County Reopens Talks on Renewal in Lennox, Finds Residents Wary

Los Angeles County, which has shelved one set of controversial revitalization plans for Lennox, an unincorporated community east of Los Angeles International Airport, received a mixed reception this week as it began a new round of negotiations with residents and leaders in preparation for another plan.

The first time the county revealed its proposals for Lennox, in April, it was rebuffed by residents who accused the county of attempting to wipe out housing and industrialize the area.

Though officials from the county Department of Regional Planning say they have begun planning again from scratch, some residents remained wary after the second of two county workshops held this week.

“I don’t trust Regional Planning as far as I can spit,” said Joseph Rudy, a vice president of the Lennox Coordinating Council. “They don’t have Lennox’s interest at heart.”

Other residents, however, endorsed the county’s efforts to revitalize the blighted 1 1/2-mile area, which is plagued by poverty, airport noise and drug dealing.

One woman who attended the second workshop Wednesday at Jefferson School said she supports the county’s proposal to move two elementary schools away from the airport flight paths because of educational problems and health risks to the children.

Declining to give her name, the 17-year Lennox resident said in an interview that her now-grown daughter suffers hearing loss because of the airplanes flying over Felton Elementary School and the family home.

“She has a permanent hearing problem,” she said, pausing to let an plane fly by. “You see?

‘Couldn’t Concentrate’

“I would say five out of six of my children who went to Lennox schools never excelled in their studies because they couldn’t concentrate. I’m in favor of some changes.”

At the workshops, representatives from the county led residents through a school auditorium lined with maps of Lennox that showed zoning designations, noise levels from the nearby airport and the latest county proposals for change.

Though emphasizing that no county plan had been formulated yet, the bilingual staff presented a map that suggested moving both Buford and Felton elementary schools away from the flight path to a single site near Lennox Park at 111th Street and Condon Avenue, creating a business park along the San Diego Freeway and turning Inglewood Avenue into a residential and commercial strip. Other proposals included increasing commercial activity along Hawthorne Boulevard and soundproofing homes in the residential areas under the flight path.

“All these things are just ideas,” said Sorin Alexanian, the regional planning official heading the project.

Strong Reaction

The county plan released earlier in the year would have relocated many residents to make way for commercial development, but county officials said strong opposition has altered those plans.

Alexanian said the county’s goals now are to maintain the residential character of Lennox while taking advantage of its proximity to LAX for commercial development.

U.S. Census statistics from 1980 show Lennox with about 20,000 residents, 60% Latino and 25% Anglo, with blacks and other ethnic groups making up the remaining 15%. The median family income is about $15,000; many workers hold minimum-wage or temporary jobs.

The community, bordered by Inglewood and Hawthorne, is predominantly residential, with commercial strips along Hawthorne Boulevard, Inglewood Avenue and Lennox Boulevard. An area between La Cienega Boulevard and the San Diego Freeway is zoned for industrial use.

Aircraft Noise Cited

The controversial county report released earlier this year said aircraft noise in the section of Lennox north of Lennox Boulevard was intolerably high and that the community’s choice location at the intersection of LAX, the San Diego Freeway and the future Century Freeway gives Lennox considerable economic potential.

That earlier report proposed demolishing residential properties in north and west Lennox to make way for light industry, such as air freight warehouses.

Under that plan, the county would have paid about $51 million for the land and relocated residents, then built $15.9 million worth of replacement housing in southeast Lennox, where noise levels are lower.

The map presented by the county Wednesday would still require the relocation of an undetermined number of residents, county officials said. Those residents would be moved to a proposed higher-density area in southeast Lennox.

On Inglewood Avenue, which residents say is plagued by drug dealers, the county suggested attracting neighborhood businesses, renovating storefronts and creating a task force to crack down on code violations.

Jobs, Tax Revenue

The business park on the east side of the freeway would provide jobs for the community and generate tax revenue that could be directed to other Lennox projects, county officials said. The business park could be formed either by a county redevelopment project or by rezoning the area and allowing the private sector to slowly implement measures.

But despite the county’s pitch, resistance lingers.

Several property owners expressed concern that they would not get fair value if the county purchased their land. Rudy from the Lennox Coordinating Council said the county and the community are a great distance apart.

He said the Coordinating Council is trying to keep industries from quietly invading the residential properties and forcing residents into “rat-infested tenements” elsewhere in the community.

“Lennox and the people of Lennox can have power only if we maintain as much surface area as possible,” he said. “Property is power, and it’s been that way for 300 to 400 years. They can weaken us by packing us onto smaller and smaller parcels of land.”

Civic Center Complex

Among the proposals being pressed on the county by the Coordinating Council are a new civic center complex near the airport and changes to Inglewood Avenue that would turn the main thoroughfare into two one-way streets with houses in the middle, Rudy said.

The county workshops will continue Monday at 5 p.m. at Whelan School and Sept. 23 at noon at Lennox Middle School. More than 250 people attended the first two sessions, county officials said.

After a draft plan is produced in coming months and official public hearings are held, the community plan must win approval from both the Regional Planning Commission and the county Board of Supervisors before it becomes the official policy guideline for Lennox’s future, county officials said. The plan introduced by the county earlier this year never reached the Planning Commission.