Final Parks Plan recommendation on Commission Agenda
If approved by the Parks, Recreation, and Community Services Commission, the Parks Plan will go to the City Council in early 2025.
The reimagining of what Culver City Parks can be is almost complete.
Tonight, the Parks, Recreation, and Community Services (PRCS) Commission is set to approve the recommendation of the final draft of the Parks Plan to the City Council at its meeting at the Culver City Senior Center starting at 7 p.m. The document analyzes the current conditions of each park within Culver City's boundaries and details a series of improvements for each.
The Plan was conceived last February in response to controversy over a potential change to Bill Botts Park and Veterans Park in 2023 that was quickly scrapped, replacing it with a more comprehensive approach to reimagining the city's parks.
Its goal is to create a sustainable vision for improving Culver City Parks over the next 15-20 years. Culver City brought on firm OLIN to help manage the process of formulating the Parks Plan, which has extensive experience with outdoor planning.
OLIN has helped bring to life successful projects in California and beyond, such as the award-winning Sepulveda Basin Vision Plan, the Duke Medicine Pavilion in Durham, NC, and the Rincon Park redesign in Oakland, CA.
Community feedback has been a central figure in forming this new Parks Plan to address the main concern with 2023's rescinded move: a lack of community outreach or consideration. Due to public input, several ideas have already been removed from previous drafts, including plans for a potential playground at Carlson Park and a pedestrian bridge connecting Culver Middle and High School to Lindberg Park.
The proposed playground at Carlson Park was a particularly contentious topic, with residents against the idea, praising the park's unique feel with open green spaces. One speaker felt so strongly that a playground was not meant for Carlson Park that she started a petition, and neighbors responded.
One response was from a five-year-old who treasured the "nothing park," which the city and its consultants took to heart.
Among the changes that made it to the final plan released last Friday was a shift in the area allocated for America's Pastime in Culver City. The baseball fields at the north and south of Lindberg Park have been replaced entirely in the current Parks Plan Draft with space for other sports and activities, with a planned tee ball/kickball hybrid field to serve as their replacement.
At the same time, the diamonds at the top of Bill Botts Park are also planned to be replaced with fields designated for soccer.
The large field just down the hill will be converted into four conjoined fields, using the parking lot adjacent to the current right field and part of the parking lot behind left field as additional space. The plan also replaces one of the softball fields at Syd Kronenthal Park with an outdoor performance space.
Unlike many of the improvements outlined in the Parks Plan, the upgrades to fields at Bill Botts are already planned to take place starting in Fall 2025. Many of the project details within this document are preliminary, with staff describing the document as a "broad plan."
This means that while there is a rough idea of how these improvements will go, each change must go through project steps like the Request for Proposal (RFP) and community input processes, making estimating costs and timelines difficult.
Other significant changes to Culver City Parks include, but are not limited to the following:
- A parking garage with rooftop paddle tennis courts at Veterans Park
- A hiking trail to connect Blair Hills Park to the Park to Playa Trail
- Two rentable picnic pavilions at Culver West Alexander Park
- An ADA-accessible walking path at El Marino Park
- Rebuild the Ceramics Hut into an expanded Arts Pavilion at El Marino Park
- A community center with integrated trail at Fox Hills Park
- A sand volleyball court at Tellefson Park
- A dog park at the Fox Hills Parkette
If the PRCS commission recommends adopting the Parks Plan, it is not expected to go before the council in January but will be heard sometime in early 2025. For a full list of changes, view pages 160-212 of the Parks Plan here.
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