Friendly Mix Abounds in ‘Zoning Salad’ : Santa Barbara: Ethnically diverse neighbors live in harmony with each other and industry in city’s Lower Eastside.

Willie Rowan moved to Santa Barbara’s Lower Eastside from New Orleans in 1957 to be near relatives. And while her kin still live nearby, the area itself has taken on the qualities of a family.

“It’s open,” Rowan said. “It’s warm. It’s friendly. I can be out in the yard watering and people will just stop and talk, and you don’t know who they are.”

After renting an apartment for several decades, Rowan recently became a homeowner.

“It was a bargain,” she said of her two-bedroom California cottage on a good-sized lot that she bought for about $250,000. But there is one drawback: “I’m in the midst of industry.” The problem for Rowan and about 200 other homeowners in her little pocket of the Eastside is the manufacturing zoning, which prohibits them from making significant improvements to their residential properties.

But she is philosophical about it: “If you want to own, you have to start somewhere.”

And although she is now looking to buy a larger home, she is not considering leaving the Lower Eastside, which is roughly bordered by U.S. 101 to the south, Anapamu Street to the north, Salinas Street to the east and Garden Street to the west.

Other parts of Santa Barbara are “so sterile,” Rowan said. On the Eastside, working-class Latinos, African Americans and whites live side by side. “We have a little flavor,” she said. “I would hate to see where everything looked the same.”

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Retaining the special character of the Lower Eastside and yet dealing with its problems is a goal of the Eastside Study Group, which met recently to come up with recommendations for the city.

“It’s kind of a zoning salad,” said City Councilman Gil Garcia, an architect active with the study group. He is proud of the mix of commercial, residential and industrial properties, and the Eastside’s “unique sense of community.” “That’s what we want to preserve,” he said.

The Lower Eastside is a community in transition, and not everyone agrees on the direction of the coming changes. Restaurateurs and other merchants along Milpas Street would welcome some of the elements that help tourist dollars flow on State Street: a low-priced shuttle bus, a narrower street, wider sidewalks, shady places to sit.

However, the area is far more than a Restaurant Row, it’s also the place locals go for automobile services, construction yards, contractor offices, schools and social service agencies--most of which would not benefit from slowing the traffic.

For many, the Lower Eastside is the preferred place to have a business, and a drive along Milpas Street reveals far fewer vacant commercial spaces than are found on State Street. “The rents have taken a more sane path than those on State Street,” said Errol Jahnke, a broker with Sunset Co. Realtors. “They didn’t exceed reason.”

Houses too are reasonable on the Lower Eastside, ranging from less than $175,000 for a fixer-upper to more than $400,000 for a view home near the Eastside hills known as the Lower Riviera. Lots and houses on the Lower Eastside tend to be small, but with its mountain views and ocean breezes, the area is considered a bargain.

“(The Eastside) tends to be lower-priced, so there are more entry-level buyers,” Jahnke said. “There are a lot of extended families buying real estate together.”

Danny Reyes, owner of Danny’s Masonry, bought his Eastside home in 1967 for $19,500. Even though his house has appreciated at least tenfold, he has no plans to sell.

“It’s calm here,” said Reyes, the father of eight children. “I’ve been in this neighborhood for 30 years and I’ve never been robbed or nothing like that. . . . I’ve been lucky. But it’s also how you treat people.”

Since he bought his property, Reyes has transformed his yellow-and-white house by adding ornamental woodwork and by cultivating a garden bursting with roses, gladioli, geraniums, cactus, fruit trees and fragrant jasmine. “I’ve got a lot of work in it,” Reyes said.

The Eastside has long been populated with people who take pride in their homes. “In the old days, it was Little Italy,” said George Chellini, the recently retired executive director of the Boys and Girls Club of Santa Barbara County, who was born on the Eastside and went to school there.

“People worked as gardeners and stonemasons. Now that’s changed over to Mexican stonemasons.” That stonework is evident all over the Lower Eastside, in retaining walls, garden walls and even in whole buildings.

A few businesses owned by Italians in the early part of the century are still operating, including two restaurants--Arnoldi’s, which is housed in a stone building, and Mom’s Italian Village. Both restaurants had boccie alleys in the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s, Cellini said.

The Eastside was formed in 1851, when State Street was created and bisected “a Mexican pueblo then in the process of changing into an American village,” wrote the late historian, Walter A. Thompkins. Of course, like most of the Southern California coastal lands, the first inhabitants of Santa Barbara were the Chumash Indians, who lived in the area for at least 10,000 years.

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Eastside youths are a big concern for many Santa Barbarans, who search for ways to keep kids out of gangs. One resource for youths is La Casa de la Raza, a center that serves as a nucleus for Latino culture and features heavily attended art shows, poetry readings, concerts and speakers. La Casa has a youth center and a drug-abuse prevention program, as well.

At a recent meeting of the Eastside Study Group, the committee on youth drew the largest crowd. Some propose starting a clothing store run by youths for youths. Others suggest giving kids tours of local businesses to help inspire them toward more skilled careers than the fieldwork or hotel jobs held by their parents.

“The number of immigrants coming, that’s the big, big change,” said Kevin Redick, a director of the Boys Club of Santa Barbara, located on the Lower Eastside. “There’s a lot of transient families.”

Redick and others hope that sports and other activities at the club will help kids stay out of gangs and trouble. The club also has a sprinkling of members from nearby Montecito, where wealthy parents want their children to interact with different cultures.

“We are proud of the diversity we have,” said Susanna Shreeve, a Montessori teacher with advanced college degrees, who has rented a small cottage on the Lower Eastside for several years. “I prefer diversity. I’m here because I don’t like all-white. I like brown in my life.”

The tiny cottages in Shreeve’s neighborhood rent for $500 to $600 a month. Shreeve said she hasn’t yet “found out how to live comfortably in these small rooms” and has to be out on her patio “to get any thinking done.” But Shreeve’s budget does not allow her to rent a larger place. “Rents are very hard on people in Santa Barbara,” she said. “There are no secret little places to get low rent.”

Wendy Foster, the owner of several upscale clothing stores that bear her name, has lived on the downtown edge of the Lower Eastside for 25 years. The tiny, one-bedroom adobe home she shares with her husband, Pierre Lafond, is one of nine landmark homes in “El Caserio,” which means “The Compound.”

“It used to be the Greenwich Village of Santa Barbara,” Foster said of the area. Even today, her neighbors include the publisher of a local magazine and assorted artists. The 1920s-era houses in the compound, though small, sell for around $400,000 to $500,000.

Although she seems to be a woman with many choices in life, Foster has no desire to move to a fancier area of Santa Barbara, such as Montecito or Hope Ranch. On the Eastside, she feels closer to the fabric of her life.

“You can walk to the Botanic Garden, to the movies, to restaurants, to the farmer’s market,” Foster said. “And I just love that.”

At a Glance Population 1993 estimate: 12,181

Annual income Per capita: 11,677 Median household: 29,099

Household distribution Less than $30,000: 50.7% $30,000 - $60,000: 35.1% $60,000 - $100,000: 12.3% $100,000 - $150,000: 1.0% $150,000 +: 0.9%