Gang crime spurred residents living near Mid-City in the 1980s to build gates to separate their tree-lined areas

Los Angeles

near a stretch of Pico Boulevard.

Today, the gates act as a barrier between Pico’s auto shops, beauty salons and low-rise apartments and Country Club Park, a neighborhood to the north known for its Craftsman and Tudor Revival homes and expansive lawns.

Residents of Country Club Park say the gates create a pleasant, park-like area that attracts dog walkers and strollers from across the city. At Christmas, carolers take to the sidewalks.

Now the gates are an issue in the March 5 election for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council, sparking a debate about public space and crime.

Some candidates running for District 10, which stretches from Crenshaw to Koreatown, are partially supportive

partially

opening the gates to allow pedestrians to enter from Pico.

Mobility groups also criticize the gates, which remain closed all day. A representative of Streets for All,

an interest group for bus and cycle paths

said

the

Blocking access from Pico creates an “undue burden and equity issue for transit riders and pedestrians” living to the south.

Some Country Club Park residents are apoplectic about the proposal to remove the fences.

About 300 households live on gated streets.

Burglaries and traffic are common in the neighborhood and crime would be worse if the barriers were gone, some neighbors said.

About 25 residents of the Country Club Parkbuurt Assn. recently met with a Times reporter, some of whom said they had been labeled “racist” or “gentrifiers” by others on social media for supporting the closed gates.

Some also criticized what they said were the “privileged” pro-cycling groups calling for the gates to be opened.

How can you determine what’s best for us if you don’t live here? said Najmah Brown, an attorney who grew up in the area.

City Councilor Heather Hutt, chair of City Hall’s transportation committee, is one of five candidates running in the March election and indicated she would do what the community wants when it comes to the gates.

“If there is a change, it would be because they want it,”

said

Hutt said.

Another candidate in the race, attorney Grace Yoo, said during a debate last month that she supports “equal access” to sidewalks.

“I would say yes to opening the pedestrian gates,” Yoo stated.

Community Advocate Aura Vasquez, who is touting herself as the only candidate

run

in the race that relies on public transit, said during the debate that it’s “incredible” that Mid-City residents are having to deal with the gates.

‘What about the people who have mobility problems?

said

Vasquez said. “What if you’re just late for work?”

The gates are as high as 10 feet in some places in Country Club Park, a neighborhood also designated a historic preservation zone because of its architecturally significant homes.

Prominent black figures, including religious leader Thomas Kilgore, attorney Crispus A. Wright and singer Mahalia Jackson, have lived in Country Club Park, according to the neighborhood association.

The gates date

back

until the mid-1980s, when the Country Club Park Neighborhood Assn. first looked for the barriers. Ultimately, the gates went up along Pico at four intersections: St. Andrews Place, Gramercy Place, Wilton Place and Van Ness Avenue.

In the 1990s, more and more LA neighborhoods sought to close roads completely or partially due to rising crime, even as city planners and urban theorists criticized the trend.

What you are doing is destroying the democracy of public space,” Mike Davis, author of City of Quartz, told The Times in 1992. “If you allow some communities to shut themselves down, why not allow all of them? Why not just fortify the city, and turn the city into living cells connected by highways?

Around the same time, the LAPD touted his success

reduce cutting

drug trafficking and drive-by shootings are over

to make

placing concrete barriers

O

n streets in neighborhoods in the San Fernando Valley and elsewhere a tactic that the

department

called Operation Cul-de-Sac.

Today, some neighborhoods around Country Club Park also have closed streets, including Lafayette Park, which is blocked off along Venice Boulevard.

Nearby, in West Adams, a gate at Van Buren Place and Adams Boulevard blocks vehicular traffic but allows pedestrian access.

Residents of Country Club Park said

That

the gates make them feel safer. They described people prowling through their yards or breaking into their homes. Nearby Western Avenue is a known area for sex trafficking and prostitutes often park in cars with clients nearby, locals said.

We feel unsafe all the time, says Lydia Lee, whose house was set on fire by an arsonist last year. This neighborhood really doesn’t want to open the gates.

Edmon Rodman moved into a Victorian Revival home on Gramercy Place in Country Club Park in 1999. Shortly thereafter, he was asked by the homeowners association, which pays to maintain and insure the gates, to put up $1,400 for a new gate on Gramercy Place.

Rodman said the number of cars speeding in the area immediately dropped. The fences are a “good model for other residential areas looking to reduce street accidents,” he said.

Mobility group Streets for All typically supports efforts to create “slow streets” for residents to walk and cycle in neighborhoods.

But a representative of the group said

That

it does not support the barriers for several reasons, including that the gates block the public

–

priority.

“We understand that residents south of Pico see the gates as a symbol of exclusion from the community,” said Adriane Hoff of Streets for All. “We support exploring alternative infrastructure that would divert the flow of vehicular traffic, which would not have such a harsh impact on the surrounding communities.”

Another mobility group, Open Sidewalks LA, has launched a petition to open the gates so pedestrians can access Olympic Boulevard and other streets north of

by

Pico.

Some residents and businesses on Pico portray the gates as elitist.

They don’t want us,” said Hector Rebolledo, who lives and manages an apartment complex near the intersection of Pico Boulevard and Van Ness Avenue.

Hilda Figueroa, who works at a beauty salon on Pico, says she understands the concerns about the crime, but…

said

that it is ‘everywhere’.

“If they want to feel safe, they should put fences around their houses, not on the streets.”

said

Figueroa said in Spanish.

A candidate from District 10, Eddie Anderson, a pastor and community organizer, raised the possibility of opening the gate

‘

s’ pedestrian doors from 8am to 8pm

Reggie Jones-Sawyer, op

California

member of the state Assembly running for the District 10 seat said he has faced attempts to move to

the

El Cholo restaurant on Western Avenue, but “realized there are gates there, so I have to go back.”

He recently completed a Streets for All candidate questionnaire stating that “we absolutely need to restore pedestrian access around the gates.

However, he told The Times that he has since spoken to Country Club Park neighbors and now believes he needs more information before taking sides.