diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
index be47632a08..fff1df6249 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
@@ -417,6 +417,9 @@ Branch-2 ( Unreleased changes )
     HADOOP-8614. IOUtils#skipFully hangs forever on EOF. 
     (Colin Patrick McCabe via eli)
 
+    HADOOP-8720. TestLocalFileSystem should use test root subdirectory.
+    (Vlad Rozov via eli)
+
   BREAKDOWN OF HDFS-3042 SUBTASKS
 
     HADOOP-8220. ZKFailoverController doesn't handle failure to become active
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/TestLocalFileSystem.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/TestLocalFileSystem.java
index 4d821f96f8..e411314b85 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/TestLocalFileSystem.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/TestLocalFileSystem.java
@@ -33,8 +33,8 @@ import org.junit.Test;
  * This class tests the local file system via the FileSystem abstraction.
  */
 public class TestLocalFileSystem {
-  private static String TEST_ROOT_DIR
-    = System.getProperty("test.build.data","build/test/data/work-dir/localfs");
+  private static final String TEST_ROOT_DIR
+    = System.getProperty("test.build.data","build/test/data") + "/work-dir/localfs";
 
   private Configuration conf;
   private FileSystem fileSys;