Environmentalists will make their case at City Hall today to preserve an unofficial wildlife and walking trail that connects Elysian Park and Griffith Park. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy is appealing a Planning Department decision to allow a developer to build as many as 120 condos on a Silver Lake hillside without allowing space for the El Pueblo de Los Angeles to Griffith Park Trail Corridor (the hearing had originally been scheduled for last month). The trail is not marked and now crosses through private property dominated by giant retaining walls that rise across the hillside above Riverside and Fletcher Drives. The owner of that property wants to give the strip of land eyed by the environmentalists to adjacent property owners, the conservancy said in a press release. “The conservancy has requested minor changes to the building plans to accommodate the wildlife corridor and future trail; however the City has refused to require the applicant to dedicate any land to the community trail. ” The appeal is scheduled to be heard this afternoon before the City Council’s Planning & Land Use Committee.
* UPDATE: The Planning & Land Use Committee voted against the conservancy’s appeal.
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* Developers and environmentalists face off over the Great Wall of Silver Lake. The Eastsider
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