The Brief

The Long Beach City Council has approved a proposal to develop a 14-acre piece of vacant land near the Los Angeles River into a self-storage, RV parking and car wash facility.

The late 8 to 1 vote Tuesday night authorized an environmental impact report and a zoning change that effectively paves the way for the project to be built. The lot is bounded by the 405 Freeway, the L.A. River and the Metro A-line. To its east, there’s the quiet, upscale Los Cerritos neighborhood, along with another park.

Environmentalists and some local residents have fought the project since it was first proposed in 2020, pushing for the land to instead be turned into a park.

“We will continue to fight,” said Leslie Garretson, board president of the grassroots group Riverpark Coalition and nearby resident, after the vote.

She said she was pleased the councilmember who represents that area of Long Beach, Megan Kerr, voted against the project — the sole nay vote — and that her group isn’t giving up yet.

Supporters of the project were relieved at the decision.

Members of the Riverpark Coalition, from right to left, Renee Lawler, Mike Laquatra, Lynette Ferenczy and Leslie Garretson.

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“ I see it as a win-win for the city of Long Beach, its residents and its taxpayers,” said Sue Nantais, a nearby resident who supports the project. “I don't agree with the argument that we need another park built on this private property.”

The background

The lot sits in what used to be, for thousands of years, a vast floodplain of the L.A. River that would get inundated with water as the river swelled with winter rains.

By the turn of the 20th century, that floodplain was being dredged and bulldozed for industry and development.

The location of the 14-acre vacant lot in Long Beach.

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Erin Stone via Google Maps

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In the 1920s and 1930s, the land was used for an oil brine treatment facility and oil drilling, which contaminated the soil. By the 1940s, after a series of devastating floods, the federal government stepped in to channelize the river.

The site was partially cleaned up in the 1970s, but soil contamination from that oil activity remains. In the late 1990s, the lot was turned into a golf course that operated until it shut down in 2007.

Since then, the lot has been largely vacant, plagued by illegal activities and an eyesore for many in the community, according to local residents and the city.

“I have three daughters and I must say that twice we've had the homeless from that area try to break into our back door,” said David De Priest, a nearby resident who supports the project and believes developing the land would quell such dangers. “It’s just a bad spot.”

This 14-acre lot near the L.A. River in Long Beach will be turned a self-storage, RV parking and car wash facility after a Tuesday City Council vote.

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In 2019, Redondo Beach-based developer InSite Property Group bought the lot and proposed building a SecureSpace storage facility there to the Long Beach City Council, which has to review and approve developments in accordance with local and state law.

The dream of a park

The lot has long been imagined by residents and officials as a potential location for a large public park as part of the city and county’s efforts to green the L.A. River corridor. It sits adjacent to a county-owned lot. Though nonprofits have inquired, they’ve never been able to purchase the private land due to high cost and an unwillingness to sell.

In 2007, the city of Long Beach’s RiverLink Plan called for turning the site into a park. That idea was later echoed by the state’s Lower LA River Revitalization Plan and L.A. County’s L.A. River Master Plan.

The Dominguez Gap Wetlands along the L.A. River Trail is popular for hiking, biking and birding. It's adjacent to a 14-acre lot that will be converted into a self-storage facility.

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Opponents of developing the lot say the area provides a rare opportunity to add more green space to a heavily urban region, build resilience in the face of worsening heat and floods, and improve quality of life for western Long Beach communities that have far fewer access to parks than the wealthier east side.

“We think these kinds of sites that are currently open space undeveloped sites really should be prioritized for that purpose rather than for development,” said Ben Harris, senior staff attorney at nonprofit Los Angeles Waterkeeper, which, along with Riverpark Coalition, sued to try and block the project in 2022. “If we are talking about expanding park access, green space access, we need to capitalize on every opportunity or else we'll be paving over the last opportunities.”

Areas west of Cherry Avenue in Long Beach have worse air quality and are generally lower income with higher populations of people of color than areas on the eastside, according to the state's environmental hazard office.

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The judge ruled in the group’s favor, saying the project needed an environmental impact report, which the City Council greenlit on Tuesday.

Harris said his group will likely continue to push back on the project.

A sign outside a home in the Los Cerritos neighborhood near the vacant lot that's been proposed to be turned into a storage facility.

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He said that’s because research shows that more trees and green space cools entire communities, whereas areas with more pavement are hotter and harmful to public health. Experts say adding more green space is a key way to reduce the impacts of extreme heat as pollution in the atmosphere makes the world hotter.

“It's a cycle that we've repeated for over a hundred years, and we view this as a death of a thousand cuts,” said Harris at Tuesday night’s meeting. “Every time we do this to the river, we're hurting it more, and we're losing opportunities to heal the river and heal our communities.”

What the Long Beach City Council has said 

The original project has gone through changes since it was first proposed back in 2020 after residents fought back.

The company building the storage site, SecureSpace, said it will build a public trail to connect to the L.A. River Trail that runs through the county–owned lot. They also say they’ll plant native plants, use solar panels to offset energy use, and conserve a protected area for endangered tarplants that have been identified on the property.

The county owns an adjacent parcel with the popular L.A. River Trail.

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City officials argue that they can’t block the project because the property is privately owned and the city doesn’t have the funds to purchase the land, even if it were for sale. They say cleaning the soil to a safe enough level for a park and landscaping costs could come to tens of millions of dollars. The current proposal includes cleaning up the site to a lesser degree, since the developers are paving over much of the land.

Opponents, such as Harris with L.A. Waterkeeper, said the city could seek funding for a new park through, for example, the state’s newly voter-passed Proposition 4, which has hundreds of millions of dollars available for climate resilience and green space development.

A rendering of the future development at the 14-acre vacant lot.

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But a city official said Tuesday night that they won’t pursue that path.

“In our resource-constrained environment, using limited staff time and resources to pursue such competitive funding could functionally deprioritize sites in other areas of greater park need,” said Alison Spindler-Ruiz, a planning manager with the city.

Spindler-Ruiz said the city wants to prioritize new green space on the westside of the L.A. River, and that a new park in this location on the east side of the river would not do that because it’s difficult to access from the west side.

Like most cities, access to green space in Long Beach is unequally distributed: Residents on the wealthier east side of the city have an average of 17 acres of green space per 1,000 residents, while west side residents have about 2 acres of park space per 1,000 residents, according to the city, which, in its general plan adopted back in 2002, set a goal of creating 8 acres of green space per 1,000 residents citywide.

Charity Castro spoke in opposition to the development of the 14-acre site. She wants a park there instead.

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City officials argued the area near the proposed storage facility already has enough green space — there’s the Los Cerritos Park just down the street, the recently funded Wrigley Heights River Park Project that will be just south of the vacant lot and the Dominguez Gap Wetlands just north of it.

But some residents disagree, saying a park there wouldn’t just serve the wealthier neighborhood immediately adjacent to it, but also the broader western Long Beach community.

“ I have no green spaces to go to, and the ones that I do have in my neighborhood are few and far between and deeply, deeply under-kept,” said Charity Castro, who lives in the south Wrigley neighborhood, at Tuesday’s meeting. “I deserve, and my community, deserves a park, not a small allotment of natural plants or a walkway that's convenient for your private developers to continue to profit from us.”

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Since 1977, Richard Santillan has been to every Opening Day game at Dodger Stadium. 

“The tradition goes from my father, to me, to my children and grandchildren. Some of my best memories are with my father and children here at Dodger Stadium,” Santillan told The LA Local, smiling under the shade of palm trees near the entrance to the ballpark Wednesday morning. He was there to protest the team less than 24 hours before Opening Day.

Santillan, like countless other loyal Dodgers fans, is grappling with his fan identity over the team’s decision to accept an invitation to the White House and owner Mark Walter’s ties to ICE detention facilities.

More than 30 people joined Santillan on Wednesday morning for a press conference held near 1000 Vin Scully Drive to convey a message directly to the team. 

“We are demanding the Dodgers stop participating in funding of inhumane treatment of families and do not go to the White House to celebrate with the criminal in chief,” Evelyn Escatiola told the crowd. “Together, we have the power to make a change.”

Escatiola, a former dean of East Los Angeles College and longtime community organizer, urged fans to flex their economic power by “letting the Dodgers know that we do not support repression.”

Jorge “Coqui” Rodriguez, a lifelong Dodgers fan, spoke to the crowd and called on Dodgers ownership to divest from immigration detention centers owned and operated by GEO Group and CoreCivic.

Jorge Coqui H Rodriguez speaks at a press conference outside Dodger Stadium on March 25, 2026, to demand the Dodgers not to visit the White House following their 2025 World Series win.

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In a phone interview a day before the protest, Rodriguez told The LA Local he did not want the Dodgers using his “cheve” or beer money to fund detention centers. 

“They can’t take our parking money, our cacahuate money, our cheve money, our Dodger Dog money and invest those funds into corporations that are imprisoning people. It’s wrong,” Rodriguez said. 

Rodriguez considers the Dodgers one of the most racially diverse teams and said the players need to support fans at a time when heightened immigration enforcement has become more common across L.A.

The team’s 2025’s visit to the White House drew ire from the largely Latino fan base, citing the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on immigrants. 

In June, the team came under further scrutiny when rumors swirled online that federal immigration agents were using the stadium’s parking, which immigration authorities later denied in statements posted on social media accounts.

The team again came under fire after not releasing a statement on the impacts of ICE raids on its mostly Latino fan base at the height of immigration enforcement last summer. The team later agreed to invest $1 million to support families affected by immigration enforcement.

When he learned the Dodgers were pledging only $1 million to families in need, Rodriguez called the amount a  “slap in the face.” 

“These guys just bought the Lakers for billions of dollars and they give a million dollars to fight for legal services? That’s a joke,” Rodriguez said. “They need to have a moral backbone and not be investing in those companies.”

According to reporting from the Los Angeles Times, former Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershawsaid last week that he is looking forward to the trip.

“I went when President [Joe] Biden was in office. I’m going to go when President [Donald] Trump is in office,” Kershaw said. “To me, it’s just about getting to go to the White House. You don’t get that opportunity every day, so I’m excited to go.”

The Dodgers have yet to announce when their planned visit will take place. 

Santillan sometimes laments his decision to give up his season tickets in protest of the team. His connection to the stadium and the memories he has made there with family and friends will last a lifetime, he said. On Thursday, he will uphold his tradition and be there for the first pitch of the season, but with a heavy heart.

“It’s a family tradition, but the Dodgers have a lot of work to do,” he said.

A local favorite mom-and-pop bookshop in Eagle Rock is facing displacement due to a steep rent hike. The owners say theirs is just one of several small businesses along Eagle Rock Boulevard struggling to keep up with lease increases.

Over the past 19 years, many in the neighborhood have come to love READ Books for its eclectic collection of used titles and shop dog Florence.

Co-owner Jeremy Kaplan said it’s been a delight to grow with the community over the years.

“Like seeing kids come back in, who were in grade school and now they’re in college,” Kaplan said.

But the building where Kaplan and wife Debbie rent was recently sold, and the rent increased by more than 130% to $2,805 a month, Kaplan said. He told LAist it was an increase his small business simply could not absorb.

Kaplan said he originally was given 30 days notice of the rent increase. After some research, assistance from Councilmember Ysabel Jurado’s office and some pro-bono legal help, Kaplan said he pushed back and got the 90-day notice he’s afforded by state law.

California Senate Bill 1103 requires landlords to give businesses with five or less employees 90 days’ notice for rent increases exceeding 10%, among other protections.

Systems Real Estate, the property management company, did not immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment.

What can small businesses do? 

Nadia Segura, directing attorney of the Small Business Program at pro bono legal aid non-profit Bet Tzedek said California law does not currently allow for rent control for commercial tenancies.

Outside of the protections under SB 1103, Segura said small businesses like READ Books don’t have much other recourse. And even then, commercial landlords are not required to inform their tenants of their protections under the law.

“There’s still a lot of people that don’t know about SB 1103. And then it’s very sad that they tell them they have these rent increases and within a month they have to leave,” Segura said.

She said her group is seeing steep rent hikes like this for commercial tenants across the city.

“We are seeing this even more with the World Cup coming up, the Olympics coming up. And I will say it was very sad to see that also after the wildfires,” Segura said.

Part of Bet Tzedek’s ongoing work is to advocate for small businesses, working with landlords who are increasing rents to see if they are willing to give business owners longer leases that lock in rents.

What’s next 

After READ Books posted about their situation on social media, commenters chimed in to express their outrage and love for the little shop.

While he looks for a new spot, Kaplan says he’s forming a coalition of local businesses and activist groups to see what can be done to help other small businesses facing similar displacement. He wants to address the displacement issue for businesses like his, which have made Eagle Rock the distinctive neighborhood that it is today.

Owl Talk, a longtime Eagle Rock staple selling clothing and accessories in a unit in the same building as READ Books, is facing a “more than double” rent increase, according to a post on their Instagram account.

Kaplan said he’s been in touch with the office of state Assemblywoman Jessica Caloza and wants to explore the possibility of introducing legislation to set up protections for small businesses like his, including rent-control measures or a vacancy tax for landlords. Kaplan said he also reached out to the office of state Sen. Maria Durazo.

By his count, Kaplan said there are about a dozen businesses within surrounding blocks that are at risk of closing their doors or have shuttered due to rent increases or other struggles.

When READ Books was founded during the Great Recession, Kaplan said he knew it was a longshot to open a bookstore at the same time so many were struggling to stay in business.

“It was kind of interesting to be doing something that neighborhoods needed. That was important to me growing up, that was important to my children, that was important to my wife growing up,” Kaplan said.

“And then somebody comes in and says, ‘We’re gonna over double your rent.”

Topline:

Frozen budget: Most of the city’s Bureau of Street Lighting budget comes from an assessment that people who own property illuminated by lights pay on their county property tax bill. The amount people pay depends on the kind of property they own and how much they benefit from lighting. A typical single-family home currently pays $53 annually, and in total, the assessments bring in about $45 million annually for the city to repair and maintain streetlights. Changing the amount the Bureau of Street Lighting gets from the assessment requires a vote among property owners who benefit from the lights.

Ballots: L.A. City Council’s vote gives city staff the green light to prepare and send out those ballots. Miguel Sangalang, who oversees the bureau, said at a committee meeting earlier this month that he expects to send out ballots by April 17. Notices about the ballots will be sent out prior to the ballots themselves.

Near unanimous vote: L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez was the only “No” vote Tuesday, saying she wanted to see a more current strategic plan for the bureau. Sangalang said the bureau developed a plan in 2022 that lays out how money will be spent. Councilmember Imelda Padilla was absent for the vote.

Vote count: Votes will be weighted according to the assessment amount. Basically, the more you’re asked to pay yearly to maintain streetlights, the more your vote will count. Ballots received before June 2 will be tabulated by the L.A. City Clerk.

How much more money: According to a report, the amount needed in assessments from property owners to meet the repair and maintenance needs of the city’s streetlighting in the next fiscal year is nearly $112 million.

Use of the money: Sangalang said at a March 11 committee meeting that the extra funds would be used to double the number of staff to handle repairs and procure solar streetlights, which don’t face the threat of copper wire theft. That would all potentially reduce the time it takes to repair simple fixes down to a week. Currently, city residents wait for months to see broken streetlights repaired. The assessment would come with a three-year auditing mechanism.