SCOPE Doesn’t Merit ‘Slow Growth’ Label

A story of May 5 stated that the Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment is a citizens group that “endorses slow-growth policies.” This appears to be editorializing.

SCOPE is dedicated to preserving the environment, ecology and quality of life in the Santa Clarita Valley. One of the key points of our bylaws is to “promote community planning and design which exhibits superior attention to quality, aesthetics, sensitivity to the environment and consideration of community goals and needs.” It appears your staff has confused this objective with a narrow slow-growth agenda. Insisting on good planning should not be equated with a slow-growth stance.

A few years ago an initiative measure was proposed that would regulate the pace of growth in the Santa Clarita Valley. This measure would have supported projects that have superior amenities and would have endeavored to avoid the “boom/bust” cycle of development. SCOPE did not endorse that measure, in large part because our existence as a 501 (c)3 organization includes restraints on how much we can engage in political measures. So we are naturally confused as to how you drew these conclusions.

We have been vocal about development in the Santa Clarita Valley. This has been necessary because the county has done a poor job of managing the General Plan and the development monitoring system for our area. Is it a slow-growth policy to assert that the General Plan should be respected and followed?

MICHAEL KOTCH

Santa Clarita

Kotch is president of the Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment .