IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD : Santa Clarita: 5 Years Old, Juggling Huge Growth and Hard Times

There are lessons here for managing the pent-up growth that will explode across Southern California when the economy improves. Santa Clarita’s incorporation put the brakes on expansion and allowed the area to begin to catch up to the service needs of a population that had more than doubled since 1980; now it faces planning for a population that will more than double again in the next 20 years.

Rampant growth in the 1980s left Santa Clarita with an infrastructure deficit that hasn’t been made up completely after five years of cityhood. Roads and transportation systems are inadequate and water supplies need expanding. Demand for recreation and library services has skyrocketed; school enrollment has swelled. Peripheral development in areas surrounding the city will tax the region even more.

State budget cuts have cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue, but there have been notable gains. Recreational opportunities have increased threefold since 1987, quick-fix road improvements have reduced congestion and the city’s crime rate has stayed comparatively low. In fact, Santa Clarita was recently voted among the nation’s top five up-and-coming cities by a newspaper for local government leaders.

Other problems are tougher. How, in a weak economy, can the city preserve its rustic charm and environmental resources while accommodating the housing, transportation and employment needs of a growing population? What kind of balance should be struck between developing high-end homes and high-density affordable housing, between service and manufacturing jobs? And how does an area that is overwhelmingly European-American address the needs of a minority population that some say is already underserved by the city?

TRANSPORTATION CONSULTANT

Connie Warden

Area resident since 1970; manages nonprofit Santa Clarita Valley Transportation Management Assn. to assist businesses with air quality compliance.

We have a lot of precious resources that we have to husband carefully. We have a river bed which, while it is ugly to look at, is very important because it lays over our aquifer so we need to preserve that. Along that can be suitable things like more horse trails and parkways.

We were a lovely, lovely rural community, but the reality is that we are rapidly urbanizing. We are a metropolitan area. Now whether or not you could get enough sentiment to say, “let’s stop all growth,” it’s still going to occur all around us, and it will impact us. As far as I’m concerned we’d be better served to inventory those things we want to pay careful attention to. Create more parks to be sure we have the horse trails, to preserve the ridgelines. Have good, sound principles for development, and then create the city that will match it.

COMMUNITY ACTIVIST

Michael Kotch

Member of Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment, resident since 1983.

There are some areas where the city has not paid as much attention as they should--the biggest thing has been in looking at the Hispanic interests. There’s a critical housing shortage in East Newhall; there’s an employment problem with a lot of the Hispanic community that the city hasn’t been focusing on. That will eventually come home to roost on the community. If you ghettoize one fraction of the community you’re fostering a problem in the future.

ADMINISTRATOR

George Carvallo

City manager since 1988

I don’t know if we’ll ever get away from the sometimes adversarial relationships or at least disagreement as to rate of growth or density.It’s a very complicated subject. A lot of people think lower density is going to keep the quality of life, but lower densities frequently drive the cost of housing up and do not provide for affordable housing.

I think you’ll see a strong employment center at the intersection of Highway 126 and 5 that could employ anywhere between 20,000 and 40,000 people. I think you’ll see more hotels and restaurants around Magic Mountain and it will become more of a destination.

The community has tremendous resources so that we can do things proactively where many communities don’t have them, and they’re fighting day to day crises.