Rustic Neighborhood’s Residents Cling to Past : Zoning: Proposed commercial use of homes would spoil flavor of historic district, they say.

Residents of one of California’s oldest neighborhoods are afraid, but it’s not because of drugs or drive-by shootings.

No, they fear City Hall, where elected officials are poised to allow two houses in San Juan Capistrano’s Los Rios Historic District to be used exclusively for commercial purposes.

Several of those who live in the bucolic neighborhood, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, say that move would spoil the residential flavor of one of Orange County’s remaining links to the past, and usher in a new era of crowds and road congestion.

“It’s a beautiful place to live,” said John Taylor, a general contractor who moved to Los Rios Street five years ago with his wife, Marianne, to raise a young son. “It’s very fragile. It won’t take much to lose it.”

Older residents who have called the area home for as many as seven decades are also worried what might happen to their unique lifestyle.

“This was not meant for business,” said Dora Stanfield, an 84-year-old Juaneno Indian who lives in a house shaded by a pine tree planted in 1918 by her late husband, Earl, when his grandmother owned the property.

But some City Council members say residents’ fears about businesses eventually taking over the sleepy neighborhood are misguided.

“It’s one of those things where you have emotions on both sides,” said Councilman Wyatt T. Hart, who has raised the ire of some by speaking in support of the two property owners who want exclusive commercial use. “I think the city needs to look at each individual request based on its merits.”

The house at 26711 Verdugo St. is being considered as a new home for the Moonrose gift shop, which has been in business on Camino Capistrano. The house at 31911 Los Rios St. is envisioned as administrative offices of the Decorative Arts Study Center, which recently lost its headquarters on Camino Capistrano.

The city Planning Commission recommended last week that the two houses be approved for commercial uses and exempted from a companion requirement that they have full-time residents. The residency rule is part of the historic district’s zoning code, established more than a dozen years ago to maintain the character of the neighborhood.

“It was meant to allow for cottage industry--where mom and pop live and sit in the house and sell avocados or crafts,” said Isle Byrnes, a local preservationist who nominated the neighborhood for the National Register of Historic Places. “I have great problems with making the neighborhood this spotty commercial use.”

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When the area earned its national honor in 1983, city officials brimmed with pride, Byrnes said. The town is best known for its 219-year-old Mission San Juan Capistrano, but much of its character can be found nearby in the rich texture of Los Rios, complete with tales of ghosts that some say still haunt the neighborhood.

“It’s old,” Byrnes said. “It gives us a diary of what’s happened in the last 200 years within the context of the mission.”

Yet the aging houses are sometimes missed by tourists.

To walk along the shaded narrow streets here is to go back to a time when horse and buggy were the transportation mode of choice, and 700 square feet of home was enough for a family. Three of the neighborhood’s adobes have been standing more than two centuries, but most of its weathered board-and-batten homes were built around the turn of this century.

You won’t find a traffic light or feel rushed. Thick green vines crawl cover parts of faded picket fences. Cacti rub elbows with bougainvillea. Residents love the calm that is interrupted only by some two dozen trains that rumble by daily, occasional trash trucks at a company storage yard--and roosters.

Gil Jones, a city councilman who has lived in the neighborhood for 16 years, said those opposed to allowing exclusive commercial use for the two properties overlook the fact that a handful of businesses operate in Los Rios with on-site residents.

Among them is the Jones family’s residence and business, a mini-farm where children can take pony rides and pet barnyard animals. There are also a photography studio and an art studio, and a cafe is scheduled to open in a few weeks.

Jones said that converting some of the neighborhood residences to “low-key and charming” businesses would give the public more access to history while preserving the integrity of the structures, which are protected by strict planning codes.

But the current provision requiring a full-time resident in a house where a business is permitted smacks of heavy-handed government control, Jones said.

“What are we supposed to do, have bed checks at night?” Jones asked. “We fought wars to prevent that type of thing.”

The City Council is scheduled to decide on the two properties Tuesday night.

Jones said he is forbidden by state law to vote on the Moonrose request because the property is within 300 feet of his.

As part of its recommendation to the council, the Planning Commission required that employees of both the Moonrose and Decorative Arts Study Center park outside the historic district. Delivery trucks would have also to park outside, in a loading zone near the train depot, and goods would be brought in by hand.

Francie Kennedy Perguson, 39, has lived in the district for 12 years, three of which were spent in the house scheduled for the Moonrose.

Perguson concedes that the house offers a desirable location for a business, but she bristles at such logic driving a governmental decision.

“To me, that’s like saying, ‘Let’s put Target in the mission because it’s a great commercial location,’ ” Perguson said. “This is a residential area. The residents overwhelmingly want to keep it residential.”