Petitioners Say Revitalize Lennox, but Spare Homes : Redevelopment: The county would demolish 882 homes to turn Inglewood Avenue corridor into a viable commercial zone.

Lennox residents, angered by a county plan that would raze 882 housing units as part of the redevelopment of Inglewood Avenue, have signed petitions opposing the proposal and intend to air their protests at a community meeting Monday.

The county plan calls for a two-block wide corridor on either side of the avenue to be designated as a redevelopment area for Lennox, which is a 1.1-square-mile unincorporated community east of Los Angeles International Airport. The largely residential corridor would be converted to commercial use under the county plan, which has yet to be adopted.

The redevelopment designation would give the county the power to acquire properties in the corridor and force residents to relocate.

Jesse Lewis, senior manager for the county’s Community Development Commission, said that redevelopment officials “would make every effort to replace as many units as we took out.” But exactly how much replacement housing and where it would be located has not been determined because of the preliminary nature of the plan, Lewis said.

A community meeting on the redevelopment plan and its effect on housing units will be held at 7 p.m. Monday in the Jefferson Elementary School auditorium.

The redevelopment plan must ultimately win approval from both the county’s Regional Planning Commission and the County Board of Supervisors.

The residential areas that would be threatened by the plan are the portions of Burl and Dalerose avenues bordered by Century Boulevard on the north and 112th Street to the south.

Critics say previous drafts made no mention of including these portions of Burl and Dalerose avenues, to the west and east of Inglewood Avenue, as a redevelopment area. Residents along the west side of Dalerose, whose well-kept homes would be among those affected by redevelopment, spearheaded the petition drive to thwart the plan.

At issue is the precise strategy the county should adopt in its bid to revitalize Lennox’s stretch of Inglewood Avenue, a deteriorated street zoned for commercial purposes. It is frequented by drug dealers and prostitutes.

County planning officials say the best way to clean up the avenue is to designate it and the streets next to it as a redevelopment area.

Including the adjacent streets in the redevelopment area would make commercial development more feasible, because it would allow for both larger and more diverse commercial projects to open, said Sorin Alexanian, a county regional planner.

The current commercial zoning includes only Inglewood Avenue and provides no incentive for developers, Alexanian said. “To be able to design a commercial project, you need lot depth,” Alexanian said. “The way it is now, the lots are shallow and are not conducive to commercial development. If you take a drive along there, you’ll see no commercial development has taken place.”

The redevelopment proposal “is an option that obviously needs to be explored,” said Lewis.

However, Hector Carrio, a Lennox school board member who has lived on Dalerose Avenue for 27 years, said the county would exact “a high and unfair price” from residents to clean up Inglewood Avenue.

Carrio said the signatures of more than 70 residents who opposed the redevelopment plan have been gathered and mailed to county officials. Carrio said he and many of those who signed the petitions plan to attend Monday’s community meeting to express their opposition to the plan.

Many residents along Dalerose, Carrio said, are senior citizens, some of whom have finished paying off their homes. Though the county would compensate affected homeowners, such residents might not be able to afford a similar size home elsewhere, he said.

Carrio added that most Dalerose residents were generally in favor of the county’s overall revitalization plan for the area and only objected to the suggestion affecting existing housing.

James Keen, president of the Lennox Coordinating Council, said the redevelopment issue has left him “betwixt and between.”

Like many Lennox residents, he wants to see Inglewood Avenue cleaned up, Keen said.

At the same time, Dalerose Avenue “is a beautiful little street,” Keen said. “I’d hate to see it go--I’ve got friends who live there. . . . But if we are going to make progress and clean up the area, something has to be done.”