Residents say that planned development will trap them in the canyon.

Residents of the Placerita Canyon area have been successful in demanding that the City of Santa Clarita revise its plans for the portion of the Old Town Newhall Redevelopment Plan that affects the entry to their development area.

"We’re already looking at a situation where we could be trapped in the canyon as is," says Ben Curtis, president of the Placerita Canyon Property Owners Association.

The only open access point to that area is via 13th Street at San Fernando Road, since the residents of that area voted to gate the opposite end of Placerita Canyon recently in order to keep non-residents from using their roads as a shortcut. Residents of the area of course have access to the gate, but visitors and those attending The Master’s College do not.

Seems a little strange, doesn’t it? Complaining about no open access points when they chose to close off the other access point in order to keep the riffraff out. This closure was largely in response to the increased traffic whenever the 14 freeway and San Fernando Road are jammed, when many people used Placerita Canyon as an alternate route to get around the congestion. For many homeowners, this was a safety issue as many cars were speeding through their neighborhoods.

The current plan calls for 600 to 800 residential units, 600,000 square feet of office space and a 10-acre park. Much of this land is owned by Casden Properties, which had originally suggested a 1,000 unit development on their property.

Wonder how City Councilmember Laurene Weste feels about this change, since she owns several parcels of land in this area? Highlighted in green on the map below are the parcels that Laurene owns. 13th Street is at the upper left-hand corner of the map.

Also on the Placerita Canyon residents’ list of complaints about the Old Town Newhall Redevelopment Plan is that the City Council failed to appoint Placerita Canyon resident Valerie Thomas to the Newhall Redevelopment Committe. Says Thomas, "We’re a major stakeholder in this North Newhall plan, and to not be seated, to not have any sort of input or access to regular information is very disturbing." Seems Valerie Thomas and Laurene Weste may not have any open lines of communication going, huh?

At any rate, this is further proof that "money talks" in Santa Clarita. Those who have it can fight City Hall and get development plans altered, as shown in this example and with the Henry Mayo Hospital expansion plan. Those who either don’t band together or don’t have the funds to fight will end up getting left in the dust it seems.

With eminent domain lawsuits already being threatened in Old Town Newhall and many more to come, we’ll soon see how our City Council and Redevelopment Committee members feel about taking from the poor and less-represented to give to the rich to develop for profit.

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