A Neighborhood Flap in Laguna Niguel : Homeowner Is No Friend to Project in Which Humans Take Injured Sea Birds Under Their Wing

“You never believe something like this would go on in a neighborhood,” Ed Beveridge is saying, trying to remain calm, but frankly he is getting rather worked up.

He is repeating himself, talking about his “main beefs” and lots of other ones too, like the rooster that used to live next door to him here in otherwise zealously suburban Laguna Niguel.

But I’ve told him that, really, I am not here about the roosters. Ed’s next-door neighbor already told me about the roosters. Ed knows this. He says that he was eavesdropping on our conversation.

“OK, you may not think they are related, but there is a connection,” Ed tells me. “What I’ve told the city is, ‘How can I get you to get rid of one rooster, when you can’t get rid of hundreds across the street?”’

Ed does not mean that there are hundreds of roosters across the street, but, rather, birds in a general sense. Although Ed does not know, exactly, what lives across the street.

He has never met the owners of the house in question, Richard and Linda Evans, nor has he let them know directly that he has a problem with what goes on there. He believes the city should do that.

This is why I am here.

Ed Beveridge wants the Pacific Wildlife Project, housed in the Evanses’ converted garage and in cages in their back yard, out of his neighborhood. Now.

“I’m not trying to be a jerk,” says Ed. “I’m just trying to get the city to do their job.”

The Pacific Wildlife Project is the only rehabilitation clinic for sick and injured sea birds between Santa Barbara and San Diego. Volunteers, including five veterinarians--Richard Evans among them--care for the birds then release them in the wild. Some, unable to fend for themselves, stick around. A few others are adopted out.

For a while now, the project has been looking for roomier quarters, but everything has fallen through. The search is still on, with the city of Laguna Niguel helping out.

In the meantime, the city has told the Evanses that the center can keep operating where it is despite its being in violation of codes prohibiting such activity in a residential area.

The center is invisible behind the Evanses’ wooden fence, unadorned with anything beyond the two pink (plastic) flamingos that discreetly welcome those who pass through the gate.

And besides, there is no homeowners’ association around here, and no other neighbors have formally complained about the Evanses, far as anybody can attest to, and fact is, most of them say the bird people are the best neighbors anybody could want.

“I don’t have any problems at all with them,” says George Duffy, who has lived in the house next to the Evanses for 17 years. “We think they do a wonderful job.”

David Cohn, the Evanses’ next-door neighbor on the other side, says this: “These people are the best people in the world. I’m sure everybody says that, except Ed.”

The bird rehabilitation center was started nine years before cityhood came to Laguna Niguel and eight years before Ed came to the neighborhood. This, clearly, was during a more laid-back time.

“I just really believe that the fact that it is there is a deterrent to property values on both sides and therefore to my property as well,” says Ed.

This is probably No. 1 on the list of Ed’s “main beefs.” Also, he says the place stinks, even though he concedes that on this rather warm August afternoon, there is no hint of an odor in the air. (Another neighborhood couple who wished to remain anonymous seconded Ed on the stink issue.)

Ed says he didn’t know about the birds when he moved in four years ago. But now the battle to remove them is taking up an inordinate amount of his time.

“Basically, the city has been unwilling to press the issue because they are worried about environmental backlash,” says Ed, a father of one who describes himself as a part-time realtor and environmental consultant. Currently he has no pets.

The city, in the person of City Manager Tim Casey, describes the delay in removing the center from Ed’s neighborhood a little differently.

“There would be a tremendous community reaction if we were to serve a quit notice on the Evanses,” he says. “They operate the only program of its kind in Southern California. They do a wonderful job. To take a cold, hard code enforcement approach is just not the right thing to do.”

Which, naturally, has the Evanses relieved and Ed, well, you can imagine how it has Ed.

“We were very nervous four weeks ago,” says Linda Evans, who was padding around her place barefoot the other day. “That was when they were saying that we had to be out by the end of the year.”

But then Linda gets to thinking about the larger implications of all this. “There was a time when your home was your castle, your home was your domain,” she says. “Then somewhere that got turned around, especially out here in California.”

(Linda is from Florida herself. Thus, her sentimental attachment to the pink flamingos out front. And she hears that Ed doesn’t like those either. Maybe she’ll put out some more).

“Now, instead, your property is an investment , in everybody else’s future,” she goes on. “We are at the mercy of the speculators. It’s crazy . . . .

“Well, the people who moved in here, they have a perception of freedom that doesn’t include people telling them what color to paint their house or when to take in their garage cans. Maybe they want their kid to play with a duck.”

As for Ed, he says that he too likes living without a homeowners’ association, seeing as how he likes not paying the fee. And, as for birds, Ed says he loves birds, but he’s got a bottom line: Get out.

“I guess if it makes me odd man out, I guess that’s fine,” Ed says. “All I’m asking is to live here in peace.”