{"id":94899,"date":"2025-12-15T04:47:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T04:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/94899\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T04:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T04:47:08","slug":"broken-promises-sunken-expectations-and-a-bleak-future-the-state-of-west-long-beachs-natural-habitats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/94899\/","title":{"rendered":"Broken promises, sunken expectations and a bleak future: The state of West Long Beach\u2019s natural habitats"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">In the Wrigley neighborhood of West Long Beach, an equestrian community is struggling to survive.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Founded on historic land known for its preservation of horses and ranchos tracing back to the 1700s, residents in the strip of 18 homes between Spring Street and 31st Street in Wrigley Heights are fighting to preserve the land crucial to maintaining their rancho lifestyle alive.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Walking down San Francisco Avenue along the Los Angeles River, you might spot a horse trotting by or a horseowner training a young steed at a private stable.\u00a0However, after several city development projects have threatened to eliminate the few remaining pathways for these horses to live and thrive, this little pocket of paradise \u2013 as one resident described it \u2013 is in danger of losing its home.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/hernandez.pacificplace-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-128020\"  \/>Residents display signs in their front yards against the approved project at Pacific Place in a neighborhood between Bixby Road and Country Club Drive on Nov. 11, 2025, in support of the Riverpark Coalition. The \u201cparks not pavement\u201d motto refers to recently-approved plans to build a car wash, office buildings and RV parking lot in a space once slated as public park space for West Long Beach residents. (Jorge Hernandez | Signal Tribune)<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cThe trails are life blood; that\u2019s like the lifeline that connects these equestrian communities from Point A to Point B,\u201d said Renee Lawler, a Wrigley resident, horseowner and board vice president of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.riverparkcoalition.org\/about\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Riverpark Coalition<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The nonprofit works to preserve green spaces, equestrian trails and other natural environments in West Long Beach, and has filed lawsuits against the City for past development projects.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cIf you continue to develop properties densely up to the river \u2026 It\u2019s like extinction,\u201d Lawler said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the Wrigley neighborhood of West Long Beach, an equestrian community is struggling to survive.\u00a0 Founded on historic&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-94899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}