Both, it appeared, expected to be ambushed, and were.

A drive up Echo Park Avenue from Sunset Boulevard into the nearly hidden canyon northwest of Elysian Park is like an outing into the movie “Chinatown.”

Elysian Heights is full of old bungalows, narrow and steep streets, angled stairs, overgrown vegetation and the murmur of voices, both canine and human.

Its slopes are so steep that rooftops step back into the hills in terraced patterns and many rugged lots have been left to wild growth, creating the impression of an area dotted by small parks.

Sharing this intimate community are Latino families of generally modest means, young lawyers and architects who drive expensive cars to jobs downtown, old liberals whose appearance does not betray their financial status, and artists and musicians, including some who have made enough money to move on but choose not to.

Anyone is welcome here, but there is a strong bias in favor of those who liked the way Los Angeles looked in the movie.

And that explains what is happening now in Elysian Heights.

The community is engaged in old- fashioned politics with two developers who have got their eyes on a couple of those vacant lots.

The dynamics are simple enough. With building spots growing scarce, developers are looking more closely at land bypassed decades ago as undevelopable.

Indirectly, their search is being assisted by the willingness of young lawyers and architects to pay high prices for homes in a picturesque neighborhood near downtown.

A group called Seabreeze from Venice has found four long, narrow lots shrinking precipitously from Park Drive, the street that runs along the ridge immediately beside Elysian Park. It plans to build 13 condominiums, some rising three stories high.

HBG Development of downtown Los Angeles has drawn up plans for 11 single-family houses--or more accurately, mansions--along Avon Street at Baxter Street.

The condos would go on the market for $250,000 to $350,000 and the houses for $350,000 to $450,000.

In the past two weeks, both developers have accepted invitations to meet face-to-face with the aroused residents of Elysian Heights. Both, it appeared, expected to be ambushed, and were.

For the first meeting two Mondays ago, about 30 people crowded into the ‘50s-modern home of songwriter Doug Konecky on Avon Street. Before the arrival of HBG’s president, Wilson Gee, and an investor introduced only as Kioshi, Konecky asked his neighbors to leave two chairs in a corner free. He said he wanted the guests to feel the pressure of the crowd around them.

The investor listened silently for two hours as Gee took on his detractors.

“I’ve heard some very wild stories about this land,” Gee said. “Some of those awful things are just not going to happen. It is not going to be cookie-cutter buildings.”

The crowd went right to business. Some didn’t like Gee’s idea of a gated community. They said it would smack of elitism. He said the gate could go. Some worried about architectural styles. He agreed to work with the architects who live in the neighborhood.

Finally, a young man who wore an opal scarf in his jacket pocket scoffed that the real issue was density.

A show of hands left doubt as to how many units the neighborhood considered acceptable.

More hot rhetoric revealed that Gee was willing to negotiate, but not yet ready to divulge his minimum figure.

“I’m going to come back with numbers. You come back with numbers,” he said.

Near the end, Gee was ruffled enough to say he was tired of the hot air.

“You meet me at coffee, I’ll talk life styles, politics,” he said. “That’s different. This is reality.”

This Monday night, three partners of Seabreeze and their civil engineer faced more than 100 people in the Elysian Heights school auditorium.

Valerie Tuna, a previously nonpolitical resident a few doors down from the proposed Park Drive condos, ran the meeting in a raggedly democratic way that tolerated some random shouting but eventually gave everyone a chance to speak.

The rhetoric sounded familiar, but Frank Murphy, the Seabreeze contractor and spokesman, was more prone than Gee to answer back in kind.

“I’m going to build 13 condos, I’m not Dodger Stadium,” he snarled at one woman who complained about baseball traffic.

From time to time, Tuna interjected some tough remarks.

She accused Murphy of showing bad faith by not already reducing his plans after hearing privately from residents.

“I haven’t heard anything but four single-family units,” he said. “I can’t live with four single-family units.”

“Would you be willing to develop this at a density of eight?” someone asked.

“I don’t know,” Murphy said.

The crowd took a vote. Many still insisted on four.

Near the end of each meeting, Konecky praised the developers for enduring the criticism and showing the willingness to negotiate.

He implored the crowd to consider that both pieces of land would eventually be built upon and that future proposals could be worse.

“Believe me, Frank isn’t the worst we’re going to come up against,” he said Monday.

Savvy neighborhood. Savvy developers. There could yet be a happy ending in Elysian Hills.