Neighbors Divided About Effects of Cal State Campus : Universities: Some fear that the Camarillo campus will mean the loss of their rural life style. Others see benefits for business and local services.

Looking down a country lane near Camarillo to the 320 acres where Cal State University plans to build its newest campus, Debra Richards shook her head in disbelief.

“There’s nothing out here,” Richards said, gesturing to the orderly farms that border the small community of Nyeland Acres where she lives with her husband and 5-year-old daughter.

If built as planned in an agricultural greenbelt between Camarillo and Oxnard, the four-year university would attract thousands of students, teachers and campus personnel, shattering forever the area’s rural isolation.

With those people would come fast-food restaurants, convenience markets and housing for a student body that could eventually swell to 20,000.

That’s a prospect that disconcerts some and delights others among the nearest neighbors of what is designed to be Ventura County’s first publicly funded state university.

For Richards, the school would spell an end to the rural lifestyle that she and her husband sought to escape the late-night hustle of north Oxnard.

“I moved out here to be by myself, and I like it,” she said. “I drive 10 miles across town if I want to go to the store.”

Others, particularly older residents of the Casa del Norte Mobile Home Park on Central Avenue, view with apprehension the prospect of a major university opening up in the next few years.

“Why do they have to put it here and take away our farmland?” asked June Joyce, the manager of the 135-unit park that is the closest residential neighborhood to the new campus site.

“With the freeway close by, we’re already getting smog that smells like they put tar on the roof,” said 76-year-old John Widner, who retired to Casa del Norte with his wife, Gladys.

“If they put the college in at one end of town, and (a proposed) factory outlet on the other, people will hardly be able to get out of the court with the traffic,” Widner said. “I have a hard time as it is.”

His wife nodded.

“I know how they drive,” she said. “Young people are always in a hurry.”

But the couple also expressed fear that the demand on housing could lead to higher rents and eventually tempt the park’s owner to sell.

“They could sell to the highest bidder and kick us out,” Widner said.

While some see it as a threat, others view the coming of a university with relish.

In The Alamo Mexican Dinner House on the western outskirts of Camarillo, operations manager Daniel Lima foresees a shot in the arm for the 15-year-old restaurant.

Located on Del Norte Road less than two miles from the new university site, The Alamo is the closest restaurant to where the campus will be built.

“The university will not only be good for our business, but for every business in the area,” Lima said. “In addition to dining out, the students need to buy shoes, clothes and other things, and that means more taxes for the city.”

Across the street from The Alamo, officials with Interface, a nonprofit agency that provides counseling to families and abused children, said university students could prove to be an asset to the social service agency.

“We use a lot of volunteers, and a lot of volunteers come from university classes,” said Chris Rudder, director of community services for Interface.

According to Charles Watson, the agency’s executive director, the nearby campus would also provide a more convenient site for conferences and training.

Also, he said, the addition of new stores and restaurants will be welcomed in the relatively isolated commercial district.

“To eat a hamburger now and then will be nice,” Watson said.

Officials with the California Youth Authority, which houses 800 young offenders north of the future campus, also view the new school as a potential asset.

“We anticipate positive benefits,” said Allison Zajac, the institution’s public information officer.

Many of the 500 CYA staff members will be able to take classes in police science and administration of justice, she said, and student interns will be able to fulfill class requirements by assisting the correctional facility.

She dismissed objections of some opponents of the rural campus, saying that the students will have little to fear from the inmates.

“The safety of the students will be a greater issue from people who are not locked up than from those who are,” she said.

With the construction of the university, though, the agricultural character of the area will inevitably change.

The Dufau Ranch Co. stands to lose some of the most productive of its fields when the school is built, 19-year-old Mark Dufau said.

“They’re taking up some good farmland,” said Dufau, who added that his family farms celery and jalapeno on a portion of its leased land.

Dufau said the new school will mark the second time his family has had to relinquish fertile farmland for major construction.

“Nobody’s concerned about the farmers,” Dufau said.