Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Planners OK 996-Acre Housing Development : Growth: Porta Bella site was home to a munitions factory. Supporters say the locale has little to offer if left alone.

The Porta Bella residential development project is defying the odds as it successfully winds through the planning process here, even though it represents what Santa Clarita supposedly became a city to oppose--large-scale development.

As approved by a 4-1 vote of the Santa Clarita Planning Commission on Tuesday night, Porta Bella includes 1,667 condominiums and 1,244 single-family homes to be built on 996 acres southeast of the Metrolink station in the Saugus area.

In addition to its daunting size, its site was home to a munitions factory for eight decades. The Whittaker Corp. manufactured and tested ammunition, explosives and flares there from 1906 to 1987.

No structures are left on the land, but fears about heavy metals possibly being in the soil were raised by the project’s draft environmental impact report nine months ago, as were concerns that the project will cut into a major ridgeline and add traffic to already busy streets.

Nevertheless, the Porta Bella project has received approval from officials in this city that was formed six years ago to help slow down and control massive development in the Santa Clarita Valley. Part of the reason for the proposal’s success is that developer Northholme Partners chose a site that left alone has little to offer. And even slow-development advocates give at least passing grades to Porta Bella. “I think the density is a little high, but what can you do?” said Lynne Plambeck, vice president of the Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment. “If you’re going to have development, this is where it should be and how it should be.”

SCOPE and the local chapter of the Sierra Club vigorously opposed in public statements and in court developer Newhall Land & Farming Co.’s proposed Westridge community in the valley. They have also spoken out against that developer’s massive new proposed project, Newhall Ranch, announced earlier this week. The Newhall Ranch project calls for 22,330 residences in a 12,000-acre area just west of Six Flags Magic Mountain. In addition to Porta Bella’s relatively small size, Plambeck says SCOPE approves that the development is close to a Metrolink station, is mixed use--it includes a 27-acre business park--preserves 450 acres of open space and does not significantly disrupt the ecology of the area.

“It’s not in a flood plain. It’s not in the (Santa Clara) River. It’s not in a significant ecological area,” said Plambeck, complementing the developer’s project manager, Sam Veltri.

“He’s jumped through the hoops,” she said.

Members of the local Sierra Club chapter said Wednesday that their organization has taken no position on Porta Bella.

Ironically, the site’s murky environmental background as a munitions factory may have spurred its approval.

“It’s the best the city can do (with the property),” said Jerry Cherrington, a city planning commissioner. “You’ve got already scarred land--this can only improve it, in my judgment. If the city says no, whatever is there is going to be there and only get worse.”

After the munitions plant closed down, the state Department of Toxic Substances Control and the federal Environmental Protection Agency identified 14 distinct spots at the site containing waste of munitions-related byproducts. Whittaker has cleared 13 of them, so far, to the satisfaction of authorities. Cleanup of the final contaminated spot is expected to be completed in six months to a year.

Cherrington said other areas on the site may also be contaminated.

“There may be all kinds of crud buried under there from World War I or World War II,” he said, “poisoning our underground water supply.” He said the city has insisted that Whittaker, which still owns the land, do further testing.

The final hurdle for Porta Bella to clear will be approval from the Santa Clarita City Council. The council will begin its formal examination of the proposal with a study session next Wednesday.