The 342-foot climb from Culver City streets to the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook is a monster, but the payoff is sublime: panoramic views from Santa Monica Bay to the San Gabriel Mountains.
Almost sublime, that is. The foreground is a scar of denuded earth, storage tanks and bobbing pumpjacks — the legacy of oil discovered a century ago when only farmhouses were scattered over the surrounding flatlands.
A long and inevitable clash came when suburbia closed in around the 1,000-acre Inglewood Oil Field, as occurred at oil facilities all over the region. Now that conflict is coming to a resolution. A state edict, if it holds up in court, would require drilling and pumping to stop by the end of the decade.
What hasn’t been resolved is what will then become of one of the region’s last great pieces of undeveloped land.
One day, those denuded slopes could be a premiere addition to the Los Angeles region’s needy park systems, adding wildlife habitat, hiking trails and sports facilities to the majestic views.
Or, they could be dotted with multimillion-dollar mansions boasting Malibu-like views in the heart of the city. Or, the valley below could become a village of affordable housing. Or it could be some mix of all of the above.
For a quarter century, the state has pursued a policy of acquiring that land and retaining it as park and open space. But progress toward that goal has faltered because of insufficient funding and unwilling sellers.
As priorities change, in and out of government, the conversation over the future of Baldwin Hills is widening to include scenarios that set aside some of that land to address the region’s other urgent need: housing.
“Now the need for housing is so strong that the opportunity exists to create an amazing new walkable community,” said Michael Anderson, an architect who focuses on economic development of challenged communities.
“You could combine an affordable revised version of the urbanist movement elements like how Playa Vista was developed where you have parks every half or quarter-mile. But in this case you could still have larger open spaces instead of those little small one-, two-acre parks.
So far, the public officials who would have the final say are treading cautiously, saying the communities around the Baldwin Hills should decide its future.
Supervisor Holly Mitchell, whose 2nd District includes the oil field, said she is working to get the wells shut down and is reserving judgment on what comes next.
“It has been a long ongoing fight to phase out drilling at the Inglewood Oil Field and transition workers to [new jobs],” Mitchell said. “Once we achieve this, it is my expectation that the future of what becomes of the oil field is informed by the communities on the front lines that have been most impacted.”
Geographically, Baldwin Hills doesn’t lie within any L.A. community but rather is a buffer of hills and valleys in unincorporated L.A. County bordering the Westside, the Southside and Mid City, including the eponymous communities of Baldwin Vista and Baldwin Village. It’s bisected by La Cienega Boulevard, a thoroughfare that carries six lanes of high-speed traffic through the gritty landscape of the oil field, which feels like a relic of old L.A. (The climactic scene of “L.A. Confidential” was filmed there.)
Vision of a pastoral Baldwin Hills prepared for the 2002 master plan.
(Studio-MLA)
Anderson, whose childhood was divided between St. Louis, New York and the community of Ladera Heights, south of the oil field, had a fantasy that tied his urban and suburban experiences together.
“I used to dream of this becoming this magnificent Central Park of Los Angeles, where it could make connections between these neighborhoods,” he said.
History took a slightly different turn.
The vision of a swath of open space serving those communities had its origin in tragedy. The 1963 rupture of a city dam, releasing a deluge that destroyed 260 homes and killed six in the community below, set in motion a slow-moving campaign to extract a public benefit from the disaster.
Twenty years later, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors took over the abandoned reservoir and expanded that foothold into the 309-acre Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area with hiking trails, picnic areas and a Japanese garden.
The 2000s brought opportunity to expand that vision, as declining production presaged a natural end to oil field operations. Veering from its long focus on preserving wildlands, the Legislature created the state’s first conservancy and a state-county joint powers authority to acquire open space in the middle of a city. The new Baldwin Hills Conservancy commissioned a master plan that set the goal of “One Big Park.”
Landscape architect Mia Lehrer, creator of the gardens at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium and other L.A. landmarks, drew two versions. One, published in the master plan, shows a pastoral valley embraced by ridges on the east and west. The other, currently posted on the Conservancy’s website, shows the valley developed with playing fields and a golf course. Both envisioned a land bridge burying La Cienega for nearly the length of the park.
People taking in their morning exercise and views at the Culver City Stairs at Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook.
(Joel Barhamand/For the Times)
The Scenic Overlook was the first of a series of acquisitions. When a developer graded the top of the tallest point in the hills to build 264 high-priced homes, the state and county stepped in with $41.1 million to buy the 57 acres, now a hot spot for high-intensity hiking.
Another $40 million from the 2002 state parks bond funded the purchase of a large parcel at the south end of the oil field and a smaller one in the north connecting Hahn Park and the scenic overlook.
Finally, a milelong strip along Stocker Street east of Hahn Park was added. A footbridge over La Cienega allows a continuous 13-mile hike from the Crenshaw area over the Baldwin Hills and along Ballona Creek to the sea.
After that, the money dried up and the property owners stopped negotiating. New exploration techniques had identified more pockets of oil and the advent of fracking extended the capacity of depleted deposits, giving the Inglewood Oil Field new life, possibly for decades.
But environmental concerns arose from a series of methane, contaminated water and oil leaks. Responding to community pressure, the L.A. County supervisors in 2002 adopted a community standards district setting requirements for soil and air testing and limiting the number of new wells that could be drilled.
Last year, the Legislature upped the pressure with a bill by Assemblyman Isaac Bryan (D-Los Angeles) requiring the oil field operator, Sentinel Peak Resources, to start plugging low-producing wells next year and pay fines of $10,000 monthly for any wells not plugged by the end of 2030.
In a February report pursuant to that law, the California Geologic Energy Management Division determined there were 1,566 wells, of which only 419 were still in production, 85% of them low-performing.
It’s far from certain that the state’s deadline will hold. Although Sentinel Peak had agreed to shut down 38 wells by 2030 in a small portion of the oil field in Culver City, it filed a lawsuit challenging the state bill as “an illegal attempt to coerce an individual company to stop operation of its legal business.” The case is pending.
Housing initially entered the conversation outside of public view as Sentinel Peak, which operates the oil field and owns 260 acres flanking both sides of La Cienega, explored a real estate development to offset the cost of decommissioning hundreds of wells and losing the value of the oil beneath them.
Sentinel Peak has not acknowledged the plan, and it’s not clear whether the company was working in concert with any of the other property owners. But Amy Bodek, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning, confirmed that county officials conferred with the oil company on a development plan. She said she was not at liberty to discuss any details because no application was ever filed.
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After a century of oil extraction in Baldwin Hills, pressure is mounting to free the 1,000-acre oil field for a better use. But long-held plans for a park may face competition from the need for housing.
Some details emerged from a graduate student project published last year by the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability.
The environmental study was commissioned by the Boston-based design firm Sasaki to support a master plan for a mixed community of residential, commercial and public uses.
The master plan, if completed, was never published. A spokesman for Sasaki said its contract prevented it from disclosing the identity of its client or details of the plan. Sentinel Peak has not responded to multiple queries from The Times to discuss its plans.
Aside from Sentinel Peak’s plan, the region’s worsening housing shortage and related homelessness have stirred a rethinking of the One Big Park plan. No one better illustrates the shifting values than Kevin Murray, the former state senator and pioneer of the urban parks movement who authored the legislation that created the conservancy, now called the Baldwin & Urban Watershed Conservancy, and led the initiatives to purchase the Scenic Overlook and Stocker Trail.
“I started out: Everything should be a park,” Murray said during an interview conducted in his car on a driving tour of the hills and his childhood, and current, neighborhood of View Park on the eastern flank the oil field.
No longer in a decision-making role, Murray now speaks as a neighbor and the longtime head of a Skid Row homeless services and housing agency. He’s backing off the goal of preserving as much wild habitat as possible.
“I probably want more active use of the park,” he said. “And I am probably more willing, particularly given my bent now on housing, to be supportive of housing — a variety of different types of housing, not all affordable housing but also not all million-dollar ridgeline homes. There’s got to be a mix of the two.”
The conservancy’s longtime executive officer, David McNeill, acknowledges that compromise may be necessary to navigate the daunting financial, legal and environmental obstacles to any future use of the oil field. But he’s not giving up easily on the founding principle of “One Big Park.”
“Ninety-nine percent of my conviction is that it should be open space due to the lack of open space in the Los Angeles area and access to wildlife,” McNeill said in an interview. “I don’t think we should point to the Baldwin Hills as the solution to L.A.’s housing problem.”
McNeill said the low-lying areas fronting the major streets could be considered for moderate-density housing suitable for people who live and work nearby. He draws a hard line at megamansions on the ridgetops.
“Certainly not in the areas of rich habitat where wildlife thrive, with topography that is unique to the area, kind of reflective of how it was when the Indigenous people were here,” he said.
An large scale multi-use park and housing conceptualized by architect Mia Lehrer.
(Studio-MLA)
No formal plans have been presented, but Lehrer, the landscape architect who illustrated the One Big Park concept, has sketched a modification with housing on the lower and flatter portion between La Cienega and La Brea Avenue.
“I think there’s probably interesting ways that this could be developed, where there’s nice corridors that could be park-like things — they all connect everything up and allow nature and biological and other balances,” Lehrer said in an interview.
But standing in the way of such a hybrid plan is a jigsaw puzzle of land rights and owners’ agendas, some known, others tightly guarded.
Oil wells
The Inglewood Oil Field covers much of the undeveloped portion of Baldwin Hills. Of 1,566 wells drilled there since 1924, there are 632 producing and injection wells still in use. A state law calls for them to all be decommissioned by 2030.
Undeveloped
Baldwin Hills
HOLY CROSS
CEMETERY &
MORTUARY
Undeveloped
Baldwin Hills
HOLY CROSS
CEMETERY &
MORTUARY
Undeveloped
Baldwin Hills
HOLY CROSS
CEMETERY &
MORTUARY
Undeveloped
Baldwin Hills
HOLY CROSS
CEMETERY &
MORTUARY
737 plugged wells are not shown.
Los Angeles County assessor, the California Geologic Energy Management Division, U.S. Geological Survey
Lorena Iñiguez Elebee LOS ANGELES TIMES
Current use
Oil operations make up nearly two-thirds of the 1,500 undeveloped acres of space between Culver City and the developed portions of Baldwin Hills. Several parks make up most of the other third, along with a portion of a cemetery and utilities. Some parcels have been protected as open space through purchase by the Baldwin Hills Regional Conservation Authority and easements purchased by Los Angeles County decades ago.
Oil operations
Park/open space
Utility
Cemetery
Baldwin Hills
Scenic Overlook
Kenneth
Hahn State
Recreation
Area
Southern
California
Edison
(restricted)
Open space
easements
(restricted)
L.A. City
Dept. of
Water and
Power
(restricted)
HOLY CROSS
CEMETERY &
MORTUARY
Yvonne B. Burke Sports
Complex Baseball Fields
Baldwin Hills
Scenic Overlook
Kenneth
Hahn State
Recreation
Area
Southern
California
Edison
(restricted)
Open space
easements
(restricted)
L.A. City
Dept. of
Water and
Power
(restricted)
HOLY CROSS
CEMETERY &
MORTUARY
Yvonne B. Burke Sports
Complex Baseball Fields
Baldwin Hills
Scenic Overlook
Kenneth
Hahn State
Recreation
Area
Southern
California
Edison
(restricted)
L.A. City
Dept. of
Water and
Power
(restricted)
Open space
easements
(restricted)
HOLY CROSS
CEMETERY &
MORTUARY
Yvonne B. Burke Sports
Complex Baseball Fields
HOLY CROSS
CEMETERY &
MORTUARY
- Deed (restricted)
- Southern California Edison (restricted)
- Open space easements (restricted)
- L.A. City Dept. of Water and Power (restricted)
Los Angeles County assessor, the California Geologic Energy Management Division, U.S. Geological Survey
Lorena Iñiguez Elebee LOS ANGELES TIMES
Property owners
Fifteen property owners hold portions of the undeveloped Baldwin Hills. Property in the oil field is owned by individuals and companies that could seek to develop their land.
Southern
California
Water Co.
Baldwin Hills Regional
Conservation Authority
L.A. City Dept. of
Water and Power
Airey, Regina
Marie Tr Et Al
Naftzger, Sandra
V Tr Et Al
Sentinel Peak
Resources Ca
LLC
Southern
California
Edison
Southern
California
Edison
Roman Catholic
Archbishop of
Los Angeles
Sentinel Peak
Resources Ca
LLC
HOLY CROSS
CEMETERY &
MORTUARY
Southern
California
Water Co.
Baldwin Hills Regional
Conservation Authority
L.A. City Dept. of
Water and Power
Airey, Regina
Marie Tr Et Al
Naftzger, Sandra
V Tr Et Al
Sentinel Peak
Resources Ca
LLC
Southern
California
Edison
Southern
California
Edison
Roman Catholic
Archbishop of
Los Angeles
Sentinel Peak
Resources Ca
LLC
HOLY CROSS
CEMETERY &
MORTUARY
Southern
California
Water Co.
Baldwin Hills Regional
Conservation Authority
L.A. City Dept. of
Water and Power
Airey, Regina
Marie Tr Et Al
Naftzger, Sandra
V Tr Et Al
Sentinel Peak
Resources Ca
LLC
Southern
California
Edison
Southern
California
Edison
Roman Catholic
Archbishop of
Los Angeles
Sentinel Peak
Resources Ca
LLC
HOLY CROSS
CEMETERY &
MORTUARY
HOLY CROSS
CEMETERY &
MORTUARY
- Airey, Regina Marie Tr Et Al
- Artesian Co Limited
- Baldwin Hills Regional Conservation Authority
- Baldwin Stocker LLC
- Cone FEE LLC
- Culver City
- Los Angeles City
- L.A. City Dept. of Water and Power
- Los Angeles County
- Naftzger, Sandra V Tr Et Al
- Roman Catholic Archbishop of L.A.
- Sentinel Peak Resources CA LLC
- Southern California Edison Co
- Southern California Water Co
- State of California
Los Angeles County assessor, the California Geologic Energy Management Division, U.S. Geological Survey
Lorena Iñiguez Elebee LOS ANGELES TIMES
Much of the land Lehrer’s drawing stakes out as potential housing is now part of the conservancy’s holdings, reserved by its charter as open space. Her plan also encroaches on land owned by the Catholic Archdiocese, which is reserving it for fexpansion of Holy Cross Cemetery. And much of the flatland area that McNeill views as most appropriate for development is restricted by open space easements purchased by the county in the 1990s.
Conversely, the parcels that hold the highest value for parkland and, not coincidentally, the highest potential for privately financed development of hilltop homes, are owned by private individuals and family trusts.
Sandra Naftzger and Natalie Naftzger Davis, heirs to a 20th century California ranch empire, own nearly 300 acres of the semi-wild slopes and ridges descending from the Scenic Overlook. The agriculture zoning would allow for development of single-family homes if the sisters filed plans for a subdivision.
Through a family spokesman, the Naftzgers declined several interview requests. Other owners reached by The Times also declined to comment.
Navigating these difficulties would require both cooperation by landowners and creative public policy. One way forward could be a land swap or transfer of development rights, allowing developers to use the conservancy land and the conservancy to preserve the private holdings.
McNeill doubts that his bylaws and board would allow that.
“If there’s a way around that, sure, I’d be at the table saying, ‘Lawyers, wordsmith something to get out of that,’ ” McNeill said. “But I don’t know that you can. And the other side’s not talking.”
The final piece of the Baldwin Hills puzzle, how the surrounding communities would react to any proposal, is anyone’s guess.
Over the years, those communities have been capable of shaping public policy when aroused. They blocked a proposal to build a power plant in the oil field and battled development proposals that ultimately yielded to the Scenic Overlook.
A survey conducted for Black Women for Wellness, a nonprofit that monitors the oil field issues under its environmental justice project, found a mixed reaction, with some interested in housing and others parkland, but generally wanting more information.
“There are a lot of different opinions depending on who you ask,” said Camille Samuels, a doctoral student who conducted the survey. “Opening up conversations is going to be super important. It might be a little messier than policymakers want.”
Murray said his neighbors in what has been dubbed the Black Beverly Hills would support a balanced housing proposal.
“Neighbors here are very vested in their community, which includes being vested in their property values,” he said. “If I’m a resident here and I have a $2-million house with a great view, I don’t want someone building a Section 8 apartment right next to me. But almost all these people also understand the need for affordable housing and want there to be a mix.”
With all the unknowns, legal, financial, environmental and political, it’s not likely the future of Baldwin Hills will be resolved soon.
A long wait might be just as well after a century of drilling, said Lisa DuRussel, the faculty advisor for the University of Michigan environmental study.
“Remediating an oil field isn’t quick,” DuRussel said.
After the wells are plugged and all the equipment is removed, it could take another 15 years or more to transition from active extraction to public use, she said.
“The land itself needs time to detoxify, stabilize and rebuild healthy ecological systems before it can fully support people again.”
Assistant data and graphics editor Vanessa Martinez assisted with graphics production.