Local News in Brief : Opposition Expected on Business Park

Hundreds of Lakewood residents are expected to converge on the City Council meeting tonight to demand that the council torpedo a bid to build the city’s first business park on a 33-acre vacant lot near their homes.

The lot, a former oil storage area owned by Chevron Oil Co., is on Downey Avenue across the street from a residential area. A recently formed residents’ group, Save Lakewood, opposes the business park. They say it would adversely affect the neighborhood. The city instead should sponsor construction of single-family homes on the site, a spokeswoman for the group said.

But city officials, who have agreed in principle to the business park proposed by the Huntington Beach Co., deny that residents would be harmed. They say the 26-building complex would provide the city’s general fund about $172,000 a year from sales tax revenue and would create 1,100 jobs.