Santa Clarita Rules Out Joining Development Suit Against Palmdale

The city of Santa Clarita has dropped plans to join a lawsuit against the city of Palmdale over the Ritter Ranch, a proposed 7,200-unit housing project that would be one of Southern California’s largest master-planned residential communities.

Santa Clarita had considered joining a lawsuit filed in April by the Town Council of Leona Valley, a community near the Ritter Ranch site in the Antelope Valley, challenging Palmdale’s environmental impact report on the project as insufficient.

Santa Clarita officials said Thursday that the costs of joining the lawsuit outweighed the potential rewards, but that they remain concerned about what they fear would be a heavy influx of traffic from the development.

“The suit would be very costly and probably wouldn’t get us anywhere,” Mayor Jill Klajic said. She added, however, that she was outvoted 4 to 1 when the City Council decided last month in closed session not to join the suit.

“It was decided that the chances of our getting mitigation in traffic--especially along Bouquet Canyon Road and the Antelope Valley Freeway--weren’t worth the dollar amount we’d have to spend,” she said.

Klajic said she and the city, however, are prepared to push for less density at Ritter Ranch, which the developer proposes to build over 20 years into a community of 20,000 residents on what is now unincorporated Los Angeles County land west of Palmdale.

“We’re 35 or 40 miles away,” Klajic said of Santa Clarita, “but when people in that area get into their cars and go somewhere else, they all seem to come here.”

The project’s developer--Ritter Park Associates, a partnership headed by Merv Adelson and Irwin Molasky, who built the La Costa resort community in north San Diego County--wants the city of Palmdale to annex the site, which occupies a 17-square-mile tract of hilly, rural land that abuts Angeles National Forest and ranges in elevation from 3,000 to 5,247 feet.

The Town Council of Leona Valley said it opposes Ritter Ranch because the completed project’s urban character would clash with Leona Valley’s cherry orchards, horse corrals and large lots.

Santa Clarita’s decision not to pursue joining the suit voids a scheduled court hearing next Friday in Lancaster.

Meanwhile, arguments in Leona Valley’s suit are scheduled to begin Nov. 13 in Lancaster Superior Court.