Grass VS Garden: City Hall to Rethink Its Landscaping

Green grass via Shutterstock

While the costs to revive the L.A. City Hall lawn from the wrath of Occupy L.A. are uncertain, one thing is not. The grass is dead. Parks and Rec's most recent estimate for sod replacement and sprinkler repair totals $120k, a number that, while still high, dropped down a few hundreds of thousands after the previous $400k projection. Is it worth the time and money to keep up the lawn? L.A. Times writer Emily Green and other local urban landscape-minded individuals see the lawn's death as an opportunity for experimentation, for something new.

The grounds around City Hall could be turned into a test garden, one that implements a drought-tolerant landscape. Makes sense, right? This IS Southern California, after all. But one of the issues, aside from money, is proper training.

"To have a garden that celebrates our Mediterranean climate the way Austin's salutes Texas prairie, Rec and Parks staff would need to learn how to weed instead of mow, mulch instead of blow and maintain drip irrigation instead of sprinklers," says Green. Stephen Billings, a landscape architect who managed the gardens around Northridge's Valley Performing Arts Center, feels the teaching gardens around City Hall could be temporary until the ground staff was trained and gained enough skill to maintain a sustainable model.

Green notes that "the beauty of turning City Hall into a test garden is that its lessons could then be shared around the city." The training ground would have to be a functional space as well. Melinda Taylor, who designed the 2003 garden at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, suggested that a new City Hall garden should feature assembly spaces, shade, bike racks and clean toilets.

And then there's that minor obstacle called funding, which Green says should be invested in "a water-wise test garden" instead of focused on the re-sodding costs. Apparently, a plan for progressively re-landscaping City Hall exists but has been halted due to lack of funds.

As Green puts it, the current occupation "has given City Hall the chance to walk its talk." For over two years the mayor and City Council have advocated water conservation, issuing a citywide sprinkler ordinance in 2009 and paying single-family home $1 per square foot of lawn removed from their properties. But water use is still too damn high, notably by the government. Outdoor water use totals 41% of the government's water usage. The lawn is was pretty, but it sounds like it's time to look to a smarter future.