On Saturday, September 26, volunteers pushed wheelbarrows of mulch along the San Vicente median near Montana Avenue. Some were Brentwood residents and a large group were UCLA students. They spread the mulch around the roots of trees planted after the Pacific Electric Red Car line was pulled out of the median around 1942. Brentwood News reported that Emily Loughran and the Brentwood Homeowners Association organized the day. Nancy Freedman and landscaper Tracey Price were there, along with a member of Councilwoman Traci Park's staff.
That workday shows how San Vicente's coral trees are being cared for right now. The city does have a plan for the median, but its own schedule puts construction in summer 2027 at the earliest. Until then, the trees on Brentwood's best-known boulevard depend mostly on neighbors, one private fund and repairs made a block at a time.
The Caretakers of Record, For Now
The coral trees are Erythrina caffra, and the city named them Historic-Cultural Monument No. 148 in 1976. According to Brentwood News, they have struggled for decades. Some stretches get too much water, others too little, and the median's aging irrigation system has made it worse.
In late August, Brentwood News reported that the median's irrigation had been out of service for months. Freedman told the paper the trees had started looking unhealthy all at once. Since then, care has come from several directions:
- Nancy Freedman's Coral Tree Endowment Fund pays for direct watering of the trees and for mulch to hold moisture at the roots. The fund also hired TreeCareLA to assess every coral tree on the median.
- The Brentwood Homeowners Association has donated mulch and organizes volunteer days with the Coral Tree Crew.
- The City of Los Angeles is repairing the median's irrigation block by block. Price told Brentwood News the repairs should eventually let water reach the roots without soaking the surface, which is where the trees are most vulnerable.
- Council District 11 found funding to trim coral trees on the corridor's eastern end. According to the Santa Monica Mirror, CD11 staff announced this at the August workday, and the trimming had been done that morning.
The September mulching day was the second of the season. On Sunday, August 16, more than 20 residents of Brentwood and Santa Monica worked the median at San Vicente and Gretna Green. A representative from the Santa Monica section of the median also came to coordinate. That stretch had recently lost a number of trees. Brentwood News put the count at 13 coral trees removed on the Santa Monica side.
Why Neighbors Are Doing the Work
The neighborhood work fills a gap in time. The city's real fix for the median is the San Vicente Median Greening Project. StreetsLA is designing it and the CD11 office is coordinating it, and its official project page, updated October 27, 2026, lays out this timeline:
| Phase | Window on the city's schedule |
|---|---|
| Community meeting | August 9, 2025, completed |
| Virtual briefing | November 19, 2025, completed |
| Design development | Spring 2025 to Summer 2026 |
| Bid and award | Winter 2026 to Spring 2027 |
| Construction | Summer 2027 to Winter 2028 |
The city notes that the schedule is subject to change. Earlier estimates were sooner. In August 2025, Brentwood News reported that construction could start in late 2026, and the city's Q&A from the August 2025 community meeting projected completion in spring 2027. As of this month, the project is moving toward bidding, and construction is scheduled to start in summer 2027 at the earliest.
Brentwood News reported that Sen. Ben Allen arranged a $1.24 million state grant for the project, and the city's page confirms it is funded by a state grant. The limit is that the grant fixed both the location and the scope, and the city says neither can be changed. Brentwood News reported that replacing the full irrigation system has been estimated at $1 million to $2 million. That puts the grant's $1.24 million toward three medians against a separate estimate for a full system replacement.
What the Project Will Change, and Where
The project covers three medians on San Vicente between Montana Avenue and Darlington Avenue. The protected trees run farther, from 26th Street to Bringham Avenue. On those three medians, the city plans three things:
- Remove the high-water-use turf
- Install a high-efficiency irrigation system
- Plant drought-tolerant, water-wise species
StreetsLA says it designed the plantings around the coral trees' wide root systems and will protect the root zones during construction. The city also says it collected plant-palette comments from the community for four weeks and used them to move the design forward.
No new trees are part of the project. According to Brentwood News, StreetsLA told the Westside Current last November that the historic designation calls for coral trees only.
The project won't add a path either. The median has been described as a popular running spot for years, but the city's project page says this about the space:
"The space within these medians is not intended for pedestrian use, nor is it an ADA-accessible space."
The Q&A from the August 2025 community meeting says a running path will not be added, because it would have to meet ADA standards and would add substantial cost. In August 2025, Brentwood News reported that residents had raised concerns about the project's limited scope, irrigation and gopher problems elsewhere on the median, the lack of walking paths and crossings, and how coral trees would be replaced.
The Six Trees Behind the Replacement Question
Replacement is the question that matters most over the next year. According to Brentwood News, Oliver Hall of the Department of Public Works said StreetsLA has identified six dead trees among an estimated 85 along the median. The city's 2025 Q&A says coral trees are the designated species for the corridor and that the city removes trees that are unsafe or in poor or declining health.
What replaces a removed tree is less settled. Brentwood News quotes Section 7A of the San Vicente Scenic Corridor Specific Plan, in effect since 1980. It says any coral tree lost to disease or disaster "shall be replaced by the City of Los Angeles with a healthy specimen which is at least a 24-inch box size Coral Tree." City officials and residents read that rule in different ways, according to the same Brentwood News report:
- Emily Loughran says the Specific Plan defines "coral tree" as Erythrina caffra, so any replacement has to be the same species.
- The Department of City Planning said the monument designation does not legally require exact replacement, though the Specific Plan "identifies replacement of coral trees in-kind."
- Pete Brown, spokesperson for Councilwoman Park, said neither protection expressly bars planting another species, as long as it is not planted in place of the coral trees.
Brentwood Community Council chair Carolyn LoBuglio told the paper that any replacement species, whether oak or sycamore, would take decades to build the canopy the coral trees already provide. Ray Klein, the Brentwood Homeowners Association's representative to the Community Council, noted that the City Council could in theory amend both the monument designation and the Specific Plan. He added that no one recalls the city ever reversing a monument designation. LADOT spokesperson Colin Sweeney told the paper that the department has no plans to turn any part of the median into a traffic or bus lane.
Another question is still open. Section 7B says the median cannot undergo a "major alteration" without a public hearing before the Board of Public Works, and it is not yet settled whether replacing the grass with drought-tolerant plants counts as one.
The Bloom Season, Before Any Construction
The trees will flower before the city's work begins. PBS SoCal notes that San Vicente's South African coral trees bloom orange and red through winter and spring. If construction starts in summer 2027 as scheduled, this winter's bloom will arrive on trees currently being watered and mulched with private funding and volunteer labor, while the city's irrigation repairs continue block by block.
To help, contact the organizers of future preservation workdays at [email protected]. That is the address Brentwood News published after the September event, and the one CD11 listed for future coral tree efforts. For the greening project itself, the city lists Michael Amster, CD11's field deputy for Brentwood, West Los Angeles and Sawtelle, at [email protected] or (310) 568-8772.
If you own a home along the San Vicente corridor and want to talk through how the median's work schedule fits your plans, Susan Stark Homes is happy to share what we follow on this stretch of Brentwood. Request a Private Consultation.
