Santa Clarita Expanding Boundaries, ‘Valley of Villages' Planning Scheme

The city of Santa Clarita has plans to annex a number of unincorporated communities. What motivates the city to seek annexation?

As neighborhoods have developed in the unincorporated area adjacent to the city, the neighborhoods have approached the city and asked for annexation. Since the incorporation of the city about 20 years ago, there have been 28 neighborhoods that have approached the city and have annexed and become part of the city. The city has had a standing policy that if 60 percent of the residents of the area or property owners of the area, whichever it may be, indicate a desire to annex to the city, the city will do a financial feasibility analysis.

Typically, what the city's looking for is revenue neutrality, or very close to revenue neutrality. The real concern has been, of course, avoiding a situation where the city takes on a huge liability without the revenue to cover it.

In the current circumstances, there are probably half a dozen different areas that have expressed an interest in annexing to the city, and are at one point or another in the process of petitioning the council to annex.

The area that is furthest along in that process is called Hasley Hills. That Homeowners Association has been aggressive in gathering signatures from the residents within their Homeowners Association, which includes two adjacent neighborhoods and a business park area. As it stands right now, they have signatures from 92 percent of the residents within Hasley Hills, and the total signatures represent about 70 percent of the businesses and residents within the overall area proposed.

That is coming up for council consideration July 10. At that point in time, we anticipate that the council will probably give us direction to prepare a legal description of a new map of the area, to complete a fiscal evaluation of revenue neutrality, and to set aside funding to try a resolution of application once we complete the map and the fiscal analysis.

There's a second one that is well along the process for consideration in developing two major parcels of land on the east end of the city, which includes the Spring Canyon development and the area called Bee Canyon; both of the parcels are next to a thousand acres owned by the city in an incorporated area. They have indicated intent to submit an application, and that process will probably take three or four months to finalize.

A third one from which we anticipate an application is an area located along Highway 14, just east of Sierra Highway, adjacent to the Santa Clara River. It's an area that's been in hiding-it's surrounded on 90 percent of its boundary by the city of Santa Clarita. In other words, it's basically almost an island; it's only a shoestring of an area that's connected to the unincorporated area. The county has indicated to us that any further annexations in that area basically should necessitate the annexation of the entire area. The area is about two square miles with probably about 10-11,000 residents, and we have had a developer submit a project in that area that would necessitate annexation. So that's the next one that we anticipate. There's also a residents' group in an area adjacent to Sand Canyon that is getting signatures.

The fourth area is on the west side of Highway 5, at the Lyons Avenue off ramp, where there is an effort to gather signatures on the petition that is underway at Sunset Point. And then there are two or three other areas that are somewhat less active up along the Copper Hill Road.

Why do residents of these four areas wish to be annexed into the city of Santa Clarita?

I think it's the typical advantages that have driven annexations and incorporations throughout L.A. County and other counties in the state of California.

There is a general perception that incorporation or annexation provides greater local control, greater local self-determination in terms of planning policies and land-use decisions, and greater service levels such as for police or parks and recreation.

Before 1992, the law basically allowed areas that incorporated to keep a much greater portion of the revenue that was generated within those areas. In '92, there was a law passed called the Revenue Neutrality Act. It held the counties had to be held harmless in terms of lost revenue. So, that's one of the reasons you haven't seen a large number of incorporation efforts in California. Since the passage of this act, the county and those areas proposing incorporation have had to negotiate the revenue base for incorporation. The significant advantage that, say, West Hollywood had, was that it was able to keep the huge tax base that was generated in that area to provide services. That is no longer the case.

In the 15 years since it has been enacted, there hasn't been a single incorporation in Los Angeles County. In the 15 years prior to that, there were ten incorporations.

For annexations, the city's tax base is established, which is a comparative advantage of annexation versus incorporation. If an area annexes to the city, it brings in all the revenues that are generated within that area without further negotiation exception for a portion of the property tax. However, there's been a negotiated rate for Santa Clarita already and the county has honored that negotiated rate, primarily because it's such a small percentage of the property tax.

What are the defining characteristics of your land-use planning? What kind of city is being shaped here?

The city of Santa Clarita and Los Angeles County are doing something that's relatively unique: we entered together into a process to update the general plans of the unincorporated area and the city as a joint effort. We have a process underway called "One Valley, One Vision," where the city and the county have been working collaboratively to come up with a new general plan that will basically make the boundaries between the city and the county transparent in terms of the planning process. We anticipate that process will be complete in about 18 months.

Now, the proof of the pudding, however, will ultimately be the implementing ordinances that come out this whole effort. We know we'll end up with agreed-upon land-use maps, and we may end up with agreed-upon general policies, but there is a lot of implemented activity that follows those agreements. So with the day-to-day implementation we'll see how successful that ultimately is. But so far, it's been moving along in a very positive and cooperative way.

There are a number of major themes that we have developed as part of this planning process, and I would say, probably the overarching theme that has come out of this effort is what we call the "Valley of Villages." This is a planning area of about 400 square miles, although from a practical point of view, it really is only about 250 square miles, because there's about 150 square miles of national forest. Within that area, we anticipate continued development in a village approach. Some of it is being done by Newhall Land, and they are moving forward with their plans for the west side of Highway 5, which involve a series of five villages. With regard to downtown Newhall, where we have a Metrolink station, the city has developed a Newhall-specific plan that will provide for development of the unimproved lands and redevelopment of some of the existing downtown area into a fully fleshed-out village that will have employment opportunities and transit-oriented development area around the Newhall Metrolink station. We'll have the full range of sustainable uses that we're looking for, from employment, to retail, to parks and recreation, to a transit hub, and so on.

The second village within the city area that we're looking at is on a thousand-acre brownfield site that is adjacent to the Santa Clarita Metrolink station. That site may ultimately develop with two significant village areas, one of which will be transit-oriented and will surround the existing Santa Clarita Metrolink station. Again, we are looking for a balance of housing of various prices, retail, employment, parks, schools, etc.

The third transit village proposal was just submitted to the city. For at least six months prior to his submission to the city, we been working with the developer to refine the project. It involves the potential relocation of the Via Princessa Metrolink station and the development of a village center. Again another transit-oriented village would be built around the relocated station, with a mix of housing, retail, employment, hotels, parks and recreation facilities.

A second overarching theme is employment. The Santa Clarita Valley is a housing-rich location. About 53 percent of our residents leave to commute over the hill into the San Fernando Valley for employment opportunities. One of our policies is to establish land-use policies that require the creation of, at a minimum, two jobs for every housing unit that is approved. We are looking at the mix of jobs that we will be providing, so we can provide the opportunity for a greater level of employment types within the Valley.

A third major theme of the plan is the establishment of a green belt surrounding the Santa Clarita Valley. We're fortunate to have the national forest that probably surrounds about 45-50 percent of the city's boundaries. There's also been a major dedication of open space by Newhall Land in the Santa Susanna Mountain area. The city is working with a number of agencies to close that gap on the east end in order to provide a loop between the national forest to the north and to the south so that we have got kind of an urban limit line to the east end of the city.

Another part of that green belt effort is the establishment of an urban limit line within which the more urbanized development will take place; outside of that urban limit line will be a very rural type of development on two-, five-, ten-, and 20-acre sites that will really minimize the level of development adjacent to the green belt areas that are either in public ownership or will become publicly owned at some point in the future.

The fourth theme is to recognize the Town Center area in Santa Clarita, where the Town Center Mall and County Civic Center are located, as a city center for the Santa Clarita Valley. We're looking to provide a much more urbanized, mixed-use environment that goes more vertical-maybe eight to ten stories-which would provide for a mix of retail, office, and housing types within the city center area.

Some observers have noted that demand in the Santa Clarita residential market is slowing down. What is your assessment of the market?

The average absorption of housing in the Santa Clarita Valley has been about 2,000-2,200 units per year. That's been the historic average. It has gone up and down depending on the economics of the housing market. Right now I would say that the absorption rate is probably lower; it's probably lower throughout the state and throughout the nation.

The long-term plan for the Santa Clarita Valley anticipates that there will be another 90,000 residential units built within the Santa Clarita Valley over the next 25-30 years. Interestingly, a significant portion of those 90,000 units are somewhere in the entitlement process. In excess of 40,000 of those units are somewhere along the entitlement process in the unincorporated areas. Twenty-two thousand of those have specific approval from Los Angeles County on the west side of Highway 5.

Over the next 25-30 years, you'll see the Santa Clarita Valley continue to grow at an average annual rate of somewhere between 2,000 and 2,500 residential units a year. The actual rate is going to reflect what's happening in the housing market at any given particular time. Projections place the population of the Santa Clarita Valley-currently 250,000 residents-to 525,000 residents in that time frame. Should the development and annexations continue it will likely result in Santa Clarita becoming the third largest city in L.A. County.