"All the trees, all at once, started looking very unhealthy." That is how Nancy Freedman described what she saw on San Vicente Boulevard this summer. Freedman has spent years advocating for the median through her nonprofit, the Coral Tree Endowment Fund.
Most of the worry along the boulevard has been about intent. Is the city letting the trees fade on purpose? Is a bus lane coming? Will Brentwood lose its trees the way Santa Monica just lost some of its own? The record from this year points somewhere less dramatic and more fixable. The trees were thirsty because the water stopped. The rule that protects them is stronger than the monument plaque suggests. The real open question is about the grass, which is a more interesting debate than the one most people are having.
A valve, not a verdict
Brentwood News's reporting traced the decline to the irrigation system buried under the median. It had shut down months earlier, and almost no one noticed until the trees started showing it. A failed "backflow valve" was eventually found to have cut off water to the entire system. With no water, the soil hardened until it couldn't easily absorb moisture, even after repairs began.
Tracey Price, the landscaper running the water trucks, described a pile-up of small failures in the Palisadian-Post. A contract dispute had interrupted mowing, weeds had grown over the sprinkler heads, and the city was repairing the system while a water truck filled the gap.
How much damage that did is now a matter of record. Oliver Hall of the Department of Public Works said StreetsLA has identified six dead trees among an estimated 85 along the median. Six losses are real, but a summer-long irrigation failure could plausibly have done far worse. The trees left standing still form the canopy. Carolyn LoBuglio, chair of the Brentwood Community Council, said any replacement species would take decades to match it.
The lane theory has a direct answer too. LADOT spokesperson Colin Sweeney said the department has no plans to convert any part of the median into a traffic or bus lane. Freedman made a similar point before that statement came out. If the city wanted the median for traffic, she asked, why would it be spending money to repair the irrigation system?
Santa Monica is the comparison behind much of the anxiety. On its stretch of the same median, between 26th Street and Ocean Avenue, 13 coral trees were cut down this summer. Santa Monica officials said those trees were diseased. The disease question applies in Brentwood as well. Freedman has warned that "suffering trees can take on pathogens that can kill a tree." That makes the watering this summer preventive work as much as triage.
Who kept the water coming
Neighbors did not wait for the repairs to finish. The Coral Tree Endowment Fund hired a water truck to drive the length of San Vicente and water the trees by hand. It also brought in an outside arborist, TreeCareLA, to assess every coral tree on the strip. Price's firm, American Growers Company, did the watering. The Fund supplied mulch to hold moisture at the roots, and the Brentwood Homeowners Association contributed mulch of its own.
The year so far, in order:
- Months before August: The irrigation system feeding the median shuts down, and the soil dries out.
- Mid-August: About two dozen volunteers, organized by the Brentwood Homeowners Association, pack mulch around the trees near Gretna Green. BHA supplies coffee and donuts.
- Late summer: The city repairs the irrigation system block by block, and some trees start getting water again.
- Saturday, Sept. 26: Emily Loughran and the BHA bring residents and UCLA students out to spread fresh mulch near Montana Avenue. Freedman, Price and a member of Councilwoman Traci Park's staff join them, and the Coral Tree Crew works the soil around the mature roots.
The Sept. 26 workday fell on the same Saturday as the first Brentwood Bash. The Bash closed the eastbound side of San Vicente between Montana Avenue and South Barrington Avenue from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and brought out more than 45 local businesses and organizations. Alexis Pappas, Carolyn Jordan and Barbara Roll produced it in partnership with Council District 11. So on one Saturday, the eastbound lanes were full of neighbors and food vendors while the trees on the same boulevard got fresh mulch.
Two protections, and only one of them does the heavy lifting
Most of the confusion about what the city can and can't do with the median comes from treating two separate legal protections as one. Brentwood News sorted them out in the second installment of its series, published today.
| Historic-Cultural Monument No. 148 | San Vicente Scenic Corridor Specific Plan | |
|---|---|---|
| In effect since | 1976 | May 31, 1980, amended in 1986 and 2000 |
| What it covers | The coral trees between 26th Street and Bringham Avenue | The trees and the landscaped median strip itself |
| Replacement rule | City Planning says it "does not legally require exact replacement" | A tree lost to disease or disaster is to be replaced with a coral tree of at least 24-inch box size |
| Changes to the median | Not addressed in the listing | No "major alteration" without a Board of Public Works hearing |
The coral trees went in after the Pacific Electric Red Car line was pulled out of the median around 1942. The monument designation came in 1976. The city's official monument list names only the trees. The original 1976 nomination paperwork, which might define the protection more broadly, could not be located.
The Specific Plan carries most of the weight. Section 7B reads:
"It is the purpose of this Plan to preserve, in perpetuity, the landscaped median strip of San Vicente Boulevard."
The ordinance requires notice at least 16 days before that hearing.
The people involved read these rules differently. Loughran, a Tigertail resident, argues that "coral tree" is a defined botanical term in the ordinance, so a fallen tree can't be replaced with "any old tree." Pete Brown, a spokesperson for Councilwoman Park, said neither protection "expressly prohibits the planting of another species of tree as long as another species of tree is not being planted in lieu of the coral trees." StreetsLA has taken the strictest position of all. It told the Westside Current last November that the designation requires coral trees only, and that is why the median project adds no new trees.
Ray Klein, the BHA's representative to the Community Council, pointed out that no one remembers the city ever reversing a monument designation. Both protections could, in theory, be amended by the City Council.
The open question is the grass
StreetsLA's San Vicente Median Greening project covers three medians between Montana Avenue and Darlington Avenue. It would remove the high-water-use turf, install a high-efficiency irrigation system and add drought-tolerant planting. The design works around the coral trees' root systems and includes measures to protect the root zones. The $1.2 million project is separate from fixing the median's whole irrigation system, which early estimates put at $1 million to $2 million.
That stretch runs through the commercial blocks of the corridor. Burger She Wrote, for example, has taken space at 11686 San Vicente Blvd., between Barrington and Darlington, with an opening projected for October.
The turf has supporters even among the trees' strongest advocates. Freedman worries that watering the grass could oversaturate the roots. Loughran argues the grass helps by keeping the soil around the trees soft and moist. Coral tree biology makes the question harder. The wood is spongy and can take on enough water in heavy rain for branches to fail, and past pipe ruptures have overwatered parts of the median.
Brentwood News reported one question as still unresolved. Does replacing the median's grass with drought-tolerant plants count as a "major alteration" that triggers a Section 7B public hearing? The city's posted schedule leaves time to settle it:
- Spring 2025 through summer 2026: design development, after a community meeting at 11967 W. Sunset Blvd. on Aug. 9, 2025, and a virtual briefing on Nov. 19, 2025.
- Winter 2026 through spring 2027: bid and award.
- Summer 2027 through spring 2028: construction, with the schedule marked subject to change.
Brentwood News has described the project as "now underway," and the design work is. The city's timeline shows no turf coming out this year. The project page also says the landscaped medians are not intended for pedestrian use and are not ADA-accessible.
Longtime activist Teri Kahn has said the city's inconsistency is the real problem. She described one year of being allowed to plant and the next being denied "because there are electrical lines 6 feet under the median." Park's office calls its role coordinating among departments. Park said decisions about the median should be "informed by the people who live here." Amir Ebtehadj, her new Brentwood field representative, has already met with Loughran on the median.
Brentwood News says it will cover the greening plan in Part Three and practical options in Part Four. Neither had been published as of Sept. 30. Anyone who wants to help at the next workday can reach the organizers at [email protected].
On the Westside, the details of a street like San Vicente show up in how a home is valued and how its story is told, and Gina Martino follows those details block by block. If you own along the coral tree corridor and want a quiet conversation about what the median project timeline could mean for your property, reach out directly, or ask to receive exclusive off-market listings.
