Bassett

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has awarded $50,000 in attorney’s fees to legal counsel representing residents and taxpayers opposed to a Los Angeles County redevelopment plan for this unincorporated area.

Last week’s ruling by Superior Court Judge Norman Dowds comes after the county Community Development Commission’s decision to drop its appeal of a court ruling that halted redevelopment of a roughly 10-block area of Bassett.

The county spent more than two years devising a redevelopment plan for a 257-acre project. But in April, 1984, Dowds ruled that the county did not comply with the state redevelopment law requiring the election of an advisory committee that included people living within the project area.

Residents opposed to the project feared that the commission would use its power of eminent domain to force them to sell their homes.

Besides requiring the commission to elect an advisory committee, Dowd’s ruling also required the agency to draw up a new plan for the $4-million redevelopment project--now expanded to 350 acres--and to submit it to the court for review.

In a related development, continued homeowner opposition to the new redevelopment plan led the county Regional Planning Commission earlier this month to recommend that the Community Development Commission give residents the option of excluding their properties from the project.

Jon Sanabria, a regional planning administrator, said that if such a move is approved by the commission, it would automatically exclude residents from sitting on the commission’s advisory committee, and thereby eliminate their direct participation in shaping the impact of industrial and commercial development upon their properties.