Spring 2019

SPRING 2019

WHITTIER’S FUTURE... IT’S UP TO US Studies show that when children are exposed to the natural environment in ways that allow them to connect with its beauty, wonder, and seasonal changes, they become aware and inspired to become part of their surroundings. The benefits of these connections cannot be overstated. Public parks are visible reflections of a community’s quality of life. In Whittier, while we have wonderful hiking trails and access to the hills, there is a tremendous local park space deficit. This is especially true in neighborhoods south of Whittier Blvd, where there is virtually no open space for youth. The Conservancy is the only organization that has consistently advocated for park and open space for underserved neighborhoods south of Whittier Blvd.

City Parks Dept. employees, who work hard to keep our parks thriving, share their techniques with the next generation of urban foresters.

Oceanview third graders help with planting on Arbor Day at Michigan Park.

Nothing says more about a community’s priorities than its commitment to youth. Future generations will decide what we do to make life better and create a livable environment for Whittier. Now is the time for creating an atmosphere that instills stewardship and accountability in the next generation of city leadership. How can we ensure that the needs and goals of the citizens of Whittier are implemented in ways that make our neighborhoods, parks, and streets safe places of which we can be proud?

Whittier’s Urban Forest and the benefits it provides are evident in our beautiful parks, street trees, and private yards.

But years of drought, pest infestations, and natural decline all over California have affected our little neck of the woods. To assure timely replacement and keep up with natural attrition, aggressive restoration plans must be in put in place now that will assure the continuity of the local ecosystem. This requires education and the employment of best practices in the urban environment.

INSIDE:  Controversial Removal of the Uptown Tree Canopy  Exorbitant Fees for Historic Preservation  General Plan Update  Conservancy’s 30th Anniversary Celebration  Whittier College Collaboration 1

THE PRESERVATIONIST

CITY COUNCIL VOTES TO REMOVE 22 TREES ON GREENLEAF In a move that goes against the city’s own Tree Protection Ordinance, the City Council has voted to allow the removal of at least 22 canopy trees in the heart of the Uptown Business district. Capitulating to the demands of business owners who have complained for years about the droppings and the roots, the city passed a plan that eliminates many of the trees, despite the existing law that protects mature trees through their natural life-span. The Conservancy would have supported a phase-out of the ficus, allowing for natural attrition and replacement. However, the destruction of mature, healthy trees in today’s critical climate defies reason and is against the city’s own laws. Since the Tree Ordinance was put in place as the result of resident outrage of another badly-managed tree massacre in 1997, the question might be asked: how many of those business owners actually live and shop in Whittier?

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“From these two incidents emerged the Whittier Tree Ordinance, a citizendriven, city-adopted policy that protects mature trees on public property and governs their removal only if there is an imminent danger AND a timeframe for public input.”

Broadway Tree Massacre Redux, The Preservationist, Spring 2008

“If we don’t have urban green in our surroundings, our lives are diminished,” says Kathleen Wolf, a research scientist with the University of Washington’s College of Forest Resources. “And it’s usually taken for granted until it’s gone.”

SPRING 2019

DID YOU KNOW? URBAN FORESTS 1 ) Improve public health and safety • The public realm is more likely to be used as a social space because of the increased comfort created by trees, which encourages stronger social relationships. An active public realm results in more connected citizens, which has both social and economic benefits.

• Trees help us breathe easier. Health is increased due to more physical activity and cleaner air.

• Just the sight of trees reduces stress and help with concentration.

• Patients in hospitals with views of trees heal faster.

• They provide natural shade from the sun.

• Tree-lined streets are safer because they provide a visual edge that results in slower traffic.

• Reduce noise pollution by absorbing sound.

• Make places feel safer because people stay outside more.

• Reduce crime due to the visual impact of a caring community with people around. (Lower violent crime (15%) and property crime (14%) has been attributed to streets with a good tree canopy.)

2 ) Provide economic opportunities and returns • Consumers consistently rated shopping districts with ample trees as very positive compared to similar shopping districts without trees.

They also reported to be willing to pay 11% more for goods and more for parking in treed shopping districts. That number increased to 50% for certain types of convenience goods. Of course, this translates into a matching increase in sales tax revenue.

• Trees provide jobs for skilled arborists and maintenance personnel.

• Trees generate a high return on investment through energy savings, air pollution reduction, and captured runoff water.

• Trees reduce temperature dramatically, cool our cities, and reduce energy consumption.

• Trees provide shade for homes that result in savings on cooling costs.

• Trees reduce heating costs in winter by providing windbreaks.

• Trees reduce the need for more power stations.

• Trees extend the life of our streets because more shade means less heat to degrade asphalt.

• Trees remove pollutants from the air and sequester carbon.

• Trees increase property values by 3 to 15%.

“Trees are economic drivers. Everyone knows, if you look at fancy neighborhoods, they are the ones with the most trees.” ~ Historian Jill Jones, “Urban Forests”

“Aesthetically, street trees frame the street and the sidewalk as discrete public realms, enriching each with a sense of rhythm and human scale.” ~ NACTO, National Association of City Transportation Officials, “Urban Street Design Guide”

“The public realm is more likely to be used as a social space because of the increased comfort created by trees, which encourages stronger social relationships.” ~ Robert Whitman, Gould Evans Architects, “The Wealth of Street Trees”

3 ) Urban forests keep our environment clean & healthy • Trees help combat climate change by capturing carbon.

• Trees produce the oxygen we breathe.

• Trees clean the air by filtering carbon dioxide and absorbing polluting gases.

As population grows and land becomes scarce, the need for sustainable urban forests becomes more important than ever. The paved, developed environments in which we live, work, and play must be offset by adding nature back into our lives. The best way a community can do this is to assess its green space, tree cover, and gathering places, and plan accordingly. Trees provide the surest, easiest, and most economical benefits to a community, enhancing quality of life for all residents. *All citations courtesy of the California Urban Forests Council---available upon request

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THE PRESERVATIONIST

City’s Preservation Fees Out of Control CITY OF WHITTIER FEES FAR EXCEED THOSE OF OTHER CITIES $6,000

$5,000

$4,000

$3,000

$2,000

$1,000

$0 Certificate of Historic Landmark Mills Act Property

Appropriatness Application Tax Application $674 $453 $845 $1,218 $4,838 $4,849

Historic Property Fees Charged by Cities in LA County OTHER LA COUNTY This chart compares average of local cities’ minimum fees charged to homeowners to obtain historic property benefits provided by state and local laws, WHITTIER based on current publicly available data supplied by 27 L.A. County cities.

Partnership with Whittier College Promotes Urban Forest Last November, the Conservancy sponsored two community leaders and an entire contingent from the Whittier College Biology Dept. to attend the International Conference on Urban Forestry. Billed as the largest gathering of urban forestry practitioners In photo: Dave Dickerson, Conservancy; Cinzia Fissore, Professor, Whittier College; students Bryanna Werta, Noelle Tatias; Richart Tirier, and student Emilio Maldonado.

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Whittier is blessed with a treasure trove of intact, vibrant historic neighborhoods whose residents care about their homes and each other. This commitment to the community can be seen daily when people greet each other while walking their dogs, chasing their kids, or just chatting while gardening or doing touch-up paint on a window frame.

But the charm of living in a historic home also comes with costs associated with upkeep. That’s why the state of California offers Mills Act tax relief to homeowners of either designated Landmarks or contributing resources within an established historic district.

The problem in Whittier is that the City has never determined which homes are contributors of either the Hadley/Greenleaf or Central Park Historic Districts. This could easily be done by the Historic Resources Commission, but city politics has not allowed them to meet to perform their required duties. This inaction has left hundreds of homeowners without the ability to apply for programs that would reduce their property taxes by almost half– a benefit enjoyed by a sitting councilman, but not available to his immediate neighbors! This unfinished list–required by the city’s General Plan---makes it impossible for residents of these two areas from entering into contracts to repair and upgrade their historic homes without incurring major debt.

The City’s fee structure is also a major impediment to home rehabilitation. Whittier’s permits are grossly out of sync with other cities that have preservation ordinances. Instead of incentivizing preservation and rehabilitation, the City of Whittier penalizes homeowners of historic properties by charging exorbitant fees that actually discourage proper maintenance of these historic properties.

We are urging the City to do two things: to lower the fees to levels comparable to those of other cities and to finish the assessments of both Greenleaf/Hadley and Central Park so that residents can benefit from incentives like the Mills Act that enable them to upgrade infrastructure and rehabilitate their homes. This would not only enhance neighborhoods; it would raise property values for everyone. in the world, the setting provided advocates, scholars, researchers, and government leaders with a unique opportunity to participate in a two-day event that brought information, wisdom, experience, and hands-on examples of how best to manage urban trees and landscape. In the ever-changing environment that includes drought, development, and economic considerations, this conference provided municipalities, professionals, and community leaders with sound principles, policies, and plans to make sure that our urban forests are protected, properly managed, and maintained. With Climate Change happening before our eyes, this collaborative venture focused on ideas that capture the benefits of well-managed landscapes both now and for the future.

SPRING 2019

the City’S General Plan Update Will Impact our Neighborhoods for years to come This year the City of Whittier will be finalizing its updated General Plan. Required to reflect citizen-input, it will be the most important document that governs development plans and priorities for Whittier for the next quarter century. It will be the blueprint for what the city looks like, how we want to live, what we want to prioritize, and how we go about fulfilling the needs of the community in everything from housing to sports fields to historic preservation to traffic circulation, environmental accountability, and quality-of-life. But in order to truly reflect the community’s priorities, citizen involvement in the process is essential.

With constant pressure from outside development concerns and the city’s financial woes, protections that have been in place for decades are under siege. In order to protect Whittier’s quality of life, established preservation practices and tree protection statutes must not be watered down. We don’t want to be a city that promotes parking lot paving over mature tree retention or cheap

development over proven preservation practices. But it is going to be up to the residents of Whittier to assure that the General Plan Update retains, supports, and implements the procedures that make Whittier special.

The Conservancy has worked for decades to promote, protect, and ensure stability in the city’s housing stock, its treelined streets, and the hills. Members were instrumental in the creation of both the Historic Preservation Ordinance and the Tree Protection Ordinance, now established law in the city. We worked hard to acquire the Whittier Hills from the oil companies that wanted to build hundreds of homes and carve streets and highways through the wildlife preserve.

The future of Whittier will be considered in a few months during a public hearing process.

Come and be heard–this is the only chance we will have for another 25 years, so make your voices count!

City of Whittier parks map showing urban space and sports fields. There is virtually no usable open space to serve the residents south of Whittier Blvd. More pocket parks, made from small, underutilized parcels, could be bought up by the city to bridge this gap. The General Plan Update should include plans for the acquisition of urban parkland in dense neighborhoods.

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Conservancy 2018 Whittier The Conservancy’s 30th. Anniversary gala was held on Sept. 30th. at the historic Standard Oil building at Penn & Bright.

Over 140 people attended and the following awards were presented:  Former Mayor Bob Henderson - “Legacy Award” - Lifetime Achievement Award for Community Service

 Sylvia Southerland, retired Edison Community Services Director -

“Leadership in Corporate Responsibility”, presented by Maria Claver

 Norm & Theola Kirschenbaum - “Neighborhood Landscape Design”  Candi Nash and Gwen Woirhaye, accepting for Whittier Historic Neighborhood Association - “Landmark Plaque Project”

 Dan Almquist, Frontier Development - “Friendly Hills Bowl, Adaptive Reuse”  Tim Sales, Charles Loveman, and Jessica Ferrere, Heritage Housing Partners of Pasadena - “Guilford Hall / Penn Court”

Barney Verdugo and Tommy Spence - “Earlham Hall, Rehabilitation”

  Nina Kuka - “Community Activism, Saving the Trees”, The Canary Island pine trees at Comstock & Bailey”

 Rick Renzi accepting for Keith Hagaman of Whittier Crossing “New Construction/Sustainability”

 Ted Knowles accepting for First Christian Church - “Exterior Renovation” Sylvia Southerland, Maria Claver

Mary Sullens, Maria Claver, Helen Rahder, Sally Schacht, and Theresa Rivas

Former Mayor Bob Henderson Lifetime Achievement Award for Community Service

Barney Verdugo, Tommy Spence

Norm & Theola Kirschenbaum

Richard Cisneros, Ted Knowles

Dr. Howard Elkin, Bruce Martin, Mary Sullens, Austin McCormack, and Bob Henderson

Rick Renzi for Keith Hagaman

Tim Sales, Charles Loveman and Jessica Ferrere

Nina Kuka

Maria Claver, family of our film maker Albert Bugoff, Charles Claver

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Charles Loveman, Jessica Ferrere, and Tim Sales of Heritage Housing Partners, Pasadena.

Candi Nash, Gwen Woirhaye

Dan Almquist

Kevin & Carmen Duthoy

SPRING 2019 Mission Statement

The Whittier Conservancy is committed to the preservation and enhancement of Whittier’s unique character and quality of life. The Conservancy promotes awareness and appreciation of Whittier’s historic, aesthetic, and natural resources. The Conservancy works for the preservation and sensitive use of Whittier’s significant residential structures, landmark commercial buildings, and notable landscapes, including its valuable cultivated trees, public parks, and the natural beauty of the Whittier Hills.

Join The Whittier Conservancy Please consider making a tax deductible contribution.

Kindly complete and send this form with your tax-deductible donation to: $25.00

Student

$50.00

Friend

$100.00

Patron

$250.00

Preservationist

$500.00

Heritage Circle

$1000.00

Environmental Steward

_ ________

Other

Contact me

I want to volunteer!

The Whittier Conservancy, P.O. Box 9114, Whittier, CA 90608-9114

Yes, I want to support our cultural heritage!

Name Address Phone Email

* If you would like to consider making a Planned Giving donation to the Whittier Conservancy as

part of your estate planning, please contact us to schedule a meeting with your financial advisors.

Help Us Keep Whittier Special 30 Years & Counting!

WHITTIEr CONSERVANCY BOARD OF DIRECTORS

2019

INTERIM PRESIDENT

MARY GORMAN-SULLENS VICE-PRESIDENT

FRED KERZ TREASURER

MEL STURR SECRETARY

GWEN WOIRHAYE TANIA CRUSE DAVID DICKERSON CONNIE MILLER JUDITH PRATHER THERESA RIVAS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

HELEN RAHDER P. O. Box 9114 Whittier, CA 90608

www.whittierconservancy.org info@whittierconservancy.org

Many changes are happening in Whittier as the economy continues to shift. Brick-and-mortar stores are being replaced by delivery trucks, and families are moving from suburban houses with large lots to condominiums with shared property.

This is why it is more important than ever that we recognize the intrinsic value of our historic neighborhoods and tree-lined streets. This is also why the Conservancy will be insisting on protections for these resources in the upcoming General Plan Update.

We want to make sure that the new document reflects the goals and priorities of the community by:

* documenting and protecting historic resources * creating new historic districts and enhancing exiting ones * finding appropriate locations for sports fields and local parks * protecting the city’s mature urban forest * insisting on required citizen input

Help us keep Whittier special! Join us in the upcoming hearings on Whittier’s future.

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THE PRESERVATIONIST The Whittier Conservancy P.O. Box 9114 Whittier, CA 90608-9114

NONPROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID WHITTIER, CA PERMIT NO. 177

Return Service Requested

Whittier Conservancy Application inside! Support Whittier’s unique history and quality of life!

COMMUNITY CALENDAR / EVENTS / NOTES Sycamore Canyon Bird Walk May 11, 7 - 10AM Free Beginner bird walk the second Saturday of each month from Sept through June.

Meet at 5040 Workman Mill Rd Organizer: Jay Oberholtzer, Whittier Audubon Society ~ whittieraudubon.org Check www.timeout.com for a schedules of outdoor movies & fun things to do this summer around Los Angeles. For instance, on May 11 ~ Beetlejuice at Hollywood Forever Cemetery ~ Crazy Rich Asians at Los Angeles State Historic Park ~ The Princess Bride at Griffith Park

Ongoing ~ Whittier Central Library Let’s Read Together with Dogs Children can practice their reading skills with friendly, certified therapy dogs. Practicing reading aloud to these sweet, nonjudgmental animals, helps kids gain confidence and boosts their reading skills! Online calendar: www.whittierlibrary.org Contact: 562-567-9900 Los Angeles Conservancy’s Last Remaining Seats Each movie event includes special extras, entertainment, photo booths, afterparties at Clifton’s, and more!

A few of the options: (reserve early, they sell out!)

Sat, June 8, 8PM, The Maltese Falcon (1941) - Million Dollar Theatre Sat, June 22, 2PM, Larel & Hardy Day - The Opheum Sat, June 29, 2PM, Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid - The Los Angeles Theatre, downtown Los Angeles www.laconservancy.org/last-remaining-seats

Whittier Founders Day / Central Park Sat, May 11 ~ 10AM - 1PM Come visit the Conservancy booth at Whittier Founder’s Day! A free, fun, family event. Music, dance, food, and booths for many Whittier institutions, clubs, and non-profit organizations.

Whittier Art Gallery Supporting local artists since 1939!

Wed - Sun, 1 - 5PM Free Admission 8035 Painter Ave. Whittier CA 90602 (562) 698-8710 Friends of the Whittier Public Library Support your library, donate and shop at the “Friends” bookstore, corner of Comstock & Bailey.

Hours: Tues 10-2, Fri 9-12, Sat 10-12 562-696-4498 CA Grown - Certified Farmers Market ~ 8AM - 1PM The corner of Philadelphia & Bright. Every Friday

“BIG JOHN” MAHONEY OF CALIFORNIA ARBORIST MAKING ART FROM RECYLED WOOD - ARBOR DAY, 2019

THE WHITTIER CONSERVANCY INVITES YOU TO LEARN MORE ABOUT ITS 30 YEAR HISTORY AND MISSION IN THIS 16-MINUTE DOCUMENTARY BY ALBERT BUGOFF.

at www.whittierconservancy.org

SPRING 2019