Builders Say Santa Clarita Is Too New to Have Sphere of Influence : Development: LAFCO will review the 4-year-old municipality’s step toward possibly annexing 160 square miles. Landowners fear growth curbs.

As Santa Clarita hopes to have a say in the development of the 160-square-mile area surrounding its borders, major developers contend that the four-year-old municipality needs to grow up before expanding its influence beyond the city limits.

The young city’s maturity, or lack of it, is a recurring theme in protest letters submitted by developers and landowners to the state agency that on Wednesday will consider Santa Clarita’s request for a “sphere of influence,” which designates land eligible for annexation by a city.

“The City of Santa Clarita is still young and must undergo a stabilization process both politically and financially,” wrote David S. Groth, vice president of finance and administration for Six Flags Magic Mountain. “While we remain a strong supporter of the community, we feel there is little the city government can offer us that the County of Los Angeles does not.”

The letters to the Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO, lash out at Santa Clarita’s growth management policies, particularly a slow-growth measure on the April ballot that would allow the council to approve permits for only 475 new housing units a year. The City Council also is considering restrictions on hillside development.

“The city of Santa Clarita has not exhibited the maturity necessary to govern the limits you have already afforded them, let alone any additional areas,” said Richard P. Howe, president of Nicholas George Inc., a property owner in Canyon Country, east of the city.

The proposed sphere would give Santa Clarita no real legislative power over unincorporated areas but would require that city officials be notified if property owners ask the Los Angeles County Planning Commission for a zoning change, Councilman Carl Boyer III said.

The expanded influence is needed, Boyer said, because development outside city limits often affects traffic in the city, adds new students to local schools and brings more business into the area.

“We want developers to sit down and talk to us before they build anything that would affect us,” Boyer said. “They don’t talk to us now, but they go ahead with things that impact us.”

At 160 square miles, the proposed sphere of influence is bigger than the city of Atlanta. It is largely undeveloped land, but includes many recently built housing tracts and areas targeted for future construction.

Santa Clarita and LAFCO have a long history of antagonistic relations.

When Santa Clarita was first formed in 1987, LAFCO rejected a request for a 90-square-mile city, instead paring down the city to 40 square miles.

Two years later, the agency rejected the city’s first request for a 160-square-mile sphere, confining it to the city limits.

Santa Clarita’s earlier disputes with LAFCO also involved developers hoping to curtail the city’s influence. The letters opposing Santa Clarita’s current bid were received by LAFCO in November and December but were released to city officials last week.

Many letters such as those from Dale Poe Development Corp. and Elsmere Corp., which seeks to build a dump in Elsmere Canyon, merely asked that their parcels be excluded from the expanded sphere.

But several major developers went a step further, saying Santa Clarita didn’t deserve to influence land-use decisions outside the city limits.

“The city’s request for sphere of influence should be denied,” wrote Peter Panagopoulos, assistant vice president of Pardee Construction Co. “At minimum, we respectfully request that our property be withdrawn from the proposed Santa Clarita sphere of influence.”

Because of the city’s slow-growth policies “virtually all of the major developers in or near the city are opposed to any expansion of the city’s sphere of influence or boundaries,” wrote Gilbert C. Archuletta, an attorney for G.H. Palmer Associates.

Other companies writing protest letters include Newhall Land & Farming Co., Warner Bros., First Financial Group Inc. and Watt Land Development Inc.

“The philosophy of the city is still in development. . . . What we have observed to date gives us real concerns,” wrote Richard Wirth, executive director of the Building Industry Assn.’s Government Affairs Council. “Will there be a logical orderly development?”

The city, he added, should “define its own destiny” before expanding its sphere.

“We figured out our own destiny before we were incorporated,” countered Boyer.

“They’re certainly entitled to their own self-serving interpretation of events,” Boyer added. “But I would point out that we have incorporated the largest newly incorporated city in the history of humankind. We have run our government fairly, honorably and without any secrets.”

While conceding that the city has fought many developments in the past, Boyer, a former mayor, defended Santa Clarita’s policies toward development.

“We believe we have treated the developers pretty well,” he said. “We haven’t thrown any curves at them.”

The developers take a far different viewpoint.

“The fundamental question is why subject this land to the influence of those whose mission it is to prevent the area from being used to satisfy the long-range needs of Los Angeles County,” wrote Panagopoulos of Pardee Construction Co.

Conrad J. Baumgartner, president of CJB Development Inc., wrote: “The direction in which the City of Santa Clarita is heading would prevent almost any new development and we thus do not wish to be under city influence or control.”

BACKGROUND

Under state law, each county has a Local Agency Formation Commission, which oversees incorporations and annexations, as well as adjudicating territorial disputes between municipalities. LAFCO is composed of elected officials and private citizens. Los Angeles County’s seven-member LAFCO is chaired by Thomas E. Jackson, a Huntington Park city councilman. Other members are county supervisors Edmund D. Edelman and Deane Dana, Los Angeles Councilman Hal Bernson, Tarzana resident and former judge James DiGiuseppe, Whittier businessman Henri F. Pellissier and Artesia City Councilman James A. Van Horn. LAFCO will consider Santa Clarita’s request for a sphere of influence at 9 a.m. Wednesday in the Board of Supervisors hearing room at the Los Angeles County Hall of Administration, 227 N. Broadway, Los Angeles.