Copyright Santa Clarita Valley Signal
The Santa Clarita City Council will hear from residents’ appeal on plans for a Wiley Canyon property next to Interstate 5 later this month, according to planning officials. Neighbors of the former Smiser Mule Ranch filed an appeal Sept. 30, due to concerns about fire risk, traffic circulation and air quality. The long-since vacant ranch between Interstate 5 and Wiley Canyon Road, north of Calgrove Boulevard, is either a prime piece of undeveloped real estate, or a quiet, bucolic canyon, depending on perspective. The plans to change that call for: a senior facility with 120 assisted-living units; 9,000 square feet of commercial floor area; 45 detached single-family units, eight of which would include an attached accessory dwelling unit; and 179 townhome units. Supporters have said living in that corridor without sidewalks or road improvements has made the area increasingly unsafe, based on comments from supporters over the last four hearings. The project’s opponents say senior homes in a very high-fire severity zone are going to make the area increasingly unsafe in the event of a disaster, calling the proposed roads inadequate. A public notice posted this week announced a Nov. 25 hearing in Council Chambers scheduled to coincide with that week’s council meeting. The actual appeal itself is a unique situation for the City Council. The plans from Tom Clark of Royal Clark Development represent a fifth public hearing for the project, and state laws mandate how much review the City Council can give a development, according to Jason Crawford, director of community development for the city. “California’s Housing Accountability Act limits the ability of local governments to deny housing projects that comply with objective, existing standards,” Crawford wrote in a message Thursday. “A project can only be denied if the local agency makes specific written findings, supported by substantial evidence, that it would have a specific adverse impact on public health or safety and no feasible means exist to mitigate that impact.” The Santa Clarita Planning Commission unanimously approved the project at a Sept. 15 meeting. “We have reduced the overall project by about 40% and that’s basically the dwelling units, both the assisted living and in residential,” Clark said at that meeting, adding that all of the road and other off-site improvements, including trail connectivity, are still a part of the plan. “We agree and support all of staff’s recommendations.” The land has been eyed for a number of different plans, including a massive hotel in 2007, according to the letter from the opponents, who cited an effort to rewrite the general plan.
