Wider Study Preferred : County Shelves Separate Plan for Castaic Growth

Los Angeles County planning commissioners declined Thursday to approve a separate general plan for Castaic, saying it makes little sense to exclude the rural community from other planning studies in the fast-growing Santa Clarita Valley.

A draft of the general plan for the community of 5,000 residents along the Golden State Freeway calls for a huge increase in industrial land and for preservation of ridgelines that give the area what residents say is a unique rural flavor.

The Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission did not reject all of the measures in the Castaic plan, said Commissioner Sadie B. Clark. It merely set the proposals aside temporarily while the county Department of Regional Planning undertakes a comprehensive study of a backlog of pending plan amendments in the Santa Clarita Valley. That study is to be completed next year.

The commissioners also decided to include the Castaic plan’s final recommendations in a larger, comprehensive review of development in the valley. Commission President Betty Fisher said Castaic cannot be isolated from other valley communities because the entire valley is experiencing, or will experience, similar traffic and growth problems.

The draft general plan for Castaic took two years to prepare and involved the Department of Regional Planning, a consulting firm and a nine-member citizens’ committee. In 1986, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved $75,000 for Evicom Corp. of Calabasas to draft a general plan, which acts as a loose blueprint for development.

County planners said the plan would preserve Castaic’s rural character but would also increase the community’s industrial land more than tenfold to 1,501 acres. The aim of the Castaic plan, said John Edwards, head of the county’s community planning section, is to correct a “terrible” imbalance between housing and industry in the Santa Clarita Valley.

Expanding the amount of industrial land around Castaic would provide jobs for residents throughout the Santa Clarita Valley and thus would reduce commuting times and road congestion, Edwards said.

The Department of Regional Planning, meanwhile, will continue to refine its planning recommendations for Castaic. One issue still unresolved is the development of Hasley Canyon.

The draft plan calls for limited residential development of the canyon, but seven landowners, calling themselves the “Hasley Seven,” want the county to eliminate most of those building restrictions. Two community groups oppose extensive development in the canyon.