Limits on Growth OKd in Santa Clarita Valley : Land use: The general plan rejects requests by developers to build thousands of houses, condominiums and apartments.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors adopted a slow-growth plan Thursday that strictly limits construction in the booming Santa Clarita Valley, a possibly fatal blow to proposals by developers for about 18,000 dwelling units.

The plan, approved on a 3-2 vote, does not halt growth in the valley, where fast-track development doubled the population to about 158,000 over the last decade. According to county officials, the plan increases the amount of land designated for urban use by about 15%.

But the document, known as a general plan, rejects requests by developers to build thousands of houses, condominiums and apartments on unincorporated land in the valley, which was the fastest-growing region in the county between 1985 and 1989. The city of Santa Clarita, the major population center, is preparing its own general plan.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich, whose 5th District includes the Santa Clarita Valley, said the general plan will require developers to pay for badly needed public services such as roads, schools and libraries in the valley 30 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.

Slow-growth advocates, the Santa Clarita City Council and the county Regional Planning Commission have complained that unbridled growth in the valley outpaced that of public services. Antonovich said the projects that were included in the new plan will provide some of those services.

In exchange for inclusion of their projects in the plan, developers promised to provide or build roads, parks, schools and fire stations, Antonovich said. When Supervisor Ed Edelman asked why developers were so generous, Antonovich replied, “Because we are tougher with them, as we should be.”

The general plan, two years in development, does not confer final approval on residential building projects but establishes a blueprint for growth into the next century. The individual projects must be approved on a case-by-case basis by the Regional Planning Commission and supervisors. The plan does not affect projects which have already won final approval and building permits.

At issue were requests by developers to build about 38,000 dwelling units in the valley. Of those, 7,000 had final approval under the previous general plan, so the supervisors had to decide how many of the remaining 31,000 units to allow.

Under the general plan approved Thursday, 12,865 of the 31,000 new units could be built in the unincorporated sections of the valley.

The document approved Thursday was closely patterned after an earlier one approved by the Regional Planning Commission in May. Developers had been waiting anxiously for months for final recommendations from Antonovich.

“When I walked in here, I had my fingers crossed and didn’t know what was going to happen,” said Dirk Gosda, a partner in Cook Ranch Associates, developers of the 3,050-unit Northlake project near Castaic.

Northlake was one of the winners under the new plan. The planning commission had originally rejected the Northlake plan, but supervisors decided to allow 3,050 units after the company agreed to provide, among other things, sites for two schools, a public library, two parks and a fire station.

Gosda said the demand for public service facilities would now be a regular part of the development process. “I think it’s the way things are going to be,” he said.

“This is a model others can follow,” Antonovich said of the Northlake agreement.