‘Shantytown’ Shake-Up

The grounds outside Tony Alarcon’s 50-something-year-old home are smothered with lush green plants hanging from trees and creeping over large rocks lining tiny pathways. There’s a graceful, though dry, cement water fountain. And a sign nailed to a post reads: “Don’t Feed the Rattlesnakes.”

Inside the old wooden two-bedroom house where Alarcon has lived since 1945, the years have clearly taken their toll. Several layers of asphalt roofing have about a year of life left; walls and ceilings need replacing; carpets and tiles in every room need to go; electrical outlets need upgrading; and various other repairs total about $28,433, according to a city report.

This home and 12 others in a six-acre low-income enclave known as Little Hollywood hang together with dilapidated wood, damaged framing and out-of-date pipes and electrical equipment. The houses are crouched below large jacarandas, sycamores and pepper trees.

City officials propose to spend $1 million to replace the dwellings. They want to raze the dilapidated houses and put up units that reflect the original 1930s and ‘40s architecture. The city’s Cultural Heritage Commission has already approved the demolition, and the City Council will ultimately decide on the project.

“These are not conventionally built homes,” said William A. Ramsey, senior planner for the city. “They were built on the hillsides, a shantytown of structures that have never been built to any type of code.”

The city bought these homes in the early 1980s as low-income housing. Some of the longtime homeowners sold their properties to the city at that time.

The community, part of the historic Los Rios District, has seen better days, city officials contend.

Although these homes are listed among 31 structures on the city’s inventory of historic and cultural landmarks, city officials and members of the San Juan Capistrano Historical Society don’t consider them worth keeping.

“They are not of any great historic significance at all,” said Don Tryon, director and archivist for the historical society. “None whatsoever.”

The new houses have been designed by Thirtieth Street Architects in Newport Beach to resemble the original structures.

In the tiny neighborhood, once crammed with 24 houses, motorists crunch over portions of gravel streets and neighbors say they feel safe because most have known one another since childhood.

Although he has lived in the neighborhood since the late 1920s, Alarcon says he will gladly bid farewell to the dusty 1945-era building on Mission Street for a brand-new home provided by the city.

“It’s got to come down someday,” the 78-year-old man said from the picnic table of his garden. “Better they redo it than try to patch it. These are just add-ons. People who lived here had one more kid and they added a room.”

Other residents agree it’s the best solution to maintaining structures that are beyond repair. Some say the city has stopped making small repairs, and residents will be happy not to have to keep complaining for attention.

Under the city plan, the units would be demolished beginning next spring. Then Alarcon and other residents would be temporarily relocated. The city has already rebuilt one bungalow and renovated three others--once the Hawk, Nieblas and Yorba family homes--as a historical record of the area.

Alarcon, known as the unofficial mayor of the area, said the late barber Gonzalo Jiminez long ago coined the term Little Hollywood after three sisters who dolled themselves up like Hollywood starlets.

It’s an area founded by migrant families who worked in nearby fields, Alarcon said.

Ray Garcia, 36, lives in a Ramos Street home on property where his family has lived since the turn of the century. Once there was one large house owned by the Jiminez family, but the dwelling was pulled apart to create three smaller homes, where the Garcia family has lived.

“As long as they let me stay there,” Garcia said, “I’m happy just to look out the window and be able to see the trees my grandfather planted. An 80-foot pine tree that my grandfather Thomas Jiminez brought home from work in his lunch pail as a seedling. The eucalyptus tree my father planted the day I was born. That’s 60 feet high now.”