousand people,” he said, using neighboring Redondo Beach as an example, where 2-and-a-half acres of land per one thousand people falls below the state minimum threshold of 3 acres per thousand people.

“We’re looking forward to what results they put in,” Light said. “I think it’s good that we brought in someone independent and from outside the community to pull all this together.”