Home » Santa Clarita News » Business » UPDATE: Sand Canyon Ranch Residents File Complaints Over Trash Pickup
A group of Sand Canyon Ranch apartment residents are happy to hear a 10-day lapse in trash service is expected to end Thursday.
A group of Sand Canyon Ranch apartment residents are happy to hear a 10-day lapse in trash service is expected to end Thursday.

UPDATE: Sand Canyon Ranch Residents File Complaints Over Trash Pickup

Updates information from Department of Public Health; adds report from residents noting trash pickup had resumed.

A group of Sand Canyon Ranch apartment residents are happy to hear a 10-day lapse in trash service is expected to end Thursday.


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One resident who lives in one of the 255 Sand Canyon Ranch units, located near a dumpster, said as the heat reached above 90 degrees Wednesday, said the smell has been unbearable — not to mention the sanitation concerns.

Waste Management confirmed service was discontinued to the complex on June 5, due to nonpayment of their bill. However, a Waste Management spokesperson also noted a partial payment was made Wednesday, and service was expected to be restored today.

A KHTS News photographer at the apartment complex Thursday around 11 a.m. took the photos pictured.

Residents noted as of Thursday morning the trash, which had started to collect around the trash areas, was being piled on top of the full dumpsters.

A spokesperson for the Department of Public Health confirmed via email that three complaints had been filed at the address of the complex.

“Public Health received three complaints of trash bin overflowing causing rodents, cockroaches and flies,” according to the DPH communications department. “Our Environmental Health division is investigating.”

A call seeking comment from GHP Management, which was listed as the management company for the complex developed by Geoff Palmer, was not immediately returned.

However, a resident contacted KHTS News Thursday around 1:30 p.m. and reported the trash was being collected.

Geoff Palmer & Associates have developed more than a thousand apartment units in the Santa Clarita Valley over the years, some not without a measure of controversy.

The Palmers have a history in Santa Clarita that’s mentioned in a book by one of the city’s founders, Carl Boyer, and also can be found on SCVHistory.com.

According to an SCVHistory.com story:

   The case of Geoff and Dan Palmer is instructive.

   In the 1980s and early ’90s, two companies controlled by the Palmers developed two multi-family complexes that improperly used the name “Valencia”: Valencia Village Apartments; and Valencia Terrace Apartments, aka Valencia Vista Condominiums, on Valle del Oro in Newhall. The name “Valencia” had currency, and the Palmers tried to capitalize on it.

   In 1991 and ’92, Newhall Land sued the Palmer companies for trademark infringement and unfair competition. On Feb. 24, 1993, a jury awarded Newhall Land $1,360,392 in the Valencia Village Apartments case and $937,678 for Valencia Terrace Apartments, representing “(the jury’s) calculation of the profits realized by defendants from their use of the Valencia (trade)mark,” court papers show. “The jury also found that the conduct of both (Palmer companies) was willful.”

   The Palmer companies appealed and eventually settled, agreeing to pay Newhall Land $1.59 million and to strip the name “Valencia” from their buildings.

   Court documents shed some light:

   “The Newhall Land and Farming Co., as successor in interest to California Land and to Valencia Corp., is the owner of a registered service mark for the name ‘Valencia.’ The registration was made on May 16, 1972, based on a first use in October 1965. … Newhall and its predecessors in interest have developed real estate projects in the Santa Clarita Valley since 1967. The new town of Valencia is one of its projects.”

 

 

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UPDATE: Sand Canyon Ranch Residents File Complaints Over Trash Pickup

3 comments

  1. Just an update on this the residents of sand canyon ranch received notice that they are raising the rate charged for garbage service – it feels like we are being punished for their mismanagement of funds. I wish someone could look into this further. Something stinks and it’s not just the garbage bins

  2. Something stinks all right and the stench is more than overwhelming, it’s sickening. I can only comment on The Colony Towhomes aka Saugus Colony aka cosmetically enhanced slum dump. Every dept within that community is corrupt, unskilled, careless, deceiving, and untrustworthy. You need a repair? You better walk that written repair down to the leasing office, hand deliver it and don’t leave until you have watched them enter the “work order” in the system and confirm receipt by maintenance. Unless you are fluent in spanish, don’t bother talking to any of the maintenance staff as 99.9% are non english speaking and don’t understand a word of it. They blatantly break the housing laws and ignore a tenant’s rights to fair housing etc. They and will do everything , including lie and doctor paperwork, to cover their butts especially when a tenant has contacted an official government agency, i.e., Dept of Environmental Health & Safety. They are the most unprofessional, devious, ruthless group of people Ive ever come across. A majority of the tenants residing there are afraid of reporting any issues for a couple of reasons, 1/ They are Section 8 and have waited so long to get their home they prefer to deal with the cockroaches, the over charging of utilites, 2/ Others are afraid that they will suffer some kind of retaliation. After living there over 3 years, I couldn’t stand it anymore and as a very last last resort, contacted the Dept of Health and Safety which issued several citations, some of which were ignored adding more violations. To make a long story short, daily harassment and threats of eviction, their acts of retaliation, I was forced out of my unit. I left (under protest) to protect myself and my credit. The health and Safety Dept / Health officials and myself had an open and ongoing investigation. Like I said, they blatantly ignore the law and a tenant’s rights and were doing so by retaliating & harassing me. My son and I are currently and technically homeless, my son hasn’t been able to attend his home schooling as we are not permanently situated , I am going to spare you the details as it just gets worse. We are working hard to better our sitz and it’s a process. DFEH has taken the case, however. the owner, Mr Geoff Palmer is a billionaire and an attorney (voluntarily in active…whatever that means) and these days, money talks and usually the lil people get hung out to dry. Unless we stand up and continue to hold our ground. Rich people sometimes think they are all that matters and the not so rich people don’t exist. I won’t go down without a fight. No body should when it comes to a persons rights (the very few, if any, we have left), and that includes our human rights, civil rights, housing, rights and everything else.

    • If you want to know more about the truth of GHP Management, Geoff Palmer and their lap dogs just go to YouTube, and type in The Colony Townhomes, Santa Clarita, resident comments or type in something to that effect. You will have get far more than you could imagine.

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About Perry Smith

Perry Smith is a print and broadcast journalist who has won several awards for his focused, hyperlocal community coverage in several different regions of the country. In addition to five years of experience covering the Santa Clarita Valley, Smith, a San Fernando Valley native, has worked in newspapers and news websites in Los Angeles, the Northwest, the Central Valley and the South, before coming to KHTS in 2012. To contact Smith, email him at Perry@hometownstation.com.