Rejected Plan for Condos Is Resurrected in Smaller Form : San Pedro: Developers have scaled down the size of the Barton Hill senior housing project. But the new plan has already run into opposition from city planners.

A hotly contested plan to develop condominiums in San Pedro’s Barton Hill neighborhood, killed six months ago by the Los Angeles City Council, is once again working its way through the city bureaucracy, this time in scaled-down form.

Developers George and Michael Tumanjan, who failed to win zoning approval to build 100 condominiums and 68 rental units for low- and moderate-income senior citizens, have resurrected their project as an 88-unit condominium complex.

The new proposal, which calls for two 44-unit buildings to be built on 3.09 acres at 515 N. Beacon St., will still require approval from the Los Angeles Planning Commission and the City Council.

The new plan has already run into opposition from the city planning staff, which has issued a preliminary recommendation of disapproval. But Gary Booher, the city planner who will conduct a public hearing on the proposal Tuesday, said the staff, which will make a recommendation on the project to the Planning Commission, may change its views after hearing further testimony.

The Tumanjans are asking officials to change the zoning of their property from manufacturing to RD1.5, a residential designation that allows one apartment per 1,500 square feet of lot space. Booher said the staff has reservations about the density of the project and whether the site is appropriate for a residential development.

As did the earlier proposal, the new plan is likely to spark fireworks in the Barton Hill neighborhood, which has long been home to San Pedro’s low- and middle-income population. Community leaders have complained that condominiums will undermine the stability of Barton Hill and prompt the “yuppification” of their neighborhood.

The scaled-down plan, however, pokes holes in two of the three arguments that residents used to defeat the first proposal: that the project was too dense and that the Beacon Street site is a poor place for senior citizens to live.

Opponents say they will continue to fight the Tumanjans on the basis that their project would take away land zoned for manufacturing in a community that needs jobs.

Howard Uller, executive director of Toberman Settlement House and a leader of the opposition, noted that the Barton Hill Master Plan says all land zoned for manufacturing should remain that way “because that brings good jobs to our community. That’s going to be our big point now.”

The Barton Hill Master Plan, however, is not city law. It was drafted by UCLA graduate students who studied the area for a class project and hasn’t been adopted by the City Council.

The Tumanjans couldn’t be reached for comment. But in his application for the zoning change, Michael Tumanjan argued that a switch from manufacturing to residential zoning is appropriate and “provides a logical transition between the limited industrial and existing residential” uses in the area.

The application notes that the 515 Beacon St. site is bordered on the west entirely by residential uses.

But Booher, the city planner, said the topography of the land actually lends itself more to commercial or industrial uses than residential. Because the western boundary of the lot slopes severely, all the residential properties sit on a hill above the Tumanjans’ lot, while nearby industrial properties are on the same plane as the condominium site.

In addition, Booher said the Planning Department staff has questioned whether the density of the project is “significantly lower” than that of the original 168-unit proposal that was turned down in June. “This has been considered before,” he said.