Times Are Changing in El Segundo--but Not Very Quickly : Government: Proposed new general plan reflects the aerospace industry’s downturn, but officials say the city’s small-town character will remain.

J. B Wise and his family have lived in El Segundo for 45 years. And even today, the councilman will tell you, it’s the kind of small town you could pick up and put down in the middle of Nebraska.

On Main Street, its only shopping strip, RB Better Drugs has been the community medicine chest for 40 years. And Rae’s Tru Value Hardware boasts it has been around for 50.

Even along the neatly kept residential byways that feed into Main Street, little has changed. Sitting in the shadow of Los Angeles International Airport, where hundreds of thousands of immigrants have arrived during the past 20 years, El Segundo remains untouched by the influx. Its population of 15,200 is still 85% Anglo, according to the 1990 U.S. Census.

Maybe El Segundo’s resistance to change explains why Wise is not very worried about the task facing him and fellow council members. Over the next six months, they will pore over a 700-page proposed general plan that is supposed to guide development of the city for the next 20 years.

Critics of the proposed plan, which was presented to the council for the first time Tuesday night, are worried that certain provisions threaten the city’s small-town atmosphere.

However, Wise and Planning Director Kendra Morries say residents of the city will hardly notice any changes wrought by the plan.

“Nothing’s basically going to change west of Sepulveda,” Wise said, defining the boundary between old and new El Segundo.

Sepulveda Boulevard is a demarcation line in the 5.4-square-mile city. To the west is the city’s entire residential area. To the east is the commercial and industrial tracts that are home to the offices, hotels and aerospace firms such as Rockwell International, Northrop Corp. and TRW, which bring more than 90,000 workers to the city every day.

The plan, drafted by a team of consultants headed by the Lightfoot Planning Group of Oceanside, proposes rezoning about 350 acres of the commercial and industrial areas east of Sepulveda Boulevard. The new zoning would accommodate a mix of development, including retail stores and offices.

The change, urban planners and city officials say, is a recognition that the heyday of defense and aerospace industries is coming to a close, forcing El Segundo, like other parts of the state and nation, to adapt economically.

The new designation will allow the city to attract other kinds of businesses as the defense-oriented contractors reduce their size or disappear. Planners hope the new zoning will attract more hotels, commercial office space and small retail shops to serve the daytime work force.

Critics of the new zoning plan are worried about increased traffic. However, Morries points out that the Green Line, another leg of the Metro Rail transit system, will come from Norwalk to that area of El Segundo. The new zoning is designed to accommodate the line and take advantage of it economically, she said.

The plan makes no provision for a large shopping mall, to the dismay of Wise and some other city officials. They say that if the city is aggressive, it can lure some large retailers who can deliver sales tax revenues. But the consultants who wrote the general plan point out that the city’s residential population is too small to support a large retail development.

At present, the city’s residential population is so small that there is only one grocery store in town.

Critics of the plan are also worried that a state mandate to provide moderate- and low-income housing in the city could open the door to rent control.

“This is the grenade that’s rolling around with the pin out,” Councilman Scot D. Dannen said Tuesday night. “I would do anything to prevent the city of El Segundo from becoming Santa Monica. That scares the daylights out of me.”

Both Wise and Morries say that will not happen, arguing that the city will not become home to large numbers of low-income renters. Moderate income in El Segundo, they point out, is in the $50,000 range. Wise also points out that the city already has one senior housing project and could build another to meet the state mandate.

Also, previous studies show that the city’s population is expected to grow by only 15%. “That’s 2,298 people over the life of the plan and that’s 20 years,” consultant Lou Lightfoot told the council.

The Future of El Segundo

Here are some goals of changes to the General Plan now being considered by city officials.

Economic Base

* Reduce reliance on aerospace industry as the nation scales back its defense needs.

* Develop marketing plan to attract other kinds of businesses such as hotels, retailers or office buildings.

* Increase number of daytime retail businesses that serve the 90,000 people who work in the city but don’t live there.

Land Use

* Rezone 350 acres to attract new businesses as aerospace firms downsize.

* Reduce heavy industry area by about one-fourth from 1,266 to 966 acres.

* Increase the land now zoned for general commercial use to 63 acres, from 21.

Residential

* Maintain existing residential neighborhoods.

* Increase existing 89 acres of multifamily residential zoning to 117.

* Develop plan to provide affordable and low-income housing.

SOURCE: City of El Segundo