Board Stalls Horse Center Fee Increases

The Los Angeles Board of Recreation and Parks on Friday told operators of the debt-ridden Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Griffith Park to try to come up with alternatives to large rent increases on horse stalls.

The plan to raise stall rents by as much as $40 a month has drawn the ire of horse owners using the center. They complained to parks and recreation commissioners that they would be “priced out” of the center with such increases. They contended they are being unfairly singled out to shoulder the center’s financial burdens.

However, parks and recreation commissioners said rents could still be raised if Gibraltar Savings of Beverly Hills can demonstrate in a comprehensive financial plan that such increases are necessary to make the center profitable.

Dean Harrison, general counsel for Gibraltar, said the firm will come up with “a whole new package and an overall plan so that the boarders don’t feel they’re being singled out.”

Jan. 13 Meeting

Harrison said he hopes the plan can be put together in time for the board’s next meeting, scheduled for Jan. 13. He said that alternatives to the rent increases will be explored but maintained that they are necessary.

The 73-acre facility, most of which is in Los Angeles but whose entrance is in Burbank, is more than $2 million in debt. Gibraltar, the center’s largest creditor, took over its operations in April after it foreclosed on the facility’s previous director, J. Albert Garcia.

The facility is on land owned by the city of Los Angeles.

Harrison said the center is losing $120,000 a month. He said it had lost $200,000 a month when Garcia ran it.

Harrison defended the increases, saying stall rents have not gone up in 2 years. “This is a premier facility, the best in the country, and we feel that these rents would be competitive,” he said.

Gibraltar has proposed increasing rents on fully outfitted barn stalls from $320 a month to $360 a month, on polo horse stalls from $250 to $280 a month and on open-air stalls from $240 to $270 a month. The increases would generate an additional $25,000 a month, Harrison said.

‘Elitist Center’

But angry horse owners protested.

“By raising the rents, you’re pricing it to the point of an elitist center,” said Mary Jean Lynberg, who boards one horse at the center. “This would keep out people whose income level is just high enough that they can have a horse.”

Other horse owners accused Gibraltar of poor management, saying the company is raising rents instead of cutting costs or searching for new revenue sources.

“It’s easy to raise rents, but it’s not so easy to be efficient,” said Jennifer Taxay, who owns three horses boarded at the center.