Last Day to File Porta Bella Complaints

Today is the final day to lodge new complaints about Porta Bella, the largest development proposal in this city’s seven-year history.

City Council members are scheduled to review the project at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in a study session at City Hall. They’ve set today as the deadline to raise new concerns about Porta Bella and hope to settle issues that have surfaced repeatedly since the project was first proposed in 1991.

As planned by Northholme Partners, Porta Bella will include 3,238 homes on the 996-acre site of a former munitions factory south of Soledad Canyon Road and east of San Fernando Road. The proposed 1,678 single-family homes and 1,560 condominiums and apartments are expected to attract more than 9,200 residents.

The Santa Clarita Planning Commission approved Porta Bella by a 4-1 vote in June after 15 public hearings and more than a year of deliberation. The City Council was expected to certify the project’s environmental documents in November, but hesitated when opponents submitted 101 pages of additional material criticizing the proposal.

Council members responded by setting today as the deadline to raise new issues before they discuss the massive project at Tuesday’s study session.

Major concerns about Porta Bella have remained the same since 1991.

Critics fear the project will add too much traffic, harm businesses, burden public services and cut into a major ridgeline. Most of all, they say, it will threaten public health with toxic contaminants that may remain from a munitions factory that tested ammunition, explosives and flares at the site from 1906 to 1987.