L.A. is getting ready to plant one on its municipal buildings.
The city is considering a requirement that all new public facilities include rooftop gardens, a feature more and more common in downtown residential projects.
Most of the city’s capital improvement projects in development are being considered for the pilot program, which was approved earlier this month by the city council.
City planners are also studying the potential costs of enacting the proposal, which is being championed by Councilman Ed Reyes.
Reyes submitted a proposal to the Planning and Land Use Management committee, which he chairs, asking the city’s Rooftop and Green Spaces Task Force to consider coming up with a proposal based on models used in other eco-friendly cities around the world.
Besides providing city workers with a serene lunch setting, the rooftop gardens have a number of positive side effects, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Web site.
The gardens reduce building temperatures by absorbing heat from the sun possibly reducing energy costs and they act as a natural filter for rainwater before it’s released into storm drains.
“There is a lot of environmental impact,” said Tony Perez, press deputy for Reyes. “The cumulative effect of doing this on a citywide basis could make a significant reduction on pollution.”
Reyes has increasingly raised environmental issues that affect his district, including supporting a massive cleanup of the Los Angeles River that would create a large park along its banks.
The city is currently determining the first project at which it will add a rooftop garden. One possibility is a Broadway office building near the Transamerica Center that will house several city departments.
“We’re looking at capital improvement projects underway that can be used as samples of how rooftop gardens work on city-owned facilities,” Perez said. “We haven’t identified one yet, but the Broadway building would probably fall within the parameters.”
If the proposal is expanded, Reyes’ First District, which is home to a number of industrial facilities, stands to benefit.
“There’s a lot of city-owned warehouses in our district,” Perez said. “That’s lots of gray space that could become green.”
