Expanded Santa Clarita Planning Area Opposed : Development: A county panel is studying the city’s request to have influence over a 160-square-mile region.

Opponents verbally carved away section after section of the territory that the city of Santa Clarita covets during a public hearing Wednesday before the Los Angeles County Local Agency Formation Commission.

Santa Clarita officials have asked LAFCO to approve a 160-square-mile sphere of influence--a chunk of land the size of San Jose--around the 43-square-mile city. The proposal, if approved, would make it easier for the city to annex communities in the proposed expansion area, which includes Castaic, Val Verde, Hasley Canyon and the Backer Road area.

Developers, homeowners, landowners, a Chamber of Commerce and a concrete company opposed the expansion at Wednesday’s hearing and asked that the commission remove areas north, west and east of the city from the proposed sphere of influence.

Some of them also used the meeting as an opportunity to air their criticisms of the city, which one homeowner described as “parochial.”

“The city of Santa Clarita has not been a very good neighbor . . . at least not yet,” said Richard Rioux, chairman of the Citizens Planning Committee at Stevenson Ranch, a large development west of the Golden State Freeway near Valencia.

Originally, the city had announced that it would not include reluctant communities in the expansion. But when a city-sponsored mail-in survey of residents to the north and west found a majority preferred to remain independent, the city decided that the poll was faulty.

Residents of Stevenson Ranch said they intend to conduct their own poll in the next month as a balance to a new telephone survey the city plans to make.

LAFCO postponed a decision on the expansion until mid-January, when results of the polls are expected to be available.

Commission Chairman Thomas E. Jackson asked the LAFCO staff to draw a map for the January meeting that would delete all of the opponents’ property “just so we can see what’s left.”

Before Wednesday’s meeting, the staff had recommended excluding all land west of the Golden State Freeway, Castaic and some of the areas north of the city and east of the freeway.

A sphere of influence is a required precursor to annexation, but would also give Santa Clarita added political clout in county planning decisions until annexation is attempted. Several commissioners grilled city representatives Wednesday about whether they are capable of managing so much additional land, particularly when the 4-year-old city adopted a General Plan in June.

Commissioners also questioned whether the city intends merely to use the sphere for blocking development, mentioning the slow-growth initiative on the April ballot. The initiative was qualified for the ballot by a group of Santa Claritans and is openly supported by only one council member.