California Heights Neighborhood Association

For the past three years, California Heights Neighborhood Association (CHNA) has participated in Long Beach Gives. On September 19, 2024 we are once again rallying the community to help our community. This year we are working on preserving and maintaining our historic concrete streets. The city has reached out to the CHNA where the city would like to slurry blacktop and place an asphalt overlay on our historic streets throughout the neighborhood. In 2019, vocal residents and Board members were able to postpone this process, only for it to come up again in 2023, where the city is considering options – where one option is to overlay it with asphalt. 

As an Association we want to preserve the integrity and maintain the historic character of our neighborhood. With that, we are in full support of keeping the concrete streets to maintain the character of our neighborhood. There are a myriad of reasons to maintain the concrete streets. Have you driven in other parts of Long Beach? There are potholes throughout different neighborhoods. The city expressed equity as a reason for wanting to slurry our streets. Equity is not giving the same to everyone but giving what is needed. Our neighborhood is designated a historic neighborhood. Keeping and maintaining what is here is of the utmost importance. The city should help us in preserving the character of our neighborhood by helping us maintain the concrete streets and other features that help define our neighborhood. With the help of Karen Highberger, we were able to preserve and maintain our lampposts. 

Long Beach Gives is one way of helping bring much-needed dollars to our neighborhood. Here are reasons why we should maintain and keep our concrete streets. 

• Concrete streets help define our historic character. 
• Our streets are not the worst rated streets in the city. Despite our streets being 100 years old, per the City of Long Beach Pavement Condition Major and Local Streets Map (Source: IMS Pavement Analysis, June 2018), our streets are rated in the middle with yellow and green. 
• Black asphalt absorbs heat and will make the neighborhood hotter. We live in a place where 100 degree summers and falls are common, making asphalt a worse choice for us. Our neighborhood will be hotter and the roads will absorb more heat, which may damage trees and plants next to the streets – not to mention burn our furry friends' paws. 
• Concrete streets last 7 to 10 times longer than asphalt streets.

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