CENTRAL AVENUE CORRIDOR DEVELOPMENT
As WLCAC approaches its 50th Anniversary in the year 2015, a tremendous vision will be realized under its Cultural Development Initiative. The preamble to this initiative states that “although other communities enjoy the capacity to enrich healthy cultures, the culture of Watts remains mired in abject poverty.”

Nevertheless, utilizing the tools of “literacy, mental health, nutrition, mobility, housing, education, community service and employment” WLCAC has demonstrated over its 46 year lifespan that souls over-exposed to long-term poverty may in fact heal. The Cultural Development Initiative is a bold expansion of WLCAC programs from focus upon individual souls alone to reclamation of the community’s soul as a means of accelerating the healing process.

By establishing Watts as a unique place with its own authentic culture, we have found the means to achieve community transformation, as opposed to transplantation.

MudTown Farms is a 2.5 acre site, which will be developed to include: a Cannery, a Community Center, a Learning Center, Community Gardening Plots, Commercial Farming Area, Educational Farming Plots, Hydroponics Garden, Greenhouse, General Store, Roadside Produce Stand, Patio, Reading Garden, perimeter fence, Parking Lot, and Equipment Storage.

MudTown Farms will not be simply an urban park or simply an urban farm. It will be a self-sustaining community center with education, job training, community gardening, farming, and entrepreneurship for stakeholders of all ages and backgrounds. It is designed by and for the community it sits in, and will be upheld for years to come as a model for nurturing the spiritual, physical, and economic health of urban communities.

This project has come alive through partnerships with the Trust for Public Land, a preeminent land conservator, and WLCAC is working with Cal Poly Pomona, the City of Los Angeles, and RAW Architects to bring the design and programming to fruition.