The Story

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Since 1992, the 14 acres of property located at 41st and Alameda Streets in Los Angeles have been used as a community garden or farm. The land has been divided into 360 plots and is believed to be one of the largest urban gardens in the country.

The City of Los Angeles acquired the 14-acre property by eminent domain in the late 1980s, taking it from nine private landowners. The largest of these owners, Alameda-Barbara Investment Company (“Alameda”), owned approximately 80 percent of the site. The partners of Alameda were Ralph Horowitz and Jacob Libaw. The City originally intended to use the property for a trash incinerator, but abandoned that plan in the face of public protest organized by the community.

As part of the eminent domain proceedings, the City granted Alameda a right of first refusal if, within 10 years, the City determined that the parcel formerly owned by Alameda was no longer required for public use.

Following the uprising in 1992, the City set aside the 14-acre site for use as a community garden. In 1994, the City transferred title to the property by ordinance to its Harbor Department. When it received title to the property, the Harbor Department contracted with the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank to operate the property as a community garden; the Foodbank has been operating it as such since then.

In 1995, the City began negotiating with Libaw-Horowitz Investment Company (“LHIC”), the successor company to Alameda, to sell it the entire 14-acre property. The City’s negotiators sent LHIC a purchase agreement, and LHIC executed the agreement and returned it to the City in October 1996. The terms of the agreement expressly made it contingent on City Council approval. The City Council never approved the agreement, and the sale was not completed. The proposed agreement fixed the sale amount at $5,227,200.

In 2002, LHIC filed suit against the City for not executing the purchase agreement. The City successfully demurred three times to LHIC’s complaint, but then agreed to sell the 14-acre property to Ralph Horowitz and his business partners for $5,050,000. On August 13, 2003, the City Council discussed and approved the terms of the settlement in closed session, and then passed a motion to approve the settlement.

On September 23, 2003, the City sent the Foodbank a letter notifying it of the sale. The Foodbank, in turn, distributed the letter to the approximately 350 families that were using plots at the garden to grow their own food. The families using the plots are low‑income and depend heavily upon the food they grow to feed themselves. In addition to growing food for themselves, the people involved with the community garden hold Farmers' Markets, festivals and other cultural events for the public at large.

After receiving the notice from the City informing them that the garden property was being sold to a private developer, the farmers formed an organization—South Central Farmers Feeding Families—and began organizing to retain their right to use the property. South Central Farmers Feeding Families appealed to the City Council to prevent the sale from going through. On December 11, 2003, however, the City transferred title to the property to Ralph Horowitz and the Horowitz Family Trust, The Libaw Family LP, Timothy M. Ison and Shaghan Securities, LLC.

On January 8, 2004, Ralph Horowitz issued a notice setting February 29, 2004, as the termination date for the community garden. In the meantime before February 29, members of the South Central Farmers Feeding Families obtained legal counsel (Hadsell & Stormer, Inc., and Kaye, Mclane & Bednarski LLP) and filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the sale of the property. The Los Angeles County Superior Court issued a temporary restraining order and later a preliminary injunction halting development of the property during the pendency of the lawsuit. Both the City and the Horowitz defendants appealed the Superior Court’s order granting the preliminary injunction.

On June 30, 2005, the Court of Appeal reversed the Superior Court’s order granting the preliminary injunction. The South Central Farmers Feeding Families have 40 days from June 30 to petition the California Supreme Court to review the Court of Appeal’s ruling. If the Supreme Court declines to hear the case, the urban garden will be demolished in about three months.

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