Proposal Calls for Changes Within, Around Project : Redevelopment: The plan calls for a group of elected residents to run Nickerson Gardens, individuals to own refurbished units and the addition of local businesses in which residents can buy stock.

A homeownership plan for Nickerson Gardens calls for drastic changes in the way that the project is operated, replacing the city Housing Authority with residents trained in the techniques of property management.

Speed bumps would be added to the development’s curvy roadways to slow down cars that now screech through. Units would get a second bathroom as well as front and back porches. Clusters of ficus trees, carrotwood and Canary Island pines would be planted throughout the development’s 68 acres in Watts.

Local businesses are also being proposed for the blighted neighborhood surrounding Nickerson Gardens, everything from a commercial laundry to a nail salon, with stock in the companies available to residents.

The plan--sent off to Washington last month for consideration by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development--is outlined in a three-inch-thick document prepared by a group of residents with thousands of hours of help during the past year from volunteer professionals. Nickerson Gardens is competing with 26 housing projects nationwide for multimillion-dollar grants to convert to homeownership.

The transformation would occur quickly, according to the plan. Resident Management Corp., a group of elected residents, would take over operation of Nickerson Gardens within a year after the money came in. Within two years, the first residents could purchase their own refurbished units.

Buying into the plan would cost residents a $500 down payment; those unable to afford that sum could pay it off in “sweat equity” by working on the project’s redevelopment. The monthly mortgage payment would be close to the 30% of their incomes that residents now pay in rent. The average monthly income at Nickerson Gardens is $756, so most mortgage payments would be about $250 a month.

Once residents decided to participate, they would join in a co-op and elect representatives to a development-wide board.

The proposal has the unfortunate side effect of lessening the money-making prospects of homeownership for the residents, however: Resident owners who later decide to move out would have to sell back their units at a price set by the development itself to prevent outside speculators from boosting the cost of the low-income housing.

The plan also proposes that the city Housing Authority buy up 600 unspecified housing units outside Nickerson Gardens and construct 200 more units on vacant lots in and near the project to satisfy federal requirements for low-income housing. The Housing Authority would rent those units in the manner used for traditional projects.

Joseph Shuldiner, executive director of the Housing Authority, calls the replacement housing proposal unrealistic.

David Boje, a management professor at Loyola Marymount University who has studied the Nickerson Gardens proposal, says: “The transition will be very difficult. But I think it’s possible if most of the parties want it to happen.”