Santa Clarita Population of 270,000 Seen by Year 2010

If current trends continue, almost 270,000 people will live in the Santa Clarita Valley by the year 2010, making the area the fastest-growing in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, according to the Southern California Assn. of Governments.

The latest projections released by SCAG predict that the population of the rapidly urbanizing area will grow by more than 200%--from 89,200 in 1984 to 268,900 in 2010.

SCAG senior planner John Oshima said the number of housing units will increase in the Santa Clarita Valley at the highest percentage rate of all Southern California areas in the study. Housing units will increase by 240%, or 69,600, within 25 years--to 98,600 in 2010.

Oshima said the study, released last week, is based on growth trends from 1970 to 1984. It includes data from a preliminary report released earlier this year that predicted a six-county region, including Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Imperial counties, would grow by 43%. San Diego County was not included in the study.

The earlier regional report did not specify where the growth would occur, Oshima said. The latest, more specific data will be part of SCAG’s 1987 forecast.

Second to Riverside County

Among subregions in the six counties in the SCAG study, the Santa Clarita Valley is second in projected population growth only to central Riverside County, where the population is expected to increase by 236%.

The Santa Clarita Valley, which SCAG places in an “urbanizing” category, surpasses all other areas in projected housing growth.

Another urbanizing area that will experience rapid growth in the next 25 years, according to the SCAG study, is eastern Ventura County, a subregion that includes Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Agoura Hills and Westlake Village. That area’s population is expected to increase by 108%--from 208,900 in 1984 to 434,700 in 2010. SCAG planners project that the number of housing units there will go up 133%--from 67,000 in 1984 to 156,300 in 2010.

Population in the San Fernando Valley subregion, which SCAG planners classify as “highly urbanized,” is expected to grow by 21.8%--from 1,177,400 in 1984 to 1,428,000 in 2010. Housing units will go up about 30%--from 454,000 in 1984 to 591,000 in 25 years, mainly in apartment and condominium construction.

SCAG figures for the Santa Clarita Valley are in keeping with projections revised in September by the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Department. The projections estimated the area’s population, which was 97,000 in 1985, will be 213,000 by 2000.

Growth Rate Projected

Based on current household sizes and average annual building permits issued, county planner George Malone said the Santa Clarita Valley is expected to grow by about 7,500 residents a year. About 105,000 people live there now, according to county estimates.

In 1977, the authors of the county’s first Santa Clarita Valley areawide general plan predicted that 114,000 people would live there by the turn of the century. Seven years later, the county increased that projection to 165,000 and, this September, made public its latest forecast.

The sharp increases in population and housing predicted by SCAG for the Santa Clarita Valley surprised few local officials.

“This is what we’ve been saying all along,” said Clyde Smyth, superintendent of the William S. Hart Union High School District.

For the past year, school officials have said that the five area school districts, which also include the Castaic, Saugus, Newhall and Sulphur Springs elementary districts, face severe crowding. They asked voters to approve fees on developers averaging $6,000 on each new residential unit to pay for school construction. The proposals narrowly failed to receive approval from the needed two-thirds majority of voters on Nov. 4.

However, Smyth said, voters may have another chance to approve the fees. Trustees of the five school districts will decide in January whether to place the fee proposals on the June ballot, he said.

School superintendents have said that they will have to build at least four elementary schools, two junior highs and two high schools to accommodate the growing student population.

Within the next 25 years in the Hart district, 2,000 new junior high students and 4,000 new high school students are expected, Smyth said. He said it will cost about $100 million to build the four additional schools needed.

“We have to know where that money is coming from,” he said.

A $1.50 per square foot fee that a new state law allows the districts to levy on Jan. 1 must be split between the elementary and high school districts, Smyth said. That fee will generate an average of $2,000 per new housing unit--$1,000 for the high school district and $1,000 for the elementary district, which, he said, is not enough to build the needed schools.

The SCAG predictions agree, for the most part, with figures that were turned over to the Los Angeles County Local Agency Formation Commission by a committee attempting to forge a city from the unincorporated Santa Clarita Valley communities of Canyon Country, Castaic, Newhall, Saugus and Valencia.

The proposal was put forward as a way to deal with rapid growth in the area.

Other Figures Differ

The City Feasibility Committee, formed by the Santa Clarita Valley and Canyon Country chambers of commerce, predicted that 200,000 people would be living in the area by the year 2000--an increase of about 6,600 a year.

Using that growth figure, the area’s population would be about 266,000 in 2010. The communities of Val Verde and Agua Dulce, where about 5,000 people now live, were included in the county and SCAG projections but not in the cityhood committee’s figures.

Cityhood spokeswoman Connie Worden said she believes the committee’s figures were on the conservative side.

“We expected the growth rate to be phenomenal,” she said.

The chamber-sponsored committee has since disbanded and regrouped into an independent body called the Santa Clarita City Formation Committee. The new group will be “more politicized” in working toward cityhood when hearings on the issue by the Local Agency Formation Commission begin early next year, Worden said.