For a half-century, a small plot of land next to the La Jolla High School softball fields has laid fallow — acting as a dumping ground, a fortress for neighborhood boys and a vegetable garden over the years. This once-ignored piece of property off Draper Avenue is now being fought over by neighbors who established a communal garden there two years ago and the high school’s principal, who wants to use the property for a batting cage for the girls’ softball team. “We have the smallest campus footprint of the city schools and the property is absolutely worth its weight in gold,” said Mike Gay, a La Jolla High alum who is working to obtain the property on behalf of La Jolla High Principal Dana Shelburne. According to Gay, the land belongs to the school district, which granted the city an easement to use the land as a street in 1963. The high school now wants to use the property that the city has not needed. Shelburne has submitted an application to the city to recover the easement. Glenn Gargas, a project manager for the city’s Development Services Department, is reviewing the application and has asked the school to provide more information. Gargas suspects both the high school and next-door-neighbor own the property. “With all public right-of-ways, the adjacent land owner owns the property underneath,” Gargas said. “[The school district] probably owns the alleyway and part of the easement, and the adjacent property owner to the north probably owns the other half.” The City Council will ultimately decide if the land will be vacated for the high school to use. Neighbors and high school students who established, tend and relish the garden don’t want to see its communal space paved over. “I think San Diego, having such an agreeable climate, is woefully short on gardens,” said next-door-neighbor James Short. “They don’t have to be big and they don’t have to be fancy. It’s just to demonstrate that this is something easy to incorporate into your life.” Over the years, Short said he’s cleared construction material, a foosball table, drug paraphernalia and trash from the lot. At a block party two years ago, he suggested neighbors create a communal garden in the space. The garden is now flourishing with 18 plots of heirloom vegetables, herbs, flowers and fruit trees. Anyone is invited to work in the garden and to harvest the vegetables and fruits. No one person owns a specific lot, which are only numbered so volunteers understand which plots need weeding and are ready to harvest. A workbench stands in the corner of the garden with tools and a white board provides work instructions to gardeners. Short provides irrigation from his home. A compost bin stands in another corner and seedlings grow in tiny pots on shelves built into the neighbor’s wooden fence. Patio umbrellas and a wooden bench provide rest and shade. The neighbors named the garden “Louise King Memorial” after a now-deceased neighbor who had gardened on the plot for two decades. “It’s a great way to bring the community together and it’s been a really wonderful way to meet neighbors that we otherwise wouldn’t have met,” Short said. Neighbors and students are rallying on Facebook. La Jolla High alum Quinn Wilson established the first page, and a high school student set up a second page, which, together, have garnered more than 1,000 members. Gay said the high school is not targeting the garden per se. “I’m sorry about the ‘people’s garden’ but this sort of result is inevitable when you build a garden on someone else’s property rather than on your own,” Gay said.