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LOS ANGELES (CNS) - The Los Angeles City Council Wednesday moved forward with a plan to identify land that could be transferred to historically marginalized groups within the city.
The council unanimously supported the motion, which former Councilman Mike Bonin, who represented the 11th District, introduced in November 2022. Council members directed several departments to report back within 60 days with a property inventory of all "underutilized, surplus, and/or remnant lands" within the city, as well as public lands held by county, regional, state and federal agencies.
In addition, the city's chief legislative analyst in collaboration with the Civil and Human Rights and Equity Department, and other relative departments, will report back in 60 days with recommendations on how to use the land, such as community land trusts, urban agriculture, or "other uses that center principles of self-determination, community building and healing."
Councilwoman Nithya Raman, alongside Council President Pro Tem Marqueece Harris-Dawson, said they worked with Bonin's office to put the motion forward.
"I think this motion in particular recognizes the central role that land plays in reversing decades of displacement and segregation," Raman said. "It builds on work that is now being done across the West Coast."
Bonin's motion said Los Angeles is in the "midst of a powerful and catalytic moment that is visibly exposing our fraught racial divide," and alluded to the protests that erupted after the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
Those demonstrations also prompted debate on policing and racial injustice that led to numerous legislative proposals on federal, state and municipal levels to combat police brutality.
The motion also came at a time when the council faced heavy criticism from the public after a racist leaked audio tape surfaced in October 2022 featuring former Council President Nury Martinez.
"Consequently, this occasion requires us to take intentional steps toward acknowledging land theft and exclusion, and identify mechanisms to return land to Indigenous, Black and Brown communities for their use, benefit and sovereignty," the motion reads.
The reports will provide "needed" data to "actualize an equitable distribution of public land and resources for community use."
"I'm really excited to work on this land inventory, not just for this effort, but also for all the other efforts that we're working on across the entire council," Raman said. "And how to better utilize all the land that's owned by the city by its proprietary departments and by our partners.
"This effort can be one of many linked efforts where we maximize the use of, really, our most valuable resource: the land that we sit on, and ensure that it is being used for the purposes of lifting up our people," she added.
In 2022, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved the transfer of Bruce's Beach back to the ownership of the Bruce family, and agreed to pay a yearly lease for the use of the land.
The prime beachfront resort was owned and operated by and for Black people for more than a century during a time of racial segregation in California. In 1924, the Manhattan Beach Board of Trustees voted to condemn Bruce's Beach through eminent domain under the reasoning of building a park.
However, historians consider the action racially motivated to drive out Black business and their patrons.
Oakland became the first city in California to use city-owned property as reparations for land stolen from Native American territories. In November 2022, the city announced plans to return five acres of Joaquin Miller Park to permanent indigenous control and stewardship through a cultural conservation easement.
The Sogorea Te' Land Trust will have nearly full control over the use of the land for cultural, environmental and education purposes in perpetuity.
Other examples of cities giving back land to marginalized groups include Eureka's return of Tuluwat Island -- originally the site of a deadly massacre by settlers that decimated the tribal community 1860 -- to the Wiyot Tribe.