An island neighborhood
The Rio Chico neighborhood is an anachronism, an island of old houses surrounded by Chico State University.
The university has had its eye on this block, bounded by First and Orange streets, Rio Chico Way and Cherry Street, for decades. The current master plan calls for it to eventually become the home of a recreational aquatics center and a physical education building. The plan proposes to either retain or move historically significant houses.
I’m sure the question of whether the houses in this block are historically significant will be the subject of much debate.
Annie Bidwell, who was left land rich and money poor when her husband John died in 1900, sold the property that become the Rio Chico neighborhood to attorney and land investor Frank Lusk in 1904. He then promptly subdivided the land into lots and sold them. The houses were built between 1905 and about 1920. Many of them have been extensively altered. They are all used as student rentals. The block is directly north of where the Wildcat Activity Center is now being built.
I don’t want to portray Chico State as a predatory villain. This is a landlocked campus with a growing need for facilities. It’s far better for it to remain in the heart of Chico than to move to a more spacious site on the outskirts of Chico. The downtown area owes much of its vitality to the university.
I just hope the university has developed more sensitivity toward historically significant buildings than it showed in the past. In the 1980s, when it was proposing to tear down the so-called Language Houses on property it owned on Third Street between Chestnut and Hazel streets, it displayed a lack of concern that still rankles some Chico residents.
Tensions between city residents and the university over land use are inevitable and never-ending. Mansion Park residents, for example, are irritated by a dorm complex and natural history museum the university is planning to build next to their neighborhood. Even when the issues have nothing to do with historically significant buildings, the university’s need to expand creates potential conflicts with people who live nearby.