Meet me at the Confluence
Architect Tensho Takemori on increasing green spaces while decreasing displacement
Last month, Julia and I visited the offices of Frank Gehry’s full-service architectural firm, Gehry Partners, LLP, in Playa Vista. We were there to speak with Tensho Takemori, a firm principal and a key figure who has been part of a team of architects, landscape designers, urban planners, and other experts informing Gehry Partners' participation in the updated LA River Master Plan.
Approached in 2014 by the non-profit River LA, Frank Gehry and his firm have been involved in developing LA County’s updated Master Plan for the entire 51 miles of the LA River. Recently approved in 2022, the new Master Plan outlines key areas of investment to better support the health of the river and its adjacent communities and watersheds. Extensive focus has been placed on the lower portions of the river, especially the Rio Hondo confluence.
The areas alongside the river offer unparalleled opportunities to increase open space and address issues such as climate change, flood management, and affordable housing. Two projects proposed by Gehry Partners aim to tackle these concerns head-on: the SELA (Southeast LA) Cultural Center in South Gate and a series of Platform Parks that would span the width of the river, increasing access to green and recreational spaces.
Last December, the LA County Board of Supervisors voted to proceed with the development of the SELA Cultural Center. When completed, the cultural complex will include a performance hall, a music education space, recording studios, a dance theater, a café, workshops, and gallery spaces.
Not everyone has welcomed the plans proposed by Gehry Partners; concerns about green gentrification and increased displacement of residents in these communities have been raised.
In speaking with Tensho, we discussed many of these issues and the steps Gehry Partners has taken to address them, especially around the SELA Cultural Center. Their efforts to develop and implement community land trusts have been instrumental in combating gentrification and exorbitant land prices that often limit affordable housing.
In addition to these community land trusts, Gehry Partners and Tensho have consulted with Rick Jacobus, an affordable housing expert. It was Rick who explained that there existed two types of displacement: physical and cultural.
Following the interview, both Julia and I resonated with that distinction. In our neighborhood of Frogtown, we have witnessed neighbors leave or displaced, taking along with them their histories and cultural practices. It’s these losses that impact us the most.
It is also these losses that motivate and inspire Clockshop’s ongoing oral history project, Take Me to Your River. We don’t see this project as an antidote or solution to gentrification, but it’s a platform to maintain some of the cultural history that often gets forgotten in neighborhoods experiencing change.
The following conversation has been edited for clarity.
Darío: What were your first impressions of the LA River?
Tensho Takemori: I knew of the river; I had seen it completely full before in the early nineties. I was impressed by its diversity—not just in its physical condition but also in its cultural diversity. Early on, it struck all of us that it was not only just a complex design problem because of the physical, but also because of complex sociological issues.
To think we could prescribe a solution along all parts of the river would be foolhardy. The community in Lynwood is very different from the community in Atwater Village, and they should be able to decide within a structured framework what is best for their community.
You need different types of solutions that can be presented to people.
Julia: Can you talk about how Gehry Partners first got involved in the river?
Tensho Takemori: Ten years ago, two board members from River LA came to ask Frank if he would participate in a visioning study for the entire 51-mile length.
We all knew from the beginning that the parameters on the LA River were very challenging. We understood some of the constraints around flood control management versus the desire to remove the concrete and the reality of that.
In some areas, we can do more; in others, we can do less—it is simply physics. The concrete moves water faster than, say, grass or trees. If you have more land and can make a wider river, you can do more. But in many areas, urbanization has been built right to the edge of the river.
We started in 2014, and what we found is that because of its location and watershed, the river was involved in a far more widespread series of topics in our region. All of a sudden, we were talking to public health experts, transportation people, arts and culture representatives.
We noticed that when you started to look at these data maps, they showed a heat map of areas that were in need or lacking. The maps are really quite interesting, from public health to financial and educational attainment. They generally look the same, and they all point to different areas within our region that are in need.
We talked to a lot of different groups from the City and other organizations. We spent time talking to each of the cities in the Southeast and their community leaders, and many of them had said, “Nobody's ever come to ask us what we want.”
Julia: What do you think about all these issues around greening or adding green space, and how do you mitigate or control gentrification, knowing that we don't have policies in place?
Tensho Takemori: It’s so complicated, and it's a question we're asked often and early.
Displacement is one of the topics we didn't understand we would have to delve into, so we brought another core member onto the team, Rick Jacobus, an affordable housing expert. Through our various research, we found that where displacement had occurred due to major public funding improvements, it could be studied and quantified, and there were actual models of strategies that could mitigate it—and they were centered around affordable housing.
If you look at the nine goals of the [LA County Department of Public Works] Master Plan, one of them is housing and homelessness. There is an affordable housing strategy that involves asking and requiring projects of a certain size to conduct an affordable housing study.
But in simplistic terms, before improvements happen, and ideally before major planning occurs, if land can be secured that is deed-restricted for affordable housing, you don't actually have to build it; you just have to secure it. It becomes an insulating factor against runaway speculation. The biggest risk is that renters are not in control of their housing costs—somebody else can determine them. That's where the biggest risk lies, so it's a strategy we focused on.
[Securing land for affordable housing] in Frogtown is very challenging because people are aware of the improvements, and land costs have gone up. That's one of the reasons we've focused on starting an affordable housing land bank early, and we're proud that a pilot has started to start to secure land.
Darío: Could you speak more about your work on Land Banking? Do you see it as a solution to the affordable housing crisis?
Tensho Takemori: At the same time that the LA River Master Plan was approved, separate motions were approved for the County to begin studying affordable housing.
We got some funding for $50 million to start the process of setting up infrastructure and purchase of land just as a model. Eventually, some of that money had to be reallocated because of COVID, but there's still $25 million.
From our research, we presented several models across the country—some are government embedded entities and others are non-profits. We probably have enough money to buy between three and five [lots]. One might say it’s not much considering our [affordable housing] deficit, but it's something. We have a very complex bureaucratic system in Los Angeles, so it's a start. Success would lead to additional funding, but we have to start somewhere. So we're at least proud that they're starting.
There’s a lot of funding for programs with community land trusts oriented toward securing property that already has development on it. But we are trying to focus on more underutilized, vacant land as another avenue [to securing property for affordable housing].
The land bank is not the solution; it's a toolkit that we just saw was lacking, and we decided to spend our time focusing there.
It's complicated. I wish we could say we had the golden rule; there are many other success stories in Denver, Philadelphia or Portland that show it's within reach if there's commitment and belief to it.
Julia: Nostalgia is very powerful; it’s very real in these neighborhoods. They are very different now and not necessarily in all positive ways. Longtime residents who own their homes can enjoy the benefits, while renters might be displaced. How does this impact your work?
Tensho Takemori: Rick Jacobus pointed out that it's very important to consider two types of displacement. One is physical displacement of people, but the other is cultural displacement. This is, in some ways, even more problematic because it’s where the sense of loss is strongest.
We made sure to focus on both. It's not just about the hard facts of property that I mentioned but also about supporting local businesses, arts, and culture. That's another reason why arts and culture are key goals, like supporting and building things like the Southeast LA Cultural Center. It is meant to embody the artistic and cultural institutions that exist today, ensuring they are not displaced.
You mentioned people who are able to hold on to their homes—at a certain point, if their culture or community changes, then their home doesn't feel the same. Those are equally important issues to focus on.