Illegal Dumping series, part 1
Neighborhood gets trashed on - literally
LAKEWOOD, CALIF. – Who needs to pay for a county dumpsite when you got east Lakewood?
The Lakewood Populist Report took photos of an area designated for four “affordable housing” sites, showing the neighborhood suffering from illegal dumping at vacant lots. Comments from residents living in the area said this was the norm.
Click here for a free slideshow of the neighborhood and its illegal dumping problems: https://www.canva.com/design/DAEdR96CSi8/view?utm_content=DAEdR96CSi8&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=publishsharelink
“All the time dumping,” said one elderly Asian resident, complaining about the dumping situation.
At the time, a couch blocked the sidewalk, while furniture and pallets littered in front of a vacant lot near the man’s home on 207th Street. Just a few houses down was another huge vacant lot that also had abandoned furniture, as well as bags of trash, in front and on the lot.
The no trespassing signs did little to keep people off the properties as chain link fences were torn down. Graffiti was tagged onto a wall on the lot on 207th Street near Alburtis Avenue.
The Asian resident wanted the city to come in and fix the problem.
One resident went so far as to, he said, pay for the installation of a new garden in front of a vacant lot near his home so as to ward off would-be illegal dumpers. As a result, the vacant lot at 209th Street and Roseton Avenue had no illegal dumping on Saturday, but it evidently gets hit regularly by illegal dumpers, residents reported.
Just up the street from that vacant lot was another dumpsite, this time courtesy of a fire that destroyed one of the area’s many apartment complexes. Burnt-out furniture littered in front of the destroyed property.
The resident who installed the previously-mentioned gardening said he has complained about the burnt-down debris to the city but that he was told Lakewood couldn’t do anything.
Five vacant lots and two abandoned houses—one with a Habitat for Humanity sign on it and another destroyed by a fire residents said occurred about three weeks ago—sit in an area that the city last year designated for four affordable housing sites.
The four designated sites were described as vacant and were reported as former Housing Successor Agency sites by city staff in an April 2020 report. It is unclear who owns the vacant, dilapidated lots documented by the Lakewood Populist.
The goal, according to the April 2020 document, was for 40 units to be built between 2020 and 2024. In a November report, city staff reported that 20 rental units would be built, as well as 20 homeowner-housing units. It’s unclear at the moment whether the properties referred to in April and November are the same.
EAST LAKEWOOD: MANY APARTMENTS AND HIGH CRIME
The area already has a large number of apartments mixed in-between homes. As a result, the area has parking difficulties wherever the apartments are located.
Many of the streets are also abnormally narrow within the area designated for 40 units. For example, Roseton Avenue becomes a modern Tale of Two Cities as it turns so narrow that parking is prohibited on the west side once you drive south of 207th Street. North of that street, however, Roseton Avenue becomes wide like many other city streets west of the 605 Freeway and with parking available on both sides.
This area, as well as the housing block east of Pioneer Boulevard, both share similar characteristics and suffer from similar problems, including crime. A recent mapping by the Lakewood Populist of some of the city’s homicides since 2000—based on the Los Angeles Times database—shows nearly half of them occurring within the area east of Roseton Avenue and west of Norwalk Boulevard.
Click here for the map done by the Lakewood Populist: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?hl=en&hl=en&mid=1CSE_SMrwK0Vb4AJS1T-2TYNRF320cwf5&ll=33.83818934086963%2C-118.08668461549311&z=15
The Lakewood Populist Report will further look into which vacant lots are the ones referred to in the city report for future affordable housing and who is responsible for their upkeep.
- Published May 1, 2021 (Saturday)