Hosts Aim to Make Neighbors of Strangers

Used to be, when a family moved into the neighborhood, somebody from next door might stop by with a casserole or a welcome basket.

But many home buyers settling into new planned communities are being welcomed by people like Kimberly Ryneal, the ad hoc social engineer of the Ladera Ranch development in south Orange County.

She invites new residents to a bagel bash, and helps them organize a walking club or a Mommy and Me group. She tracks down baby sitters for young parents and companions for lonely out-of-staters. She has landscaping tips and helps launch neighborhood newsletters.

Ryneal’s job title is community programs director, a position intended to foster relationships that land somewhere between television’s “Leave It to Beaver” and “The Simpsons.” Her services come with every new house.

“You bring 10 kids into a room, and I guarantee in five minutes those kids are going to know each other,” said Ryneal. “But as we get older, we lose that. People feel overloaded, people are busy, and fun is a lost art. It’s sad, but now, like everything else, you’ve got to pay for it.”

So, in a small but growing number of master-planned communities from Southern California to Florida, real estate developers hire people to play neighborhood host.

The Playa Vista development scheduled to open next year in West Los Angeles will have a similar coordinator. The Talega community in San Clemente is interviewing candidates for the position, and future projects in the Bay Area and San Diego also are looking to include community coordinators.

“Instilling community into these projects is really going to be the amenity of the future,” said Bob Cardoza, assistant vice president of Merit Assn. Services, a subsidiary of the Mission Viejo-based Merit Property Management Inc., whose clients include Playa Vista, Ladera Ranch and Talega. “We know how to pay for pools and maintain pools, but how do we instill community back into these projects?”

Anne Firestone, 54, is a single mother with grown children who just moved to Ladera. She said she is not depending on Ryneal to create friendships for her, but likes having her plan neighborhood events.

“I don’t expect that to be the basis of my social life, but it’s a really nice, warm, friendly feeling to know that’s available,” she said.

Mostly, Firestone said, it’s the flood of newcomers to Ladera Ranch that makes meeting neighbors pretty easy.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said. “People will just walk up to your door, knock and say, ‘Can I look at your tile?’ ”

Ryneal is the kind of woman who greets strangers with a hug. Her job is teaching people how to trust neighbors--a feeling, she says, that’s been lost.

She stages four events in the new neighborhoods: the bagel bash; a “meet and greet,” where people trade business cards; a hobby night, when people are asked to dress in costumes reflecting their favorite pastimes; and a pet parade.

By the end, she said, neighbors know a lot about each other. “Hopefully by the time I’ve done my fourth event,” she said, “someone will approach me and say they want to do their own event.”

That’s when Ryneal draws from her collection of “Events in a Box,” the party planning kit to help neighbors take over their own social lives.

“Kimberly will not spend the next five years going to every single barbecue,” Cardoza said. “They’ll do it on their own. She is a conduit to get people started. They want to live in a community where they can have fun, feel safe, and where they can be themselves. These feelings are gained from positive experiences with their neighbors.”

When people finally start connecting on their own, “it’s such a high,” said Angel Hanzal, community coordinator at the Rolling Hills Ranch development in Chula Vista.

Hanzal recalled a recent welcome dinner she hosted for dozens of new families. “When I left there were four couples still standing there,” she said. “They had never met each other before, and their biggest decision was which couple’s house they would go to next.”

Hanzal, who works for developer Pacific Bay Homes, said her position was modeled after a similar post at the Disney housing development in Celebration, Fla.

“That’s money very well spent,” said real estate consultant John Burns, senior managing director of The Meyers Group in Irvine. “A home isn’t just a roof over your head. What they’re trying to create is a community.”

Ryneal now works for Merit, but her salary eventually will be paid for by a nonprofit entity created from property transfer fees, corporate sponsorships and fund-raisers.

Anna Garrity said for 27 years she was her own social director.

But since moving to Ladera Ranch, she appreciates having professional help getting acquainted.

“Unfortunately in our society I think it’s needed because people aren’t home as much as in the past,” said Garrity, the mother of four grown daughters. “I think it was better the old way.”

Nonetheless, Garrity said, she attended a tract-sponsored gathering of new neighbors to play a cards, and had a blast.