Developer Agrees to Build Schools in Massive Plan : Education: Newhall Land & Farming Co. will build six elementary campuses worth $70 million in area slated for two projects.

The Newhall School District on Tuesday approved an agreement under which Newhall Land & Farming Co. will build six elementary schools worth $70 million in the area where Newhall Land plans to create a vast residential development.

The deal requires Newhall Land not only to provide land for the schools to serve the proposed Westridge and Newhall Ranch developments, but also to pay for their construction.

“This is big,” said Gonzalo Freixes, president of the Newhall School District Governing Board. In many months of negotiations, he said, “The board took a tough negotiating stand. We said. ‘Look, you gotta pay for the schools.’ ”

Although its plans have been approved by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Newhall Land was already under orders from a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to take action to mitigate the impact of the huge developments on local schools.

“The most important thing to us as a community-builder is the future education of our young people,” said Marlee Lauffer, spokeswoman for Newhall Land, after the school board meeting at which the agreement was announced.

Developers have paid fees or donated land in the past toward construction of schools to serve the families their projects attract, with community bond measures making up the difference. But as anti-tax sentiment in California has increased, bond measures have met with increasing resistance, especially in the Santa Clarita area, which has consistently turned back local bonding measures.

“All this agreement has done is shifted the risk,” Freixes said. “The burden has been shifted so the developer pays the cost up front.”

Under the agreement, Newhall Land would be reimbursed for construction costs if state bond money were to become available later for school construction. “We do believe the state will return at some point to . . . fulfilling its obligation to schools,” Lauffer said.

The deal is unusual in part because of its size, said William Fulton, publisher of the California Planning and Development Report, a Ventura-based newsletter on development issues.

Newhall Land has described its Newhall Ranch project as the largest single residential project ever submitted in Los Angeles County.

The developer plans 24,700 units for the Newhall Ranch project, set to be built along California 126, filling in the open space between Magic Mountain amusement park and the Ventura County line.

The planned 70,000-resident community set on 12,000 acres is to have an extensive trail system and 5,000 acres of natural open space as well as a 200-acre business park. It is scheduled to begin construction in the year 2000.

Nearby is the proposed 800-acre Westridge development, an estimated 1,890 units with a golf course. Construction is now scheduled to begin in 1997.

It was the Westridge development that initiated the negotiations between the developer and the Newhall schools. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved the project in 1992.

Citing environmental concerns, the Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment--SCOPE--spearheaded a lawsuit over the project, claiming Newhall Land had not adequately considered the impact of its plan on the region.

Although SCOPE lost on some environmental issues in the suit, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert O’Brien ruled that Newhall’s plans did not adequately address school, library and air quality needs.

“It’s a pretty big win for schools all over Los Angeles County,” said Lynne Plambeck, vice president of SCOPE. “It could affect development all over the county. The county cannot get away with approving development without adequate schools.”

Newhall School District did not join the lawsuit, but administrators realized their opportunity was at hand, Freixes said.

The deal puts the schools on a par with mitigation agreements in other high-growth areas, such as San Diego, Freixes said.

“The school districts have had to settle for scraps,” Freixes said. “We have to get what other areas of the state are getting.”

In the past, the city of Santa Clarita, developers and county officials entered into development agreements which offered mitigation payments of $2.72 per square foot of development. From that figure, elementary schools and high schools would each take a share.

Under the plan considered Tuesday, Newhall district elementary schools would get roughly $2.60 per square foot of development. William S. Hart Union High School District is entitled to a separate share of developer fees. That could make the deal worth about $4.10 overall to schools in the area, Freixes estimated.

Newhall Land had faced strong community opposition to its development proposals for Westridge in part because of concerns about school overcrowding. School officials had threatened further community pressure--such as busing irate parents to the county Regional Planning Commission or Board of Supervisors meetings--if they were not compensated.

The deal comes only days before Newhall Land is to present a revised environmental impact report to the planning commission. That report will then be considered by the Board of Supervisors, and ultimately the court which ordered its review.

“It’s often really important for the developer to get the school district on board because it strengthens the case,” Fulton said. “When you get opposition to a project, it’s valuable to have local support.”