King Newhall : Development Plan for the Santa Clarita Valley Puts Newhall Land & Farming Ahead of Other Builders

“You really can’t bad-mouth Valencia,” says real estate developer Dirk Gosda. But lately Gosda has had reason to lament the fact that more praise gets poured on Valencia Co.--the building division of Newhall Land & Farming Co.--than on other developers in the Santa Clarita Valley.

Newhall Land is hoping to build North River, an expansion of its subsidiary’s namesake, the homey, master-planned community of Valencia begun in the late 1960s. Gosda and his partner hope to build Northlake--also a homey, master-planned community slated for an area a few miles north of Valencia, near Castaic Lake, on land the two have bought over the last two years.

Valencia has golf courses and nice middle-class houses; its builders have given millions of dollars to help build schools for the wave of families moving to the area. Northlake would have a golf course and nice middle-class houses; Gosda says he’d be willing to contribute millions to help build schools, too.

There is at least one big difference between Gosda’s Cook Ranch Associates and Newhall Land, however. Last week, the county Department of Regional Planning recommended a development plan for the Santa Clarita Valley that would allow Newhall to build many of the about 10,000 new houses, apartments and condominiums it has proposed in North River. Exactly how many of those 10,000 could be built is not clear. But the same plan would put the kibosh on Northlake, a project of 5,100 condos, apartments and houses--and squelch most of the homes proposed by a host of other developers in the valley.

The county’s recommended development plan in essence divides developers into two groups in the Santa Clarita Valley: Newhall Land & Farming Co. and everyone else.

But the dividing line has been visible for a long time. For starters, Newhall practically is the Santa Clarita Valley. The company owns the 58-square-mile Newhall Ranch, which is twice the size of Manhattan. At the heart of the ranch is master-planned Valencia, part of which falls inside the boundaries of the recently incorporated city of Santa Clarita.

Almost as important, Newhall has a far longer history of good relations with government officials in the area than others.

Last week’s regional planning recommendation is only the first step in the complicated process of getting government approval to build new housing in the area.

In essence, the county staff recommended last week that certain areas of the Santa Clarita Valley that have up until now been off limits to urban development be built up. That would allow a couple of developers--first among them, Newhall--to build a total of about 10,000 houses, condos and apartments. But a host of developers have proposed building an additional 28,000 homes on land the planning staff said should be left as is--so those homes might never be put up.

Still, it isn’t the end of the game. The county Regional Planning Commission may accept or reject the recommendations of the planning staff in a set of hearings that will begin in January and last for as long as six months.

And those hearings will effectively decide only what land can be developed--not how. Next, any developer who gets that initial OK will have to get approval for new zoning that sets the density of development, and finally for an actual development plan that lays out the street pattern.

But although it is not the end of the process by a long shot, the latest decision by the county only makes Newhall’s advantages more plain.

County planner Ray Ristic said that in drawing up a plan for the area, staffers considered features of the land--mainly how flat it is and how close it is to existing urban areas--not features of the developments builders want to put on them. “We pretty much tried to ignore those proposals and come up with something that was consistent all around,” he said.

Gosda understands the Newhall advantage here: “They’ve got some pretty good dirt.” That dirt is so good in the county’s estimation that it even overcomes some disadvantages of the North River site.

Take, for instance, the unarmored threespine stickleback.

Thanks to this tiny, endangered fish, found only where the Santa Clara River flows through Soledad Canyon in the Santa Clarita Valley, Newhall’s proposed North River development spans two of what the county calls “significant ecological areas.”

One is a stretch of the Santa Clara River itself, the other a part of the San Francisquito Canyon. The county has a mandate to try to protect such significant ecological areas, which can be anything from important wildlife habitats to pretty trees.

It’s not that any of the swimming critters actually live anywhere in that stretch of the Santa Clara River, which is mostly dry, or that part of the canyon, which usually is entirely dry. It’s just that erosion from construction near the canyon or near the Santa Clara River could endanger the fish’s habitat upstream.

But the county’s Ristic said Newhall is working with officials to come up with a plan to make sure that doesn’t happen. And besides, the parts of Newhall’s North River project where the county staff recommended building are very flat and quite close to existing development--unlike some other proposals on the table.

Other developers have a lot of money invested in their plans for the Santa Clarita Valley but only Newhall backs that investment with some big advantages.

One is a longstanding flair for either public relations or thinking about the long-term good of Valencia--depending on whom you ask. One important example: Newhall recently agreed to give the local school system a little more than $6 million in development tax money, even after the tax was declared unconstitutional by the courts and Newhall was no longer obligated to pay it.

Another big advantage is the fact that the company has owned the Newhall Ranch since the late 19th Century.

It would be nearly impossible today to piece together such a single large piece of property, close to a freeway and in the center of development, as Henry Mayo Newhall did more than 100 years ago. The property is a big reason Newhall has been able to stick to its master plan for Valencia.

The master plan and the land allow the company to take a long-term view in designing its developments. Newhall sets aside plots for schools--four of them, for example, in the North River area--which the local school system can buy and build on when needed. And Newhall has built a system of trails where no cars are allowed, linking together the whole community--so children can ride their bikes to local stores without traveling on streets.

Thanks to the public relations flair and the master plan, city planners and even competing developers are complimentary of Newhall--something that can’t fail to help the company as it tries to win approval for its plans.

Even before the county Regional Planning staff issued recommendations Monday, a report compiled for the city of Santa Clarita by an outside consultant said that only the 13 Newhall projects--of the 43 now on the drawing board by all the developers--should receive “primary consideration.”

“My job would be an awful lot easier if there were other developers like Newhall Land & Farming around,” said Ken Pulskamp, acting community development director for Santa Clarita.

But even when other developers have managed to snag similar praise from public officials, it’s seemed to be of no avail.

Scott Brown, superintendent of the Castaic Union School District, in October wrote a letter to the county Planning Commission saying Gosda’s Northlake project could be a boon to schools in the area, bringing in new students and new money.

But the county’s Ristic said Northlake lacks proximity to the center of development in Santa Clarita. “I would say other areas met the requirements more closely,” Ristic said.

The same problems leave other developers disappointed too--at least for now. Mobile home park developer John Huiskes wants to build a 1,157-site park along Soledad Canyon Road. Huiskes, who said he has invested “a lot of money” in an option to buy the land, said he hoped to convince planners his park is a good idea because he would reserve about 354 sites for mobile homes from parks that are closing.

But Ristic said Huiskes’ land also is too far from most residential development. Meanwhile, major projects proposed by Santa Fe Development and Dale Poe Development, Ristic said, are sited on land that’s too steep.

These recommendations might seem to make it hard on developers other than Newhall. For those with patience, though, Ristic offers some solace. “Ten to 15 years from now, it may be different,” he said.