County May Open Parks to Child Care : Social services: Plan would offer centers the use of playground areas for low fee. It could affect up to 90 sites and serve 150,000 children.

Responding to a shortage of affordable child care, land-rich Los Angeles County may allow some groups that want to open new day-care centers to share in its wealth of open space and playground equipment.

Under the proposal by Supervisor Mike Antonovich, the county would charge a relatively low rental fee for space in up to 90 neighborhood parks scattered in unincorporated areas stretching from the Antelope Valley to East Los Angeles.

The idea has previously become reality in other jurisdictions, including the cities of Los Angeles and Pasadena, where poor children attend Head Start preschool programs in a handful of municipal parks.

County officials are studying the proposal and are expected to report to the Board of Supervisors in December.

Opening up the parks would mean that some of the estimated 150,000 children in the county who lack day care would have a place to go, said Kathy Malaske-Samu, the county’s child care coordinator and the idea’s strongest supporter. Instead of spending months searching for affordable sites that meet stringent state requirements for ample outdoor space, center operators would be able to quickly install portable classrooms in a corner of a park and begin enrolling children, she said.

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Officials of Head Start, the federally funded, nonprofit program for preschoolers of low-income families, believe the proposal could save taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars in rental fees in future years.

But before a single center opens in a county park, officials must make sure that the centers would not deprive the general public of parkland or draw opposition from local residents.

Even if no resistance surfaces, the county must overcome a legal obstacle of its own making.

In 1956, Los Angeles County won an appellate court ruling that allowed it to respond to neighborhood complaints by evicting a private nursery school it had previously permitted in a West Hollywood park.

The ruling, which still stands, prohibits the use of a county park in any way that interferes with access by the general public.

Today county officials contend that using parkland for child care centers would actually increase the public’s access to parks. Unlike the 1950s, when single-parent families were less common and most women did not work outside the home, child care has become a critical social need, they say.

“It’s time to recognize that there are huge demographic differences between 1956 and 1994,” Malaske-Samu said. “These days, parks are underused between 9 and 5 on weekdays because so many parents are working.”

But attorneys familiar with the ruling say that either legislative action overturning the 38-year-old court ruling or very careful legal footwork will be necessary before the county can open its parks to the centers. Even if it is ultimately allowed, the program is likely to be restricted to nonprofit child care providers, as it is in other cities, said F. C. Buchter, an attorney for the state Department of Parks and Recreation who has studied the decision.

In Pasadena, about 65 preschoolers in the city’s poorest neighborhood go to a child care center in a public park. The city donates two classrooms in the Villa-Park Community Center to Head Start to care for low-income 3- and 4-year-olds. Head Start pays for its own utilities and maintenance.

But Pasadena probably would not allow center operators to install portable classrooms in its other 30 parks, said Anne Broussard, the city’s child care coordinator.

“As much as we’d like to put up portables for child care, we have a mandate about the preservation of green space,” Broussard said. “A lot of parks are all booked up by football and soccer leagues as it is. It would be tough to take kids on a picnic if all the space is being used.”

In contrast, officials in the master-planned city of Irvine in Orange County encourage the use of their parks for child care centers, going so far as to zone them specifically for that use. The city operates day care programs for about 400 school-age children in five community parks and also leases space in one park to a nonprofit nursery school.

“The thrust in the ‘90s is that government should help facilitate the private sector in providing child care,” said Nancy Noble, Irvine’s child care coordinator.

In the city of Los Angeles, the parks department is licensed to provide child care for 1,000 children in 18 of its 125 parks, said John Pawlek, a supervisor for the parks department. Head Start also leases space in city parks for 12 other centers, said Frank Lorah, Head Start manager for the county Office of Education.

Head Start pays anywhere from $1 a year to rent space in some city parks to $3,000 for privately owned facilities, Lorah said. In the next 15 to 20 years, the need for space will grow as millions of federal dollars to expand the program are expected to pour into the county, he said.

“Landlords who know Head Start is expanding are charging us 15(%) to 20% more than in the past,” Lorah said.

Los Angeles County Parks Director Rod Cooper said the county does not know how much it will charge to lease park space, but does not expect to make money.

“It’s more of a service thing,” Cooper said.

Suitable locations often are difficult to find regardless of price, Lorah said. Head Start has a backlog of about 1,700 children for whom it has not been able to find space, partly because the state requires that operators provide 75 square feet of outdoor space per child, Lorah said.

Unlike densely populated commercial or residential areas, parks usually have ample open space.

“It would be a great opportunity to be able to use the county parks,” Lorah said.