Plan for Long-Debated 996-Acre Project OKd

The Santa Clarita City Council has approved a 20-year development agreement for the biggest single project in city history, clearing the way for construction after years of wrangling over the terms.

The unanimous vote by the City Council on Tuesday came despite repeated protests of a handful of residents who pleaded for the council to stall the long-debated Porta Bella project.

Despite approval of the agreement, it is doubtful construction will begin soon because the 996-acre project sits atop a toxic waste site.

The site, in the heart of the city, is undergoing cleanup studies supervised by the California Environmental Protection Agency. EPA officials estimate that the pre-cleanup studies of the site will not be complete until 1998, with the actual work to follow. Those studies will determine how long the cleanup will take.

The site was used from 1906 to 1987 by plants that manufactured explosives, and local residents have insisted that the area be cleared of contaminants resulting from years of testing.

A fireworks manufacturer and later a massive munitions factory were located on the site, said James Schultz, a spokesman for Simi Valley-based Whittaker Corp., an aerospace and communications company that now owns the property.

Whittaker teamed with Marina del Rey-based Northholme Partners to develop the land for housing and commercial uses.

But the property’s history proved to be an asset for developers interested in building in Santa Clarita, which formed in part to fight rampant and unchecked growth in the Santa Clarita Valley. The property had been used and abandoned, unlike the pristine natural areas that local environmentalists mobilize to protect from development.

The project, whose crowning feature is to be a 750-foot series of escalators connecting the community to the Santa Clarita Metrolink train station, was initially proposed in 1991. It calls for 1,244 single-family homes and 1,667 condominiums and apartments with 1.9 million square feet of commercial and institutional space.

“We’re going to be putting a lot of housing right next to a lot of jobs,” Santa Clarita Mayor Carl Boyer said. “We’re going to open up roads that otherwise would not have been opened. The character of [existing] neighborhoods is going to be preserved.”

City officials strained to get what they could from the developer, wresting millions in concessions in exchange for approval. Road construction alone is expected to put Northholme back $100 million, a figure Northholme consultant Sam Veltri says dragged the project to the edge of infeasibility.

Northholme also agreed to grade, at its own expense, 20 city-owned acres where civic leaders envision building a new civic center. Cost of the grading was estimated at $3 million.

The wrangling on the deal continued until moments before the council voted, with Councilmen George Pederson and Clyde Smyth attempting to eke out one more concession from Veltri in regard to the cost of leasing a Metrolink station at the site. After losing on that issue, however, the pair voted with the majority.

Boyer said another delay would have stretched the city’s credibility.

“It would have started the whole process over again,” Boyer said.

* NO REDEVELOPMENT: Santa Clarita reluctantly drops $1.1-billion plan. A18