Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Neighbors Oppose Plan for Family Rec Center : Canyon Country: The facility, up for review, would offer miniature golf, water slides and other activities. Residents fear gangs and traffic.

What builders foresee as a long-awaited family entertainment center in rural Canyon Country, some nearby property owners fear will be a magnet for traffic, noise and gang members.

The plans for the privately owned Santa Clarita Family Recreation Center--proposed for 5.8 acres along Oak Spring Canyon Road southeast of the Antelope Valley Freeway--will be up for review at 7 p.m. tonight by the Santa Clarita Planning Commission.

As proposed by Royal Clark Development of Beverly Hills, the center will include two 18-hole miniature golf courses, nine batting cages, four water slides, bumper boats, a Go-Kart track and an activities center with video games and food service.

The developer has argued that the center would provide an alternative to the Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park for local youths.

“It’s something that’s certainly needed,” said Bob Martinez, an engineer for Sikand Engineering, who prepared the project’s planning documents.

Preliminary plans for the center have been under way for about a year, Martinez said. The developer is aiming for a May, 1995, opening.

But several area residents who paid upward of $300,000 for their homes say the recreation center would bring unwelcome noise and artificial light to their neighborhood. They also fear that an influx of teen-agers will bring graffiti and litter to their area.

“I really believe it will devalue the property,” said Stanley Gibbs, who lives along nearby Lost Canyon Road. “I put my home up for sale when I heard about it.”

Gibbs, 49, said he and his neighbors aren’t looking to deprive teens of having fun, but they want to maintain the rural nature of their neighborhood.

“We bought here and built here for a reason,” Gibbs said.

Other residents living near the property expressed similar concerns in letters to the city Planning Department.

“This project would cause and attract all sorts of problems with noise, traffic, loitering teen-agers, crime, etc.,” wrote Lost Canyon Road residents Mary and Arthur Ludwig. “Why would anyone even think of a project such as this is absurd!”

“A park like this may be family oriented by day, but at night there will be trouble with teens and ultimately gang activity,” wrote Shari and Frank Gibb.

Those behind the recreation center say it will provide not only safe activities for families but also sales tax revenue for the city. And Martinez said the noise and crime concerns of local residents would be addressed, possibly by designating a buffer area on the property to create more distance between the center and homeowners.

He also rejected concerns that youths will intrude into surrounding neighborhoods. “I think kids are going to be dropped off by family members and picked up at prescribed times,” Martinez said.

Police officials did not seem concerned. With most of the proposed center’s teen-age patrons expected to come from the Santa Clarita area, according to Capt. Mike Quinn of the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station, the facility isn’t expected to generate additional crime.

“I don’t see any greater threat than a bowling alley or a roller-skating rink would provide. Or even a fast-food place,” Quinn said.