The City of Lakewood, CA is moving towards plopping an RV storage facility in the middle of the property that is currently a boarding stables with over 100 horses in addition to having a pony ride/petting zoo and rescue charity that gives lessons to people with developmental challenges and economic challenges that otherwise would not have the opportunity to ride. We are valiantly working to convince the City of the unique value of having this treasure remain intact for the benefit of the community. Adding RV Storage would basically end the stables due to safety issues and fiscal feasibility challenges. Does anyone have any tips, strategies, resources (including grant funding possibilities) that may help save the stables? Thank you.
Get tv reporters on this to interview horse owners and show the horses interacting with children
Do it now and keep it up.
7 Likes
I looked it up, “Lakewood Equestrian Center” … they just conducted a survey of the center’s users… only 36.5% reside within the city. …which kind of makes it a hard choice for a city to continue to expend funds for something that is used mostly by others
2 Likes
They’d likely have a similar statistic if they surveyed RV owners who would park there. It’s a really short-sighted way to think. If you were driving through Lakewood, you’d never know when you crossed the border into Long Beach or Cerritos. Of course people from other cities use the facility.
South Pasadena owns the land under San Pascual Stables. They went through this fight several times. The threat was always turning it into soccer fields. The barn is under new management now, but maybe you could ask the city what arguments convinced them. I know it was a long process last time and they had many, many contentious public meetings.
The thing is, RV parking doesn’t add prestige to the community, and doesn’t serve children. The more public service you do, the better. Do you have summer camp? Scouting troops?
Good luck there. It would be such a loss.
12 Likes
Thank you all. The pony ride/petting zoo is a great community activity - family fun that’s affordable and accessible. LEC also offers pony camp in the summer teaching kids horsemanship and riding - great ways to teach kids compassion and responsibility. Sad to try to replace white fences with chain link. Kids should have the opportunity to get dirty too! :winkgrin:
3 Likes
Cloudyandcallie - we were fortunate to get some press coverage from local radio, tv and newspaper. I think the City was caught off guard by social media storm created by Lakewood Eq Center supporters. Not sure they were swayed though!!
1 Like
LRolling Hills also has a city-owned stable. South Pasadena city government did a survey of all the city-owned barns. They must have contacted City of Lakewood.
@Peggy Who owns Cerritos’ equestrian center?
1 Like
I believe B & B Stables land in Cerritos is leased from Southern California Edison ( SCE) since the overhead power lines limit what uses that can operate there.
1 Like
Huntington Central Park Equestrian Center in Huntington Beach is owned by the City of Huntington Beach. It is part of Huntington Central Park. It can only be used for park and recreation purposes. The Orange County Fair Grounds Equestrian Center in Costa Mesa, CA is owned by the State. They have threatened in the past to make it a RV Park or other non-equestrian uses. So far it has survived. The equestrian centers in City or County owned parks seem to fair better in regards to staying power, since their uses are limited to park and recreational uses. Equestrian Centers under high voltage power lines are usually safe too, however RV storage and parking lots are usually allowed under them along with agricultural uses.
3 Likes
Yeah u have to keep the tv coverage going. And start petitions online and in stores. And do interviews with the horses and ponies up front
And get some tv and movie stars to help you. Those guys can influence the politicians more than anything
3 Likes
A starting point would be “a city should have one acre of city park or playground per 100 population”. any reduction of open space to provide RV parking could be said to reduce the quality of life of the city.
https://www.planning.org/pas/reports/report194.htm
City of Lakewood, CA population is stated to be 81,601 in January 2015 About 150 acres of the city are devoted to parks and other landscaped open space.
https://www.lakewoodcity.org/about/default.asp
using the guidelines of one acre per 100 the city is already in a shortfall of 666 acres (that evil number).
The major problem Lakewood faces is budget defects, currently $2m that the city is making up by reducing funding to existing programs. My assumption is they are seeing the potential revenue from parking fees of the RVs.
Per the city’s statements they will be seeing a reduction in money in the coming years without expectations of revenue growth
So, if they go forward with this conversion of open land into paved parking what are going to do about
- water run off
- pollution from oil/gas dripping from these RVs
- and to me more importantly would be how are they going to police this parking area to keep it from becoming housing as other cities in California are facing
4 Likes
Thank you Clanter. The City expressed at their Council meeting on 9/24 that they do have a budget deficit. The sad thing is I’m told they’ve been gathering $100,000+ per year in revenue from the Equestrian Center but haven’t put much more than $100,000 back in to the facility over the last 25++ years. The Mayor and Council members expressed support but then appointed the 2 seemingly most negative Council members to an ad hoc committee formed to come up with “solutions”. The good thing is that this little crisis is really helping our horsey folks to bond together to do all we can.
1 Like
Why can’t they keep the equestrian center and have RV parking? 100 acres is plenty of room for both.
ETA: I don’t know where I got that 100 acres thing. Must have seen “100 horses” in the OP and my brain did something with that. Regardless, the original question is the same. Why can’t they do both?
rather than relying upon second hand information you should see just what the city claims it has done… they say the have spent $172,569 on the Equestrian Center just since 2016, not that is great amount for department who has a budget in excess of $12m
But if you were to come at me with the above statement about the last 25 years, my first thought was this person has no idea what they are talking about
https://www.lakewoodcity.org/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?BlobID=27719
https://www.lakewoodcity.org/about/mapsinfo/profiles/equestrian.asp
You have to be reasonable and have valid arguments to be successful
In early 2020… you know just a few months away the city does have a general election coming up whereas at least two of the city council member spots are up for election, might be three …the law changed to move the election dates as it is either two or three of the five person board that will be open early 2020
Either get your candidates on the council …or have your facts together to question the people who will be running…make this an election issue
Where I am we had a crappy school system, we along with most of my friends had our kids in private schools. At a casual meeting with some I commented that we should take over the school board as the last six or so elections the board members were being elected with only 600 or 700 votes… took us two election cycles to completely replace the board. then In the following twenty years we have completely rebuilt the schools system…all new buildings… raised pay whereas for a while we lead the state in starting teacher salary
4 Likes
the Equestrian Park is 19 acres … you may have intermixed a comment where for every 100 people in the city the city should have one acre of open space
The Lakewood Equestrian Center is a 19-acre facility located on Carson Street just west of Studebaker Rd.
As a resident of Lakewood I would like to know how I can help save our stable.
3 Likes
Build a social media page too - Facebook is very useful for this kind of activity. The Orange County Fairgrounds group has been successful and probably would be happy to help you build supporters. Get your people to come to the city council meetings - every one. Build your case for how the center benefits the city - attracting residents, supporting kids, and also attracting visitors who spend money in the city. See if the therapeutic riding program has or can make a promotional video. And yes, find your own candidates to run for city council and support them as a slate.
Good luck.
1 Like
this is almost an Apollo 13 problem as traditional stores close and sales move to on line… Lakewood has a greater problem than where to park RVs
The City of Lakewood is primarily a residential community with only six percent of the city zoned for commercial use.
Sales tax revenues account for 30 percent of General Fund revenues. There are over 3,000 businesses (including home occupations) located in Lakewood generating $14.2 million in sales tax for the City in Fiscal Year 2016-2017. The economic base of Lakewood is largely retail and the City’s “top twenty-five” retail businesses as a group produce 54 percent of the City’s sales tax revenues. Increasingly, state and county pools have provided a greater share of sales tax revenues to the City as online sales have grown. Sales tax collected from online sales are disbursed to cities through state and county pools based on each cities’ percent of total brick-and mortar sales and may not bring the same value as the city’s brick-and-mortar point-of-sale tax.
https://www.lakewoodcity.org/civicax…x?blobid=26726
The city of Lakewood has a population of over 80,000 but only generates $14.2 in sales tax income? My little hole in the wall city of 8,000 generates $6 million in sales tax revenue
Proposition 13 has come to roost in Lakewood
I thought Proposition 13 only affected property tax, not sales tax.
Rebecca
You are correct about prop 13
I boarded at Lakewood for years. The only improvement I remember is when a bunch of us got together and paid for decent footing for the dressage court ourselves. Of course afterwards, everyone and their uncle decided to ride there instead of any of the other areas.
I’m very sympathetic to the current boarders but wonder how the facility can be saved. It could be a real showcase but it would take a lot of money.
1 Like
