VISTA —— Drivers headed north on Vista Village Drive through the heart of downtown Vista regularly pass neon signs announcing the presence of popular restaurants, stores and coffee chains.

But follow the same street as it wends northeast toward Bonsall and the view changes: Rolling, grassy hills and large parcels of land are reminders of the increasingly urban city's rural past.

Once home to groves full of avocado and citrus trees in the 1940s, Vista has agricultural roots —— but over time, the rural character has shifted to make room for more homes, businesses and the roads needed to get the city's 95,000 residents from place to place.

"A lot of people just look at Vista Village and Townsite (an inner-city neighborhood) and say, well, that's Vista," said Mayor Morris Vance. "Well, it's not. This city has great diversity, and not just from a racial standpoint. There are a lot of different elements here."

Vance said he and other city officials face the challenge of trying to maintain the rustic charm that was a defining part of the city's history.

Zoning keeps outlying areas open

About a quarter of the city's total 18.1 square miles is zoned as rural, according to Community Development Director Robin Putnam.

While areas close to the city center have become home to dense development, with apartment buildings and large-scale retail businesses like the Vista Village shopping and theater complex, zoning regulations have kept outlying areas more open.

Rurally zoned properties have a minimum lot size of 1 acre, and estate-sized lots have a minimum size of half an acre. In contrast, average residential lots in the city's center are about 10,000 square feet, Putnam said.

When Vista incorporated as a city in 1963, much of what is now the center of the city was already set for business and small residential development. Except for individual parcels, the city has not made wholesale zoning changes since its incorporation, city planners said.

"At that point, most of the (rural estates) were already on the outskirts of the city," said a senior planner, Patrick Richardson. "The development patterns had been pretty much established."

Vance said that when he came on as city manager in 1981, the city had a downtown area, but little large-scale commercial development —— one of the things that began to change shortly thereafter.

The huge master-planned community of Shadowridge had just begun to be developed, but North County Square —- a retail hub peppered with big box stores such as Wal-Mart, Target and Sam's Club —— was just an empty field, Vance said. The Gateway project on Hacienda Drive, now home to CostCo, was a shuttered sewer station, Vance said.

"The City Council told me to build a tax base for the citizens, through sales, property and redevelopment tax," Vance said. "Obviously, at that time, there wasn't even the thought of Vista Village. "

Though agriculture faded to the outskirts of the city, it has not disappeared, Vance said.

In 1998, as part of the city's general plan update, the council decided that retaining elements of Vista's country past was a priority. These days, dividing big parcels into smaller lots can be expensive, carrying hefty fees for street and traffic improvements.

"The vision statement talks about preserving the rural heritage, and some people are very passionate about that," said Putnam. The vision statement —— contained in the city's general plan —— spells out the city's goals in areas that range from development to design to community character.

In Vista, anyone wishing to emulate Old MacDonald can still have a farm on rural or estate-zoned property, but there are city-set limits on how many farm animals can live there.

For example, city development code allows 25 rabbits or fowl, four dogs and four cats, two llamas, one horse and any two sheep, goats or pigs per rurally zoned acre, subject to proper conditions.

The power of water

One of the agencies that history buffs and agriculture aficionados can thank for the farming past is the Vista Irrigation District.

Formed in 1923, when fewer than 400 people lived in what is now the city of Vista, the district now provides water to about 120,000 customers in Vista as well as in parts of Escondido and San Marcos. On average, district customers use about 25 million gallons of water daily.

The district was largely responsible for installing the infrastructure needed to bring water to avocado and citrus groves long before the city's incorporation.

"Up until 1926, there was not that much agriculture here —— that's when the VID turned on the water to make larger-scale farming possible," said Jack Larimer, director of the Vista Historical Society.

"The district formed because local farmers and the Vista community were in need of water," said Roy Coox, the district's assistant general manager.

In the mid-1920s, the district constructed conduits, water tanks, a 200 acre-foot reservoir and 125 miles of pipeline to bring water to district customers.

Though Fallbrook is now the self-dubbed "avocado capital of the world," Larimer said that Vista was once a heavyweight when it came to the popular green fruit. The city was known until the 1950s as the largest avocado-growing area in the world.

"That really allowed us to become the avocado capital in mid '40s," Coox said. "There were six avocado packing houses here by 1948."

Today, less than 10 percent of the district's water is used for agricultural purposes.

"In the 1950s and 1960, after the war, the housing boom really took off and the area began to convert from agricultural to residential," Coox said.

Growing season

A driving force in the change from a rural to urban atmosphere has been the steady increase in population. The number of residents in Vista has more than quadrupled in the last 40 years.

According to U.S. Census data, Vista's population in 1980 was 37,650. By 1990, that number had jumped to 70,700 and in 2000 there were almost 90,000 city residents.

"When Vista incorporated in 1963, there were about 19,000 people here," Larimer said. "It had been a rural and agricultural area, mostly citrus fruits and avocados, and it was phasing into a bedroom community."

Much of the once-open space in the southern portion of the city —— including the Shadowridge development and most of the business park —— was once owned by the Thibodo family, who moved to the area in the 1920s.

The family sold most of the land to developers in the 1970s and it was developed through the 1980s, Larimer and Vance said, as the need for housing increased.

With a few scattered exceptions, most of Vista's remaining rural areas are now in the northern and eastern portions of the city.

"It's not like it used to be, mostly from population growth," Vance said.

The city may face some challenges with limited space to grow as new residents move in, city officials said.

"It's hard to be able to afford a place to live around here anymore, and I think it's going to force a lot of people to move to smaller lots," Vance said. "I hate to see that happen."

The City Council adopted an annexation policy in January 2004 that prohibits tightly-packed housing projects in rural areas that want to become part of the city through annexation —— meaning that the areas incorporated into Vista will stay as-is when and if they become part of the city, Putnam said.

"We don't want to change any of that, it's a real part of the city," Vance said. "Our goal is to retain the rural charm, and I think we'll do everything in our power to keep it that way."

Contact staff writer Anne Riley-Katz at ariley-katz@nctimes.com.