Community Gardeners Slapped with Steep Fee Hike

Community gardeners in Los Angeles face a nearly 500-percent rate hike in plot fees beginning Jan. 1, 2011, city parks officials told a dismayed crowd at the Sepulveda Garden Center in Encino on Tuesday night.

More than 100 community gardeners turned out for the meeting, thinking the fee increase by the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks was still in the discussion stage. Some expressed shock when learning that the increase—which would raise the fee from $25 to $120—was a done deal.

"A lot of these people here are on fixed incomes," said Peter Hackey during the public comment phase of the meeting. "Throwing a 500-percent increase on anybody in this day and age, in this economy, is just silly."

During the two-hour meeting, organized by the parks department, officials explained why the fee hike was necessary to increase revenue.

"This is a fact of life in the financial environment that we work in and live in in the city of Los Angeles," said the city's recreation and parks Superintendent Kevin Regan, who, along with Acting Superintendent Ramon Barajas and Senior Park Maintenance Supervisor Abel Perez, ran the meeting.

"The last time fees were raised for community gardens was in 2000," Regan said. "Prior to that, the last time it was raised was in 1990."

Each year, the department reviews its fee schedule and recommends adjustments. The review also serves to clarify policy issues that have been raised in the previous year; to revise fees to more accurately recover department costs; and to generate new revenue. In recent years, the department's budget has been feeling the strain of meeting an increased public demand for park services; in addition, it is now required to pay for its water and utilities.

The parks department operates nine community gardens, supplying water, hoses, hand tools, wheelbarrows and soil amendments to users.

Many gardeners have acknowledged that a fee increase is long overdue, but are upset at the lack of official notification; some say the $95 fee increase should have been implemented gradually.

A July 14 decision by the Board of Recreation and Parks to raise plot fees angered community gardeners citywide who said the board never communicated its decision to them. When a fellow gardener at the Sepulveda Garden Center began distributing information about the fee hike, word spread, raising public concern. In response, the department scheduled Tuesday's meeting to explain the issues.

"You're going to lock these people out of their gardens once and for all," Susan Heyer told the parks panel. "Maybe it was a management error, but it feels like bad faith."

Heyer is helping her fellow gardeners, including low-income and senior citizens, take further action with the Board of Recreation and Parks Commissioners. They are planning to attend the next board meeting on Dec. 8, and requesting that the fee increase be included on the agenda. 

Though most of the gardeners at the meeting were from Encino, members from other community gardens throughout Los Angeles were present. Christy Wilhelmi, a member of the Board of Directors at Ocean View Farms Organic Community Garden, drove from Cheviot Hills to confront the panel. She announced that Ocean View Farms pays for everything out of its own budget, including its utilities and waste removal.

"I'm trying to find out how it is that we've been included on this list of gardens subject to fee increases," Wilhelmi said.

Many gardeners said they wouldn't be able to afford to continue. Others said they would have to downsize from multiple gardens to just one.   

Jeff Ebenstein of Los Angeles Councilman Paul Koretz's office, who attended the meeting, said Koretz agrees that the rate hike is too steep.

"So we have four points that we would like to report back to the commission," Ebenstein said. "The increase is too high, it should have been gradually implemented, there should have been proper notification and there should absolutely be low-income assistance." He said he would e-mail the Encino Neighborhood Council regarding Koretz's concerns.