VALLEY CENTER -- The rolling hills. The open spaces. The pastures.

The traffic. The construction. The never-ending roadwork.

These are the things that identify today's Valley Center, a community that is rural but congested, rustic but modern.

Residents still can boast about lliving on the site where the largest California grizzly bear was captured -- 2,200 pounds, back in 1866 -- but these days they also can talk about the top acts performing at their local casinos.

As for the years ahead, Valley Center's appearance will almost certainly change, with orchards gradually giving way to residential development.

It won't necessarily be all change for the worse, however. Residents said they're looking forward to a wider main road and local markets stocking merchandise they now have to drive to Escondido to buy.

Certainly, the community's look and population have changed before, but nothing like what may lie ahead, said Valley Center History Museum historian Bob Lerner.

"In earlier years, the late 1800s to mid-1900s, the population of this community went up and down," Lerner said. "That was because of water, or lack of water."

In those days, citrus farmers packed up and left town during dry periods. They stayed put after 1954, when the newly created Valley Center Water District hooked the town up to the California aqueduct.

The state's in a dry spell once again, but for farmers, packing up and leaving is no longer the only option. Now, of course, they can sell their land to developers, Lerner said.

And, in fact, agriculture already is shrinking in Valley Center, according to Eric Larson, executive director of the San Diego County Farm Bureau.

"And it's not like they can say, 'I'll get through this year and next year will be better,'" Larson said. "All indications are it's going to be worse. The state's not coming to grips with it."

The farmers' plight

With California already in a drought, the water shortage was exacerbated this year by a court order restricting water flow from pumps at the San Joaquin/Sacramento River delta to protect a fish called the delta smelt. Southern California farmers in January were ordered to reduce their water use by 30 percent.

"Without the fish issue, we probably would have been in the same situation next year," Larson said about the drought.

As water becomes more expensive and profits from crops decrease, farmers will have to consider cutting their losses, Larson predicted.

"We drive by farms and lose sight of the fact that these are businesses," he said. "It's not a hobby. And you have to make a business decision."

Lerner already has made that decision.

"We have a house built in the middle of an orange grove, and we have 400 trees," he said. "In the next 60 days, we're removing 300 of them. We're severely cutting them back."

Lerner said he used to make $10,000 from his orange crop. With the low cost of imported oranges and the rising cost of water, he said he's now losing money.

"Valley Center has long been a community of horse ranches, ranches and agriculture," he said. "Agriculture still is a major mainstay of this community. There are hundreds of small farms. Hundreds of orange groves. Those orange groves are disappearing. This is going to change considerably the environment of this community."

Lerner noted, for example, that a 435-acre orange grove owned by actor George Segal in Valley Center recently was approved for a subdivision of 169 homes.

Mounting pressure

Despite the encroaching residential development, Lerner said Valley Center residents do not have to worry about rows of tract houses replacing ranch homes.

"As long as the county maintains a two-acre minimum parcel, the rural county environment of this community is intact," he said about a restriction on minimum lot sizes. "And that's good. People move here because of that kind of environment."

The two-acre minimum is already facing some pressure along the western edge of the community from a controversial proposal by Supervisor Bill Horn to build a road that would serve as a quick escape out of the area during wildfires and other emergencies.

To build the road, the county has said it would increase the number of houses allowed per acre on 1,300 acres west and north of West Lilac Road to allow a developer to build a 3,000-house development and 10 acres of businesses in exchange for financing roughly half of the $40 million road.

Lerner said traffic, especially the congestion caused by the four-year Valley Center Road expansion project, has caused the greatest frustration and anger in the town. The problem has been intensified by casinos that, according to Sheriff's Department figures, bring 25,000 people daily into Valley Center, which itself has a population of 25,000, Lerner said.

Patsy Fritz, an avocado rancher who moved near Valley Center in 1981, said she does not complain about traffic from the Indian casinos because the Indian community has dealt with traffic brought in by settlers for 150 years.

"You can't say the traffic all comes from the casinos," said Fritz, a former director of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association and a former director of the San Diego County Farm Bureau. She also served two years on the San Diego County Planning Commission.

Commercialism

More visible changes to Valley Center will come in the town's small commercial district, which Fritz said looks stuck in the 1970s because of a 20-year moratorium on building in the area. Although the moratorium was lifted in 1997, growth has been slow because the commercial district still is not hooked up to a sewage line, and a high water table prohibits septic tanks in many areas.

The issue was a natural ally to residents concerned about growth in Valley Center, but it all may be about to change. The Woods Valley Golf Club opened in 2003 with its own small treatment plant to process sewage from the Woods Valley Ranch development.

The independently built plant may serve as a template to answer the community's sewer issue. Developers can build their own sewer systems and treatment plants and gradually turn them over to the water district as they sell homes.

"If they're able to get some individual sewer plants, then those open areas will fill in and then it will visually not look the same as it does," Fritz said about how the plan will affect the commercial district.

The sewage plan opens the door to commercial development that can hook up to the plants, and a new Liberty Bell Plaza, anchored by Major Market, already has been proposed in the 27000 block of Valley Center Road.

Shopping concerns

Andy Washburn, chairman of the Valley Center Community Planning Group since 2004, said last week that residents for years have wanted to shop without having to drive to Escondido.

At the same time, Washburn said people do not want to see Valley Center overwhelmed with major chains that diminish the character of the community.

"People would much prefer dealing with mom-and-pop stores or regional franchises like Major Market," he said. "The good news is that we have a very strong Design Review Board, and they've done an excellent job of working with potential developers and trying to include local Valley Center values in the architecture and signage and things of that nature."

In keeping with the community's character, Washburn said the board also asks developers to provide easements for pedestrian pathways along major roads. The very near future also may bring Valley Center a farmers market, which Washburn said may open later this year.

"From conversations with people, they do talk about how Valley Center is changing," Washburn said. "Most of them accept that it's changing. No one is denying it. Many of them see the good and the bad."

Shifting demographics

Washburn said he has seen many changes in his 20 years in Valley Center. Among the more notable is a shift in demographics, with fewer families moving to Valley Center, resulting in school enrollment drops in the past five years, he said.

"The face of Valley Center definitely has changed over the last 20 years," he said. "When my wife and I first moved here, there were no traffic lights."

The town also used to have a spirit of volunteerism and cooperation that doesn't seem as strong today, he said. Washburn recalled a time when he had a flat tire and a stranger immediately picked him up, drove him to his house even though it was out of the way, and insisted on waiting to make sure he had a ride.

Moving from Los Angeles, Washburn said, he was surprised to find clerks in town didn't ask for his identification when writing a personal check because his Valley Center address was all they needed to see. Bags of fruit would routinely be left on his front door by anonymous neighbors who had more than they could use and wanted to share.

"Almost everyone would admit that we're losing some of that," he said. "More and more, we're getting people who don't venture out to the larger community."

Yet Valley Center still feels in many ways like a small town, where people run into friends at the post office or hang out to chat at the Country Junction Deli, he said.

"I'm pleasantly surprised at how friendly and helpful people in Valley Center are, to this day," Washburn said. "People wave to each other. They don't even know who you are."

That's the kind of thing Washburn and other residents said last week they hope never changes.

Contact staff writer Gary Warth at (760) 740-5410 or gwarth@nctimes.com.