County Revises Its Plan for Lennox : Renewal: County officials cut back on commercial development and win over some previous critics with their latest set of proposals.

County officials--soundly rebuffed by Lennox residents when they proposed a community revitalization plan last year--are getting a warmer reception with a new version that scales back commercial development in residential neighborhoods.

Some residents argue that the plan would still eliminate too many houses, but others see it as a way to combat some of Lennox’s most pressing problems: illegal building uses, airport noise, drug dealing, prostitution and graffiti.

When the county revealed its first proposal last April, Lennox residents accused planning officials of attempting to wipe out housing and industrialize the 1.25-square-mile area east of Los Angeles International Airport.

The most recent draft, presented in a series of public meetings that ended Tuesday, would set up two-block-wide commercial zones along Hawthorne Boulevard and Inglewood Avenue and a business park on both sides of the San Diego (405) Freeway. The zones are smaller than those proposed last year.

Lennox is a densely populated community bounded by the airport and the cities of Inglewood and Hawthorne. Its residents, a mixture of predominantly Latino immigrants and longtime Anglo homeowners, complain of drug dealing, prostitution, graffiti and gang violence. Some neighborhoods under the airport flight path have noise levels that county officials have described as intolerably high.

County officials say the plan has two aims: to refurbish residential neighborhoods through increased code enforcement and to take advantage of the commercial opportunities that exist because of Lennox’s prime location near the airport and at the intersection of the San Diego and the as yet unopened Century freeways.

However, critics of the effort argue that even the scaled-back plan would set a precedent for replacing housing units with commercial development.

“It’s basically a plan to get rid of Lennox,” said Joe Rudy, a longtime resident and member of the Lennox Coordinating Council. “I like that Lennox is primarily residential. If they go through with this development, it will wipe out the residential character.”

Rudy said he intends to come up with an alternative plan that would “keep Lennox residential and not destroy homes.”

The county’s earlier plan proposed demolishing residential properties in large areas of north and west Lennox to make way for light industry. It called for the county to spend about $51 million to buy the land and relocate residents and another $15.9 million to build replacement housing in southeast Lennox, where airport noise levels are lower.

The current plan calls for demolishing an undetermined number of homes in a smaller area and scraps the plan to concentrate residents in multiunit developments in southeast Lennox, said Julie Tabata, a regional planning assistant. Tabata and other county officials said they could not estimate the cost or the number of residents who might be displaced under the current draft.

Other county recommendations include:

Increasing zoning enforcement to prevent residents from living in garages or illegal additions and to curb the unlicensed street sales of watermelons, snow cones and other items.

* Obtaining federal soundproofing funds for homes under the flight path.

* Moving Felton and Buford elementary schools away from the flight path to a single site near Lennox Park at West 111th Street and Condon Avenue.

* Moving the athletic field at Lennox Middle School away from the San Diego Freeway to the northern side of the school.

Although critics, such as Rudy, remain, many residents who attended the last of five public workshops Tuesday said they support the county’s latest draft.

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

Hector Carrio, a 27-year-resident, said the latest draft is better than the original, but he still has concerns.

“This area is really deteriorated,” he said. “I can’t say this is the best plan but something must be done. . . . We want to improve this area, but the question is, ‘Are we going to be swallowed up by big business?’ ”

Another longtime resident said he agreed with the county’s proposals for enhancing Lennox, but he expressed skepticism that change “will happen in my lifetime.”

After a final draft of the plan is produced in the coming months and a public hearing is scheduled in the fall, the plan must win approval from both the Regional Planning Commission and the County Board of Supervisors before it becomes the official policy guide for Lennox. It could be years before many of its recommendations take effect, county officials said.