Santa Clarita's Open Space Preservation District is finally a reality.

Property owners in the City of Santa Clarita have voted in favor of a new Open Space Preservation District after much debate, including presentations on YouTube and some rather tasteless media campaigns.

The vote was 69% in favor and 31% against, as follows:

A total of 9,386 ballots representing $409,974 in weighted assessment or 69 percent were in favor, while a total of 5,568 ballots representing $182,672 in weighted assessment or 31 percent were not in favor.

The cost to individual property owners in Santa Clarita will be minimal. The first year cost to single family homeowners will be $25, with condo and townhome owners will paying slightly less. Owners of larger, non residential parcels will pay more. In future years, the assessment can increase by no more than $1 per year and only if approved by the City Council, following a public hearing.

This new Open Space District will allow the City to purchase land to be held in perpetuity, thus creating a "greenbelt" of sorts around the City’s boundaries where no new construction can take place. "The creation of this District and the purchase of lands will greatly assist our City in helping to preserve natural lands in and around the City and finish our greenbelt buffer," says Mayor Marsha McLean.

A new Financial Accountability and Audit Panel will be established to oversee this project, consisting of five members appointed by the current City Council Members.

What is an Open Space Preservation District?

Per the City of Santa Clarita’s Open Space website:

A preservation district is designed to preserve natural land from development, create more parks for community usage and to protect rare biological and geological regions. 

Protection of open space and public land helps to control run-away development and unnecessary growth. To date, the City Council has acquired approximately 2,000 acres of land for wildlife preservation and recreation. The City would like to acquire an additional 800 acres of  parkland and complete the greenbelt around the Santa Clarita Valley.

How Will the Funds be Used?

The City estimates it will collect about $1.556 million per year from these assessments. Now that this measure has passed, the City of Santa Clarita will borrow funds through a bond issue to start purchasing land before the assessment revenues start rolling in.

At least 90% of the land purchased will be kept as natural parkland like Towsley Canyon with trail access determined by the sensitivity of the land, trail corridors, and other standard open space practices consistent with those used by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. No more than 10% of the land purchased will be used for improved active parkland.

There are those who are afraid that the Santa Clarita City Council members will abuse these funds instead of using them for their intended purposes. There’s really not much to stop this from happening, other than a mandate that the Open Space funds be used for specific purposes.

The fact that the Financial Accountability and Audit Panel that will oversee the use of these funds will be appointed by current City Council members certainly doesn’t help this point of view. Still, having local control over large parcels of land to purchase and retain as open space beats the heck out of continuing to allow Los Angeles County to have complete authority over those areas.

Why all the Fuss About Open Space?

With mega-projects like Las Lomas looming on the horizon after gaining tentative approval from Los Angeles County officials by peddling so-called "Smart Growth" concepts, the City of Santa Clarita has been pushing to establish this Open Space Preservation District for some time. The City’s first efforts at passing this measure failed, but they were able to regroup and modify the plan sufficiently for it to pass this time around.

As far as Las Lomas goes, environmentalists describe the project as sprawl "dressed up with faux smart-growth features" and an "environmental disaster" according to LA Weekly. "It’s taking virgin land that’s always been virgin land, and trying to connect two urban areas that are disconnected by three to five miles of mountain range," says Bart Reed, an activist from nearby Sylmar who specializes in transportation issues.

Other projects that have been approved by Los Angeles County recently include Park Place in Canyon Country, which will consist of 492 clustered homes in the Tick Canyon area. This project was approved in its entirety in spite of County staff comments stating that it was inconsistent with the Santa Clarita Valley Area Plan, since the builder said that it "needs" the 492 homes to make this project economically viable.

The establishment of Santa Clarita’s Open Space Preservation District will help to keep projects like Las Lomas and Park Place from taking away all of the open space and natural beauty that we all enjoy in the Santa Clarita Valley.

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