SAVE FLAT TOP WITH LEGAL DEFENSE AND ACQUISITION

About Flat Top

Flat Top is 120 acres of continuous open space, located in Lincoln Heights, Happy Valley, and Montecito Heights. It is one of the most culturally important open spaces in the Los Angeles area for Eastside community members due to its iconic panoramic views, being prominently featured in Mexican/Chicano works such as the 1993 film "Blood In, Blood Out" and on the cover of Latin R&B legends Tierra's "City Nights" album. This space is also considered sacred land by Los Angeles's Indigenous nations. Flat Top is one of the last remaining fragments of black walnut woodlands, a rare and critically threatened ecosystem in the City of Los Angeles, and provides critical opportunities for passive recreation and ecosystem services for one of the county's most environmentally unjust communities.

Today, more than 1/3 of Flat Top's 120 acres is privately owned and at risk of development. A luxury development project is being reconsidered for approval after being denied in 2023, threatening Flat Top's most beloved scenic overlook and setting a dangerous precedent for further development in Lincoln Heights' only open space. Developing Flat Top for luxury housing is cultural erasure, environmental racism, and environmentally irresponsible, and will reinforce the displacement of an immigrant community that has thrived and persisted for many decades.

Support Legal Defense and Land Acquisition

GROW Lincoln Heights is mobilizing the community to defend this critical open space and is actively working to ensure Flat Top remains accessible and in community hands—forever. We are raising funds to support legal defense in ongoing and future battles to preserve open space, fuel grassroots organizing to activate and protect all 120 acres of Flat Top, and secure the resources needed for land acquisition. Our goal is to break the cycles of exploitation and resistance, and to ensure Flat Top endures as a sanctuary for every generation of Eastside community members to come.