Residents Have Some Definite Ideas of What Rural Life Is

One of the county’s aims in deciding how much growth to permit in the Trabuco Canyon area is to preserve the “rural character” of the 6,300-acre region. But county officials have yet to decide exactly what rural means.

Some Trabuco Canyon residents, however, had no trouble coming up with definitions at a community meeting in May:

* “Having a rooster walk up to my front door.”

* “Room for animals; a sense of community--few enough people that you know all your neighbors.”

* “No curbs, no street lights, a corner store, post office boxes, horses in the streets, native trees, roosters crowing.”

* “No traffic lights, lots of open space, a safe place for wildlife, no concrete, few cars, natural beauty.”

* “No sewers. No street lights. No tract houses. No widening of roads. No Rose Canyon Road. No county involvement in our private life.”

* “Means I am willing to get in my car and travel 14 miles to shop and fill up my gas tank.”

* “Means trees, animals, being able to see the stars at night. No big roads, no stoplights, no houses on the ridgelines; no tracts.”

* “County roads--no highways, no sidewalks, no street lights or traffic signals; animals, no building on ridgelines, lower density, no shopping centers, no heavy grading or filling, open spaces.”

* “A chance to commune with nature and our animals.”

* “An atmosphere where people walk their goats and dogs and horses in the streets. A community surrounded by open meadows where animals live, is rural to me. No Rancho Santa Margarita-type development, no Portola Hills--clusters of plastic surrounded by a narrow greenbelt is not rural.”