Can the Growing Pains of Small-Town Brea Be Curbed?

It’s hell growing up. People make you do all kinds of things you don’t want to do and that you don’t think you need to do. Sometimes it makes you wonder whether it’s worth growing up at all.

Like almost every Southern California town you could think of in the past 30 years, Brea is going through some of that. With only 33,000 people, it’s still small enough, says a longtime resident, that parents learn through the grapevine if their kids get into even minor trouble.

But that population figure is somewhat deceiving. It is nearly double what it was in 1970. In fact, Brea’s population jumped 50% during the 1970s, as first the Orange Freeway and then the Brea Mall brought people and potential to the sleepy little town tucked against the foothills.

That kind of growth spurt seldom comes problem-free. A couple weeks ago, what seemed like a simple little debate over a parking ordinance may have offered a glimpse of the seismic shifts taking place.

Brea has always prided itself on its small-town atmosphere. And as in virtually every small town in America, the guiding civic philosophy is that townspeople don’t like to be bothered by City Hall.

And so, for years in Brea, City Hall has pretty much left its residents alone when it came to having their cars parked outside their homes. They had to have a permit for cars that weren’t kept in garages or in the driveways overnight, but the permits were free.

Now, the city wants to charge for the permits and perhaps limit the number of cars that can be parked on the street. Some residents are furious.

Part of the furor is over the money--the latest figure is $20 a year, although it was first mentioned to be as high as $80. But the unhappiness goes beyond dollars and cents.

Part of the justification behind limiting the cars on the streets is that, well, Brea could stand a little touch-up job. Sort of improve the look of the place, wink wink.

To many residents, that sounds rather condescending.

“The thing with Brea is, they think they’re Beverly Hills,” says 21-year-old Cammie Holman, who grew up in the house she and her husband are sharing with her parents. The town’s whole thrust in recent years, she said, has been to prettify the place, whether residents want it or not. She speaks with mild disdain for some of the outdoor sculpture that adorns new buildings around town.

The four people in her household own 10 vehicles, she said--most of them older models. If the parking ordinance goes through, she said, they won’t be able to get enough permits to cover all the vehicles. “The whole thing is, it’s just really a pain,” she says of the proposed ordinance.

Even if her family’s person-to-vehicle ratio is higher than most residents’, it isn’t uncommon in car-conscious California for couples with teen-age children, for example, to have several cars and not enough space for them. And while some of the county’s communities wouldn’t stand for the thought of having cars out on the streets overnight, Brea never seemed to mind.

Now it does, and if it passes the ordinance before it, residents could be subject to stiff fines for violating the parking limitations.

Some residents see it as class warfare. One resident told council members recently they would have “a revolution on your hands” if they passed the ordinance. Another said, “I don’t care what you do here in Brea, you’re not going to turn it into Irvine.”

I talked to a longtime resident, a realtor who over the last generation has raised a family in Brea.

“When we first moved here, the Orange Freeway was not even in,” he said. “So things have changed a great deal. Redevelopment has really changed the city. It’s commercialized the whole city, and right now that’s what it is, mostly a commercial city. I think it’s lost some of its small-town flavor.”

I asked whether Brea even wants to be a small town anymore. “It is a small town, population-wise,” he said. “In Brea, they’ve tried harder to keep it than in other places, and people seem to get involved more here than in other communities.”

But in a town that still has a large potential for physical growth, he told me, “I think the business community has pretty well overpowered the regular people.”

When the council votes on the permit issue sometime in February, it may discuss it in municipal revenue terms. Or in city-beautification terms. Or in property value terms.

That will fall on deaf ears to many residents, however, who didn’t sign any stinking covenants like their neighbors in Irvine or Aliso Viejo.

Shoot, they’ll say, Our cars have looked just fine parked outside our houses for years. What are you busting our chops now for?

And then someone will tell them it’s all about growing up, about dressing up.

We’ll find out soon whether Brea residents think growing up is worth the price.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.