District 5 Q & A

Hello, we live on the south side of Manhattan Beach Blvd behind a divided curb area with a tall hedge running the length of the block.  The hedge and curb serve both to block sound from MBB and isolate the residential area from the 40 mph traffic.

Questions:

1. Several months ago the city hired a landscaping company to trim the hedge and remove the dead hedge bushes.  Now the city is removing several of the live plants.  Is the hedge going to be replanted or is it being removed?
2. In your literature you mentioned adding a right turn lane to MBB and Inglewood to reduce traffic.  What exactly are you planning?

I’m very concerned about that hedge and divider being left in place.  It’s been in place for over 40/50 years that I know of, and it’s the only reason we bought the house near such a busy street.  The noise increased dramatically when the dead hedge plants were removed and the others were trimmed and now headlights shine into the houses from across MBB.  Kids live in the neighborhood and our small grandkids visit often.

Thank you for your time

Answers:

The Public Works crew is cleaning up the dead plant material and repairing any irrigation issues they are finding.  They will be planting new shrubbery, podocarpus (sample picture below), weather permitting. The shrubbery that was there before suffered from a virus and died. They had to be removed before they infected the other shrubs.

Regarding the right turn lane, a complete article that I published back in December 2018, can be found here.