In late August, Toluca Lake community leaders, LAPD representatives and other locals joined City Council President Paul Krekorian for a ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the completion of the Vineland Avenue median beautification project, which features key neighborhood improvements, including the addition of cobblestones, trees and other landscaping.
“I have been committed to this project from its inception — when it was still on the boundary between two council districts,” says Krekorian, who represents the Second Council District that includes Toluca Lake and North Hollywood. “We had excess bond funds from the old Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA/LA) to make improvements on this gateway to the NoHo Arts District and West Toluca Lake.”
The project was initially planned to take place on Vineland Avenue between Chandler Boulevard and Camarillo Street, but Krekorian explains, “That’s now part of Metro’s North Hollywood to Pasadena Transit Corridor project, and it didn’t make sense to fix the medians just to tear them up again, so we moved the project south, to the medians between Camarillo and Riverside Drive. That’s still inside the boundaries of the CRA/LA project and it’s now entirely inside the Second Council District.”
While the completion of the Vineland Avenue median project is a great milestone, Krekorian says that “this is just one of the projects we’ve completed or currently have underway with the NoHo–CRA bond funds, including NoHo Arts District murals, artwork on the DOT signal cabinets, improvements to the NoHo Plaza People Street, the restoration of the Lankershim Arts Center, upgrades to the Chandler Boulevard bike path and new stormwater-capture systems.”