Hope builds in South L.A.

The project is church-inspired and partly church-financed. Plans call for 150 condos, 100 apartments for seniors, offices for small businesses, child day care and stores to serve the neighborhood. Construction job training will be provided for unskilled workers.

The planned development is in the blocks around 85th and Hoover streets, where existing apartment buildings tend to be locked up like fortresses, protected with metal fences to discourage intruders.

"It's a rough area," said developer Scott Chaplan of Santa Monica, who is teaming with Bishop Noel Jones, pastor of City of Refuge Ministries church, and other supporters. "We have had drive-by shootings in the past."

City Councilman Bernard Parks says he supports the project in part because it will include units that aren't subsidized for the poor.

"Most of the new market-rate housing for purchase or rent has moved out of this area," Parks said. "We're not getting the variety of housing that's needed."

Condos at Bethany Square are expected to cost $340,000 to $380,000, the developers said.

Land has been assembled in the predominantly black and Latino neighborhood, plans are drawn, permits are being sought, early cash has been raised, and construction is set to begin in January -- all at the newest environmental standards.

The development also would chip away at a severe shortage of housing for lower-income residents in Los Angeles, whom private developers have mostly ignored.

"More and more families than ever, especially the working poor, are finding it difficult to afford houses in L.A.," said Robert Dhondrup, a spokesman for the Southern California Assn. of Non-Profit Housing. A couple with minimum-wage jobs would each have to work 80 hours a week to reasonably afford a median-priced two-bedroom apartment at $1,426 a month.

The real estate boom of the last five years has actually reduced the number of low-cost apartments in Los Angeles County as developers converted them to condominiums or razed them to make way for other more profitable uses, Dhondrup said.

Though industry experts note that the project still faces many hurdles, Bethany Square represents for many nearby residents a new burst of jobs and capital infusion to the inner city. Others are simply delighted with talk of day care, a bank, small shops, a restaurant and a market. They are in short supply here.