EARTHQUAKE: THE ROAD TO RECOVERY : City Working Overtime to Aid Crippled Businesses : Santa Clarita: With damage widespread, officials try to cut red tape and provide rebuilding help. Other areas are trying to lure away firms.

Before the Jan. 17 quake, city leaders had focused on attracting new employers to what was billed as a scenic community with clean air, little crime, neatly planned neighborhoods and easy freeway connections to Los Angeles.

Today, with those highways shattered and the valleywide damage approaching $300 million, Santa Clarita has shifted gears. The 6-year-old city is now hustling to hang on to the businesses it already has.

To ease the financial burden on residents and business owners who must reconstruct or repair damaged buildings, the City Council also waived permit and inspection fees for such projects, which is expected to save the private sector up to $1.5 million. Expenses are expected to be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The city also held a town hall meeting to tell business owners about disaster-relief programs. The city applied for a $125,000 state grant to set up an assistance center for businesses with long-term problems related to the quake.

But despite the assistance the city may be offering, some businesses may not recover until life, particularly the city’s fragile road network, returns to normal. Meanwhile, Antelope Valley leaders hope to lure away some businesses that can no longer find space in Santa Clarita.

Among city staff members who changed course after the quake is Mike Haviland, the city’s economic development director. Previously, Haviland spent most of his time luring restaurants, manufacturing plants and other businesses to town. Now, he tries to cut red tape and provide other help for business owners who must rebuild.

“I literally abandoned the attraction program,” he said. “We went into the hand-holding stage. If you don’t get out there and work with people, you’re going to lose them.”

The efforts may already be paying off.

Marjorie Weaver said the city acted swiftly to soothe her quake-rattled nerves and ease her and her staff back into their office building, which had been badly shaken but was not structurally damaged.

“I was so nervous and scared when I saw the drywall down and the equipment all over the place,” said Weaver, who manages 20 employees at a Valencia distribution firm. “Nobody wanted to go in there.”

She said Haviland showed up the next day with a building inspector.

“He helped us a lot by just walking us through the whole building telling us what was wrong--and what wasn’t,” she said. “It wasn’t just a onetime thing. It seemed like after every aftershock, he dropped by just to check on things.”

It was still uncertain last week whether Santa Clarita will lose Adrea Nairne. She was just getting her Valencia manicure-supply business off the ground last month when the ground gave way.

Half a dozen national sales representatives, who had checked into a Santa Clarita hotel to learn about her products, were tossed out of bed by the Jan. 17 earthquake--and quickly left town.

The headquarters Nairne had rented last November cracked, and much of her merchandise was damaged or destroyed. Her phone system went out, cutting her off from customers. Then, just as her business was getting back on track, rain began leaking in, damaging more stock and furnishings.

“Have you ever heard the expression, ‘I’m being pecked to death by ducks’?” Nairne asked. “That’s the way we’re beginning to feel.”

To cover her losses, Nairne is applying for a $30,000 low-interest disaster loan. If she gets it, she’ll have to decide whether to rebuild in battered Santa Clarita or relocate to Nevada, where expenses are lower--and another quake is unlikely.

As the earth settles down, civic leaders in the Santa Clarita and Antelope Valley are grimly assessing the quake’s impact on business people like Nairne.

Before the earthquake, about 6% to 7% of Santa Clarita’s office space was vacant, said Tony Matthess, who runs a local commercial real estate business. Because so many businesses had to relocate after the quake, the surplus has vanished.

Today, Matthess said, it is virtually impossible to find vacant office space in Santa Clarita. “We’ve had so many callers we had to turn away,” he said. “We didn’t know where they could go.”

Business owners in the Antelope Valley, about 30 miles north, are hoping to attract some of these displaced tenants.

In Palmdale and Lancaster, which came through the quake without damage, local business groups are preparing to market the high desert’s large supply of new, relatively affordable offices--and homes--to the owners of quake-damaged structures to the south.

“We’re just promoting all of the good things about the Antelope Valley,” said Kimberly Maevers, administrator of the Antelope Valley chapter of the Building Industry Assn.

For Lancaster and Palmdale, the earthquake’s most serious blow was the damage to the Antelope Valley Freeway, the concrete lifeline that connects commuters and businesses with the Los Angeles area.

To address this, city leaders are encouraging motorists to car-pool, take a bus, ride the new Metrolink trains or “telecommute” via computers and telephone connections.

In Santa Clarita, city officials had to cope with far more than traffic problems. Hundreds of houses and commercial structures in the city of 130,000 were labeled uninhabitable or open only with limited access.

City Hall itself was branded unsafe, forcing officials to move into a vacant industrial building owned by a submarine parts manufacturer. The Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce, which also found itself homeless, set up shop in a local Southern California Edison conference room.

“This is certainly the worst disaster this young city has faced,” said City Manager George Caravalho.

Even the city’s new assistance programs could not rescue every injured business, particularly those that depend on access to crippled freeways.

The closure of the Calgrove Boulevard exit along the Golden State Freeway has cost the nearby Carrows restaurant at least a quarter of its business and has forced layoffs, said manager Scott Postel. “It’s really taken a toll,” he said.

City spokeswoman Gail Foy said the closure of the northbound exit was ordered by Caltrans as a safety measure and the city can’t do anything about it. “We understand it’s for safety,” Postel said. “But it’s still killing us.”

Brian Floyd, co-owner of the Santa Clarita Athletic Club next door to Carrows, was not so understanding.

“I’m paying damn good money to be next to that exit,” Floyd said. “It’s an inconvenience for my members and my staff to have to drive all the way to Lyons and then double back when there is no reason for Calgrove to be closed.”

Floyd says he was first told the exit would not be closed and that now, neither Caltrans nor city officials are willing to take responsibility for the closure. He says it has led to lower attendance at the club and a slowdown in new registrations.

Viki Rudolph, executive vice president of the Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce, said that few of her 1,000 members have had to halt operations altogether due to quake damage. “Most of them are doing business,” she said. But she added, “They may not be doing it in the same location.”

The quake has been a double-edged sword for Ken Ames, co-owner of Action Copiers, a Valencia firm that rebuilds and repairs copy machines. Ames’ technicians are extremely busy fixing quake-damaged machines in offices throughout the Los Angeles area.

But the picture is far gloomier inside Ames’ warehouse, where 46 rebuilt copiers had been sitting on racks against the wall, ready for resale. When the quake hit, “the copiers just flew off,” Ames said. “They hit the floor and disintegrated.”

In addition, a water pipe broke, flooding the plant with 2 feet of water. “When I walked in the door, our mail was floating by,” he said.

Action Copiers’ insurance does not cover earthquake-related losses, which Ames estimates at $185,000.

Quake Damage

According to the most recent figures compiled by the city of Santa Clarita, the quake:

* Left 50 houses and 87 condominiums or apartments uninhabitable; another 370 homes were tagged for limited entry.

* Rendered 42 commercial units uninhabitable; limited entry is permitted in another 47.

* Caused $45.7 million in damage to 11 large public and business structures, including CalArts, City Hall, U. S. Borax and Baxter Pharmaseal.

* Resulted in 10,617 building inspections.

* Broke 5,000 block walls and 2,000 chimneys.

* Damaged $23 million worth of city property, including bridges, medians, parks and traffic signals.

* Caused $22 million in damage to public and private property in county areas just outside the city.