Lovers of the outdoors in Culver City will have another place locally where they can commune with nature in the not too distant future.
The last month greenlighed plans and funds to establish a $10 million project called the Stoneview Nature Center.
The five-acre site is located adjacent to the Kenneth Hahn Recreation Area at 5950 Stoneview Drive, which once housed Ohr Eliyahu Academy, a private Orthodox Jewish day school. The Baldwin Hills Conservancy will contribute $5 million to the project budget, which is not exempt from California Environmental Quality Act guidelines.
The statute, known as CEQA, requires state and local agencies to perform analysis of all potential impacts to a project and provide public disclosure of environmental impacts as well as opportunities for all interested parties to address project proposals at public hearings.
The proposed center will include a 4,000 square foot community building with a multi-purpose room, a staff office, interior and exterior restrooms, an open terrace and a yoga deck.
Other features include surface parking, a demonstration/ community garden, an observation area and botanical and nature gardens.
Baldwin Hills Executive Director David McNeil thinks the proposed center will be a welcome addition to the area.
“The Baldwin Hills area has few indoor facilities from which to conduct hands on education, science or stewardship projects,” McNeil told the News.
Los Angeles Education Partnerships, an education-based organization that assists “high need” schools, conducted a community needs survey in the Baldwin Hills area in 2005. The survey indicated community members, teachers and environmental education providers felt there was a dearth of accessible areas to explore nature locally and provide learning connections between human actions and the health of the planet.
“Increased access to recreation areas for hiking, walking, jogging and communing with nature remain critical priorities to the densely populated area,” the report stated.
McNeil said the center could act as a nexus for many who enjoy the outdoors.
“If the grant award is approved, the Stoneview Nature Center would be a featured amenity for area residents, students and senior passive park users as well as educators,” he said. “Moreover, it would provide future trail access to the adjacent Baldwin Hills Parklands and the park to Playa Trail.”
Another nature center in the Ballona Wetlands has been met with anticipation by some and with dismay by others. The proposed Ballona facility would include similar features as the Baldwin Hills center, but the Annenberg Foundation, which would build the Ballona facility, also has an animal rescue component.
Sandrine Cassidy- Schmitt, a board member with the Ballona Renaissance in Culver City, alluded to the wetlands center when asked about her thoughts about a similar project in Culver City.
“The Stoneview Nature Center seems like an honorable project with good intentions and will benefit the community with a community room and an outdoor classroom: nothing better than to combine education to nature,” she said.
“Of course, this is a good location since it is being built on an existing building area unlike the Annenberg project in the wetlands,” Cassidy Schmitt continued. “This project has the intention of opening the space to visitors and keeping it up by hiring at-risk youth.”
Cassidy -Schmitt was referring to a county initiative called the Youth Employment Plan, where teenagers will be employed to perform landscaping tasks for the nature center.
Geological testing and what is known as seismic trenching were conducted in the area and found indications of seismic faults. Due to building code requirements, the northeastern portion of the site is the sole location where a structure can safely be built.
A county geotechnical report indicates the potential for a building, provided uncertified elements located approximately 23 feet in depth of the foundation are removed or installing mat foundations on piles extending into bedrock are used.
Mat foundations are a type of foundation that are used to provided stability in rocky or expansive soils, typically with a bearing wall.
McNeil feels the center can be built with the proper environmental preparation. “The active faults at the site have been mapped by county Public Works.
These areas, along with the high pressure gas line that runs diagonally across the property from south to north, have been identified as site where no structures will be built,” he said. “The northeast corner of the site can be developed using LEED design (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) modular building materials.”
The existing one-story buildings will be demolished and the reabandonment of an oil well, located under one of the existing structures.
McNeil sees the nature center as having the potential to give the area a necessary makeover.
“Removal of non-permeable black top and the abandoned school infrastructure will transform existing blight into natural open space with the installation of bio swales, native trees and shrubs to help improve air and water quality,” he said. “Programming related to watershed interpretation and stewardship is central themes for the conservancy’s environmental initiative.”
Cassidy -Schmitt does see one potential drawback to the project.
“They will be making an otherwise abandoned space into a center that teaches about nature, which helps connect the community to its surroundings,” she said.
“Of course, I can see how some neighbors might be concerned by traffic (especially with the adjacent steps being such a success), but having been an elementary school before, it should draw equivalent traffic.”
The Baldwin Hills Regional Conservation Authority owns the property. According to county documents, parks officials anticipate that the conservation authority will transfer the title to the county and the Department of Parks and Recreation will operate and maintain the nature center and the park.
