SOUTH BAY / COVER STORY : Cleaning House : Mismanagement and decay turned the Scottsdale development in Carson into an eyesore. But residents have banded together to fight crime and erase a decade of neglect and decay.

Thirty years ago, it was an experiment in a new way of living, a trend-setting housing development in a state known for such things.

Rather than add to the vast suburban sprawl that characterized Southern California, a few thousand suburban pioneers decided to live in close proximity to their neighbors, share open space and govern themselves under democratic principles, safe and secure behind their guarded gates and perimeter walls.

It was called Scottsdale Town Houses, one of Southern California’s first private gated condominium communities, an $18-million, 600-home development set on 44 acres amid light industry and vacant land in what would one day become Carson. Not only one of the biggest such developments of its day, it promised to be the shape of things to come in an increasingly crowded and unplanned metropolis.

But it didn’t quite turn out that way. More than a quarter century after it was created, Scottsdale had become a pocket of crime and decay. The roofs leaked, trash and abandoned cars littered the streets, the community swimming pool was dry, gang members and drug dealers ruled the turf. Management had difficulty collecting money due from residents for upkeep and improvements. Racial animosities split the increasingly poor population, breeding mistrust and resentment.

It would have been easy to simply write Scottsdale off as another example of good plans gone awry. But two years ago, a group of Scottsdale residents decided not to give in to their community’s problems. They banded together and fought back.

Progress so far has been slow, and hard won. But there has been progress nevertheless. And now, some Scottsdale residents believe that it may be possible to turn back the clock.

Crime is down, thanks in part to the arrival of a new security company. Repairs are being made. Despair has given way to hope.

“When I first came here I saw a lot of drug dealing and violence,” said Angel Leyva, a 29-year-old exterminator and father of four, who is on the complex’s security committee. “But things are much better now. I have a family. I want a good place to live.”

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The future looked bright in August, 1964, when developer Ray Watt spoke to a crowd of 800 gathered to commemorate the completion of Scottsdale Town Houses and the transfer of control from the developer to the homeowners.

“We have pioneered together. . . . to make your home ownership and hopefully your lives at Scottsdale Town Houses the rewarding experience we all wish them to be,” Watt told the homeowners.

Southern California had never seen anything quite like the new development. On the east side of Avalon Boulevard just north of Sepulveda Boulevard, the condominium development included beautifully landscaped streets, a grassy central mall, a children’s playground, an Olympic-size swimming pool, and a community center--all reserved for residents and their guests. A three-bedroom home--they are two-story units arranged in rows--sold then for about $16,000, plus a monthly fee for grounds maintenance and other services. (The larger units now sell for about $90,000.)

About 3,000 people were expected to live in the development. Decisions about the community and control of the maintenance fees were put in the hands of a 15-member board of governors elected from among the residents.

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But perhaps the most unusual thing about Scottsdale was that it was surrounded by a four-foot masonry wall with access only through two guarded gates. The purpose of the walls and gates wasn’t so much to protect residents from crime but to make sure that envious neighbors didn’t slip in and use the amenities.

When Anthony and Lydia Chapa moved into one of the new homes in the summer of 1964, it seemed like the perfect place for the couple and their nine children.

“They had Little League going for the kids; they had something going for the adults. . . . They had quite a few things going on,” said Chapa, who still lives in Scottsdale with her husband. “It (was) a nice place to raise children.”

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sgt. Jerry Kaono, who grew up in the Carson area and watched Scottsdale being built, remembers envying the kids who lived there.

“There was nothing like it,” said Kaono, who works in the Carson sheriff’s station. “It had a park where they had organized baseball. They had dancing and meetings and games.”

But over the years, mismanagement, poor planning and just plain bad luck turned Scottsdale into an eyesore whose unique features have proven to be almost as much a handicap as a help.

Through a complex series of business deals, many of the Scottsdale units by the mid-1970s had fallen into the hands of large development companies, which bought them as investments. Unable to sell the properties, the companies began renting them at relatively low rates to cut their losses. The combination of absentee landlords and revolving-door renters started a downward spiral, making it difficult for other owners to sell their properties when they wanted to move, leaving more renters, more absentee owners and more problems.

By the mid-1970s, fewer than a quarter of the units were owner-occupied, and one resident at that time told the Carson Planning Commission that by his estimate 100 of the units were vacant. Prices fell, rents dropped and crime rose as it did almost everywhere during the period.

The homeowners’ board of governors, torn by factions and dissent, was unable or unwilling to do anything, residents said.

One of Scottsdale’s chronic problems stemmed from one of the ideals of the original condominium plan: the concept of pooling monthly fees from homeowners and using the money for common needs such as maintenance and repairs. The problem was, some homeowners paid and others didn’t.

“There have been times that at least 150 or more (homeowners) were not paying,” said Barbara Volpe of Rinebol & Co., which managed the development from 1988 to 1990 and recently resumed overseeing the facility. “I know that at one time the delinquencies there were over $300,000.”

Without the money, things that desperately had to be done didn’t get done. The swimming pool fell into disrepair. Roofs started leaking and couldn’t be fixed. Population rose to more than 4,000 as families shared condominiums or rented their garages.

Meanwhile, crime within the development soared.

Although sheriff’s deputies do not keep records of crimes in Scottsdale alone, they say they had frequently responded to reports of drug dealing, shootings, thefts and other crimes there. The complex developed a reputation as one of the most dangerous places in Carson.

Some of the same elements that made Scottsdale unique also made trouble for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The guard gate, for example, meant that deputies had only one way into and out of the complex. Criminals escaped down the walkways between townhomes and jumped over the low exterior wall before patrol cars could drive around the circular main road to reach a crime scene.

Sheriff’s deputies say that it became standard procedure to dispatch units into the complex in pairs after dark.

“It was not a favorable policing layout,” Kaono said. “It was just not safe for anybody.”

By the late 1980s, some residents looked outside the complex for help. In an anonymous letter to authorities, they begged for help solving their problems.

“The decent homeowners who want to keep their homes and better the complex have their lives in danger due to murders, shootings and drug dealing,” they wrote in a letter signed Group of Concerned Homeowners Committee. “We need a new board of governors but have been unsuccessful in trying to vote out the same old members who have hung on for years.”

City officials responded that it was an internal problem in the complex and they were unable to help. The problems continued.

“We stopped being the management company because of the danger,” Volpe said. “A lot of it was drug dealing and prostitution, but there was gang activity also. . . . They had shootouts in that property from time to time. . . . I got shot at and my daughter’s car got ripped off.”

While residents coped with crime and decaying homes, too often the people they paid to protect them--the private security guards who manned the gate and patrolled the complex--weren’t much help.

Security guards had long been a fixture at Scottsdale. In the past two decades, at least 14 security companies have worked at the complex. Some residents complained that the guards, some of whom were authorized to carry firearms, enforced parking and other regulations against some residents and not against others.

Even worse, there were allegations by residents and others that some security guards were involved in drug dealing at the complex. Those allegations, however, were never proven.

To many people, Scottsdale seemed like a hopeless case. And then two years ago, a group of residents decided they had had enough.

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Maria Gomez, 49, might seem an unlikely community activist. The mother of eight children and grandmother to 16, she got married when she was 14 years old in Mexico and has been a housewife ever since. She has been a Scottsdale resident for 19 years but had never been involved in the community until two years ago.

Outraged over the state of affairs in Scottsdale, and angry at a board of governors that she believed wasn’t doing enough to address the community’s problems, Gomez and a handful of allies gathered proxy votes from 265 homeowners and took control of the board, appointing 12 of the 15 members. The new group started making changes immediately.

First, they fired the security guard company and brought in McRoberts Protective Agency, Inc., a 118-year-old nationwide security firm with a reputation for honest, efficient service. In an effort to deal with crime and drug dealing, McRoberts, backed by the board of governors, began enforcing parking regulations and ridding the complex of abandoned cars. The new security guards also started rigidly enforcing access regulations that limit entry to residents and their guests.

“It was havoc at first,” says Bradley Young, a former Torrance police officer who is a regional manager for McRoberts. “But eventually, the residents understood that it was for their protection.”

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Young says his company required the 13 security officers assigned to Scottsdale--who unlike some previous security guards wear professional-looking uniforms--to undergo diversity training so they could better understand and work with residents of the ethnically and racially mixed community. Guards also have gone on ride-alongs with sheriff’s deputies to improve communication.

Sheriff’s officials say gang activity has decreased dramatically, and there has not been a shooting at the complex in a year. Unlike a few years ago, crime at Scottsdale, they say, is no higher than the surrounding area of south Carson.

“We want something like community-based policing here,” Young said. “We want the security officers to know the residents and the residents to know them. There are a lot of good people here, and only a few bad ones. If we work together, the good people will help us drive out the bad ones.”

The new board also started trying to get Scottsdale’s management and financial houses in order. They brought back Volpe and Rinebol & Co. to manage the property, where units rent for $750 to $1,000 a month, and reinstated Nicolas Meza, a property manager who had been fired by an earlier board. They started trying to collect delinquent monthly fees from homeowners, working out payment plans for those who couldn’t afford it.

The new board, which oversees a budget of more than $1 million a year in homeowner fees, also is trying to get a loan from the city for a $6.5-million improvement “wish list,” which includes not only roof repairs but fixing the swimming pool, renovating the park and raising by several feet the wall that surrounds the complex to deter crime and drug dealing.

The city’s redevelopment agency could loan Scottsdale’s homeowners enough money to make the desired repairs, but only on certain conditions.

“There has to be some accounting,” said Adolfo Reyes, who heads the agency. “If (they) give us a plan of reorganization that is satisfactory, then we would propose it for consideration by the agency.”

Gomez says Scottsdale really needs the help. “Here we are humble people with many children, and we can’t do it all alone,” she said. “In 30 years the roofs have never been changed. That needs to be done, and the park is necessary. The children here have nothing, nowhere to play.”

Crime and drugs are still problems, sheriff’s officials said. And there are still tensions between factions.

“Before, the board was mostly black-controlled,” said Wayne Spencer of Asgard Security, which at one time provided security for the development. “Back then, the Hispanics felt slighted. Now the shoe is on the other foot. The Hispanics are mostly in control, and some of the blacks feel slighted. There’s a lot of politics.”

(Nearly half of Scottsdale’s residents are Latino, according to the management company, and African Americans constitute about 25% of the residents; the remainder are Asian or white. The estimated annual household income is $17,000, about half of the countywide average.)

Still, there is a sense that things are better than they used to be.

“We can go out at night now, it’s very pleasant,” Gomez said, speaking in Spanish. “Yes, there still are problems, but not nearly as many as there were before. I’ve lived here for 19 years and this is so much better than just a few years ago.”

Staff Writer Lisa Richardson contributed to this article.