City Council sends letter to Los Angeles

There is an area of land near the I-5/14 split that is projected to be the last area of open space that separates the city of Santa Clarita and the city of Los Angeles. But one day, it could be home to over 5,000 residential and commercial buildings.

A developer is talking about building a major project in the mountain terrain, an idea that would demolish pre-set standards for that area by both LA County and Santa Clarita.

The adopted density for the land would be exceeded by over 1,000%.

And to further complicate the matter, even though the project sits in the unincorporated portion of Los AngelesCounty, the project falls into both the Los Angeles City and Santa Clarita’s sphere of influence.

According to Kai Luoma, Senior Planner for Santa Clarita, a sphere of influence is the “probable ultimate” City boundaries. This means that while land on the outskirts of Santa Clarita may be in LA County jurisdiction, if it is in the sphere of influence of our City, then any developments in that area would need to go through a formal procedure, which includes consulting our City.

The Los Angeles City sphere of influence was amended to go up to the ridgeline that separates SCV from Los Angeles. Luoma says that the ridgeline is a logical place for LA City’s sphere of influence to end, and ours to begin. Santa Clarita has an application in to the Local Agency Formation Commission to extend their sphere of influence to the same ridgeline.

However, the Las Lomas project may interfere with that. A supplemental fee agreement is in the works between the City of Los Angeles and the Las Lomas developer that would serve to expedite consideration of the project. This is another reason that the City is against the fee.

Of course, the Las Lomas project has not submitted any applications for entitlements yet.

So now, a resolution of opposition has been adopted by all five Santa Clarita City Council members and is headed to the LA City Council and Mayor Villaraigosa.