Long Beach will permanently dedicate Willow Springs Park as open space
The park has about 16 acres of space that has been restored but the rest of the roughly 50 acres is still used for industrial and commercial uses.
After years of planning and advocacy, the Long Beach City Council voted Tuesday night to begin the process of creating the largest green space in Central Long Beach as the city moves to permanently dedicate Willow Springs Park as open space.
The city had been looking at rezoning the parcels that make up the park for years, but the process was delayed because of the complexities of the site. The park space is located between Orange and California Avenues and between Sunnyside Cemetery and Spring Street.
The northeast portion of the land is owned by Signal Hill Petroleum and the northwest corner is the site of active oil operations, something that contributed to the city canceling a planned tiny home village at the site because of the cost of cleaning it up.
Other portions of the parcel are also currently used for industrial uses but a forthcoming ordinance could preserve the land as open space in perpetuity.
“We’ll have a giant park in the center of Long Beach in a really exciting space,” Mayor Rex Richardson said.
Central Long Beach scores highest on CalEnviroScreen, a state tool that measures an area’s need for open park space. Its communities also suffer from high rates of pollution and poverty, according to city data.
The ordinance requested by the council Tuesday would permanently declare much of the land as open space with just the northwest portion of the parcel at Spring Street and California Avenue (Parcel B) not being included due to fiscal and logistical challenges presented by the oil drilling infrastructure at the site.
But a city report said that it’s the intent for Parcel B to eventually be dedicated as open space.
Willow Springs, which was the site of artesian springs discovered in the late 1800s, was always planned to be a large park, and at one time it was proposed to be about 200 acres, encompassing parts of the where the Long Beach Airport and 405 Freeway are now located.
However, the discovery of oil in 1921 immediately killed plans to develop the enormous park space. The current 48-acre Willow Springs Park opened to the public a little over a decade ago but just a fraction of it has been restored to usable open space.
In 2017, an 11-acre wetlands restoration project that included a walking loop, bio-swales to trap stormwater and a spring that mimics the original artesian springs discovered at the site opened to the public. About 16 acres of the site are currently restored.
The proposed budget includes about $1 million for trailhead improvements at the site in the coming fiscal year and once the space is dedicated as open space the city could look for grant funding or public-private partnerships to help pay for the conversion of the rest of the parcel into usable park space.
Advocates for the permanent dedication of the site as park space called on the city to include funding for Willow Springs in future budgets to ensure that the over 100-year dream of Willow Springs finally becomes a reality.
“Given its location, Willow Springs really serves as a regional park,” said Christopher Chavez, who also serves on the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission. “It’s the only park of its kind within a reasonable distance to western and Central Long Beach, both of which are home to many park-poor communities."
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