Cruise Controlled

When Aaron Kennedy and Lydia Alvarez were preparing for their wedding, they added home shopping to their plans. For Kennedy, who is in law enforcement, safety was a top priority. On her list, Alvarez had good schools, parks-and-recreation opportunities, and quiet but friendly neighbors.

The couple found everything they were looking for in the two-bedroom, two-bathroom condominium they purchased for $123,900 shortly before their November 2000 wedding in Chino Hills, a fast-growing enclave on 46 square miles at the southwest corner of San Bernardino County.

Well, almost everything.

“Chino Hills just isn’t a good place for restaurants,” Alvarez said. “We have to go to Anaheim Hills or Corona to have a sit-down meal.”

The city, incorporated in 1991, borders Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties and has direct access to the 57, 60, 71 and 91 freeways.

The newness of the planned community is a plus for its 69,000 residents--including many young families and highly educated professionals--but its freeway-close location is a blessing and a curse. Shorter commute times into L.A. and Orange counties also mean a twice-daily onslaught of “drive-through” traffic on city streets that worsens each year.

And rampant residential development--500 new homes are built in Chino Hills annually, and the population is expected to top out around 85,000--without matching commercial growth may bring budget shortfalls in the next decade unless the city can attract more commercial tenants to bolster its tax base.

“We’ve become a pass-through city for people who work in L.A. and Orange counties but can’t afford to live there. They drive through Chino Hills twice a day going to and from their homes east of us. It’s the No. 1 complaint of our residents, but it’s almost impossible to stop,” Mayor Gwenn Norton-Perry said. “We used to be the affordable community for Orange County workers, years ago, but now lower-income people can’t afford to live here.”

Audrey Berniklau, a Realtor with Century 21-King who has lived and worked in Chino Hills since 1994, said those who choose to live in the community are two-income professionals with young children.

“Chino Hills is almost a yuppie town,” she said. The city’s racial demographics are roughly 56% white (includes 26% Latinos), 22% Asian and 5% African American--with “other” making up the remainder of the population. Median household income, according to the city’s Web site, is high--$84,700 annually.

“Most of the homes in the main part of Chino Hills sell for $300,000 to $400,000, but there are a lot of price fluctuations, depending on how close you are to Orange County,” Berniklau said. “There are new homes in areas that are still selling models, and there are a large number of gated, custom developments that sell from $700,000 to $1 million-plus.”

On the lower end of the scale, Berniklau said, home shoppers might find something in Los Serranos--an older area on the east side of the city, near the 71 freeway. “You could occasionally pick up a three-bedroom, two-bath there in the $150,000 to $160,000 range, but it would be 35 years old and most likely a fixer-upper,” she said.

In the $200,000 price range, there are older three-bedroom, two-bathroom houses in less than 1,100 square feet that were built in the early ‘80s and earlier. Newer homes, built during the 1990s with three or four bedrooms, two bathrooms in 1,200 to 1,300 square feet, sell for $300,000 and more. The larger homes of four-plus bedrooms with 2,500 square feet or more sell in the $400,000 range. Despite recession and the post-Sept. 11 slump, Berniklau said, homes in Chino Hills are selling well, though the top end of the market has softened somewhat.

Families who own their own homes are typical for Chino Hills, with average household size at 3.15 people and nearly 40% of residents having a college degree. “These are upwardly mobile, hard-working professionals,” Berniklau said, “who are intending to stay for a while and make Chino Hills the place they will raise their families.”

The description suits Alvarez and Kennedy perfectly. They like the city’s rural feel and its 30 parks; 30 miles of equestrian, hiking and mountain biking trails; and 3,000 acres of permanently preserved open space. A portion of Chino Hills State Park falls within city limits as well.

The couple also enjoy the city’s reputation for safety. “You can walk at night and it’s safe,” Alvarez said.

In fact, for the past five years, Chino Hills has been the safest city of its size in San Bernardino County, according to Sheriff’s Sgt. Louis Perry. The sheriff’s Chino Hills substation houses 42 sworn personnel who are aided in their job by neighborhood watch groups and an active volunteer citizens patrol. Violent crime is rare, and traffic fatalities are fairly low, despite the rush-hour traffic congestion in and around the city. There are no known local gangs, said Sgt. Tim Peters, who collects crime statistics for the sheriff’s substation.

Chino Hills borders on several communities that have substantially higher crime rates, but the freeways that surround the city seem to isolate it, Peters said.

While buyers may get more house for their money in neighboring Chino or south Ontario, test scores are higher in Chino Hills schools--a big plus for families. The high-ranking Chino Valley Unified School District is a major draw for the area, and schools within the city typically rank among the highest in the district and the county at large.

The educational prospects attracted Bryan and Janice Metz to Chino Hills from Rancho Cucamonga last year. The couple, who currently have no children but plan to start a family, purchased a $235,000 three-bedroom, 21/2-bath- room, 1,796-square-foot condo in the Morningside development, off Soquel Canyon Road. Janice, who had been teaching at Chino High School, attained a special-education job at Chino Hills High when it opened in September.

“She loves her job and thinks very highly of the district,” said Bryan, whose family recently moved its air-conditioning and heating company into the city from Chino. “The only things that make us uneasy about the area is that the [Chino state] prison is close by and there are a lot of dairies that smell bad in the morning and on windy days.”

Scattered remnants of the city’s past--like the dairy farms that linger on the city’s border with Chino--may annoy some, but they are happy reminders of simpler times for Karen Bristow, who has lived in the community for more than 30 years. Bristow moved into her home, in an area originally called Glenmeade, in the 1960s, when a local cattle ranching family, the Greenings, decided to sell off some of its property to form the area’s first subdivisions. Before then, ranches and dairy farms covered the region.

“I’ve seen it go from a rural community in the middle of nowhere to the bustling city it is today,” Bristow said. Before local freeways were extended, the long drive over two-lane Carbon Canyon Road provided the only access to the city, which was an isolated area home only to a handful of small subdivisions built in the 1920s that started out as camping retreats. Of those, Los Serranos, Hot Springs and Sleepy Hollow survive today.

“The area was very rural. We had one gas station, but no grocery stores,” Bristow said. She is now involved in local planning issues and worries about how the city will attract enough commercial development to bolster its coffers so it can maintain the services residents have come to expect.

Homeowners will accept only so many municipal fees on their property, she knows, and measures aimed at limiting growth have passed in recent years, mandating that high-density development plans be subject to voter approval.

Bristow is working along with the mayor and others to attract new commercial development to the city, which has a small tax base and a lot of expenses.

“We want to ensure that we’re not dependent on residential development, which is eventually going to end, so we need to bring in new revenue and job-producing sources to our community,” said Norton-Perry, who has lived in Chino Hills since before it was incorporated and served as the city’s first mayor. “It’s more expensive to build commercial projects here because of high developer fees, our hilly topography, and because we don’t have a redevelopment agency.”

The city has approved its first business park and created business incentive zones along the 71 Freeway in an effort to bring in more commercial development. Still, it’s hard to compete with nearby older communities that can offer redevelopment agency help and cheaper land, Norton-Perry said.

There have been some successes, however. Big League Dreams, a softball and baseball recreational facility whose features replicate major league ballparks, broke ground in Chino Hills, and the city hopes to attract a similar-sized hockey facility. The city’s attractive demographics have brought in several major retailers, including Costco, Lowes, Great Indoors, Bed Bath & Beyond, Steinmart and Sport Chalet.

Now, if they could only get some nice restaurants, Alvarez said, Chino Hills would be perfect.

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Chino Hills at a Glance

ZIP Code: 91709

Schools: Chino Valley Unified is the school district for Chino Hills and includes 31 schools in Chino Hills, Chino and south Ontario.

Elementary schools in Chino Hills account for five of the Top 10-scoring schools in San Bernardino County, including Country Springs, which tops the county’s Academic Performance Index with a score of 906 on a scale of 1,000; Oak Ridge, second at 893; Rolling Ridge with 880; Hidden Trails with 861; Litel with 853. Eagle Canyon Elementary, with an API score of 825, makes the county’s Top 20. Butterfield Ranch scores an 820, and Glenmeade is at 763. Middle schools also have high scores.

Chino Hills High School opened last fall and currently houses only ninth-grade students. The permanent buildings are expected to open next fall. Ayala High School ranks seventh out of 44 high schools in the county, with an API score of 697. API rankings can be found on the Web site of School Wise Press (www.schoolwisepress. com), and individual school accountability scorecards at the Chino Valley Unified Web site (www.chino.k12.ca.us).

Law enforcement: The city is patrolled by the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department and has been rated as the safest in the county for its population for the past five years.

Amenities: The city itself has 30 parks, 30 miles of trails and 3,000 acres of permanently preserved open space. Chino Hills State Park is partially within city limits.

Population: Currently 69,000, it is expected to top out at 85,000 in the next decade.

Median household income: $84,700

Median age: 32.3

Average family size: 3.15

Growth: Year 2000 census data show that Chino Hills was the fastest-growing city in the Inland Empire.

Housing stock: 20,000 existing homes on the resale market.

Sources: Census 2000, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, www.chinohills.org.

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Karen E. Klein is a freelance writer based in Temple City