The city of Citrus Heights is taking a page from Sacramento's book in its efforts to transform a blighted stretch of Sayonara Drive into a better place to live.

In 2001, after many years of persistent crime in the south Sacramento community of Franklin Villa, officials embarked on a years-long, $80 million effort to buy up its fourplexes from outside investors, rebuild affordable apartments and eliminate alleys that were drug marketplaces.

What emerged was a new community, Phoenix Park. Sayonara Drive - known along its east end for assaults, break-ins and drug dealing - is destined for a new name, too. With it will come redevelopment intended to change the face of the hard-times street.

"Sayonara has been a troubled street in the city since well before we even incorporated (in 1997)," City Manager Henry Tingle said. "In the last several years it has been a major problem associated with drugs and had the single highest number of police 911 calls.

"The street has been extremely taxing on the city overall."

Some say Sayonara was designed and built in the 1950s with no thought for the occupants. The aim, rather, was to attract investors.

As a result, developers made "every mistake possible," said James Lynch of the community and economic development department for Citrus Heights. Fourplex after fourplex was built with high occupancy in mind.

Each unit, about 800 square feet, has two bedrooms and one bath. There is no open space. No front yards. Poor planning for parking. Few trees. Limited access to backyards.

And no place for children to play.

"The street is both dysfunctional and unattractive,"

wrote consultant Mogavero Notestine Associates in a draft report on a strategy for street improvement.

Anew street name can help, the consultants wrote, "to shift the identity of the neighborhood, to free it from past negative associations, and to celebrate that positive changes have started."

So far, the street is newly paved. Street lights offer better security. The city has purchased 12 of 34 fourplexes on the street for an average $205,000, using redevelopment funds. Two more are nearing close of escrow.

Children now play after school in a community center run by the nonprofit Campus Life, which is housed in two converted living units.

But fewer families live on the street, too. Eight city owned fourplexes are boarded and condemned - most since before the city purchased them. Families in three other city-owned buildings are a few months from being relocated.

"They are giving us money to move," said a delighted Kat Boykin, 48, who shares a unit with her boyfriend and one other person. "I can't wait." About half the absentee owners of the properties are in the Bay Area, Lynch said. Rents are in the $700 to $725 range. But some tenants pay $900.

"They take advantage of the poor and those who don't always have choices," Mayor James Shelby said.

When funds are available, the city's redevelopment plan calls for contracts to demolish all 14 city-owned fourplexes and to build individual homes for low- and moderate-income buyers.

"I think when we create home ownership in Sayonara, hopefully we'll put enough pressure on (private) owners to step up and join the redevelopment process," Shelby said.

That will require city hand holding.

There is a recurring need for pest control in the units and for city support in making basic repairs.

Calls for police, fire and code enforcement at one point were about 32 times the city average, police said.

One landlord made illegal structural changes by partitioning an 800-square-foot unit to create multiple living units.

"Tenants are pretty quick to call me when that happens," said Sharlene Plescia, the city's code enforcement officer, who said the city quickly made the landlord remove the illegal work.

Residents see gains, too.

"In the last couple of years, since Citrus Heights took over, it has gotten a lot better," said Kim Rutz, 52, who manages one fourplex. "Between what the city bought up and what's left, it's pretty much people who take care of their properties."

Landlords also are trying to cope.

"It's not like there is malice on the part of property owners," the city's Lynch said. "They, too, are victims of a set of circumstances that started 60 years ago.

"Many of them didn't even know when they bought how hard it would be and how unprofitable."

About seven months ago, the Citrus Heights Police Department started the area's first Neighborhood Watch program.

In the past 10 months, total police calls to Sayonara have dropped more than 27 percent from the same period in 2008, said Lt. Jeff Mackanin, who is in charge of community policing. "The majority of people we talk to are hard-working. They're trying to survive," said Mackanin.

The department also has guided residents on how to take notes on what they observe and when to call police and report a crime.

Boykin said she feels the street is safer than it has been. When she gets her relocation money, she said, she'll move across the street, to another fourplex.

"You can walk down the street now without getting beaten up," she said.

"Nuh-uh," one of her roommates said in quick disagreement, prompting Boykin to explain: "He was walking with his girlfriend and a couple of people jumped them" some days earlier.

A community name change alone won't help in such cases. But combined with redevelopment, residents may find prospects for better lives.

"Sayonara has a negative name. It goes back even before we were a city," Shelby said. Then the mayor added, with a lighthearted tone, "People may think differently when it's Shelby Drive."

Call The Bee's Loretta Kalb, (916) 321-1073.