Soccer Moms Join Developer’s Team in Effort to Win Project Approval

A development company facing stiff opposition as it seeks county approval to build a 2,502-unit housing project has turned for help to an influential political group: soccer moms.

The Evans-Collins development company of Newport Beach promised to donate more than 50 acres of its planned 1,795-acre Tesoro del Valle project to the Youth Sports Assn. in Santa Clarita for use as playing fields.

The association’s moms, children and other members responded by sending 5,000 form letters--paid for by the developer--to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, urging them to approve the proposed development in San Francisquito Canyon, an unincorporated area immediately outside Santa Clarita’s city limits.

Whether the effort worked has yet to be seen; the company will go before the supervisors with its request today.

John Hartman, a county planning commission staffer overseeing the application, called the letter-writing campaign “a very astute political move” on the developer’s part.

“It’s in the developers’ best interest to show that they have local support,” he said. “Public support for a project is taken into consideration in the same way public opposition is.”

County Supervisor Mike Antonovich said letters from the public are often the only way to gauge public opinion.

But Santa Clarita officials have cried foul, calling the developer’s promised donation of land a political payoff. They say the developer has used children in cleats and shinguards to tug at the board’s heartstrings.

“All the developer was doing was buying support,” said Councilman Carl Boyer.

Santa Clarita officials bristle at the notion that a cluster of soccer fields are fair compensation for the added strain that the 7,000-resident development would have on already congested streets, polluted air and overburdened fire and library services.

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Since the city of Santa Clarita was incorporated 9 1/2 years ago, it has tried to control growth in the Santa Clarita Valley and, to a large degree, has been frustrated by the county’s willingness to approve large projects just outside city limits.

In a May 8 letter to the supervisors, Santa Clarita Mayor Clyde Smyth wrote that although the city has objected to other “sprawl projects” in the past, Tesoro del Valle is perhaps “the most objectionable.”

The City Council unanimously voted to oppose the project.

The pro-development forces respond that Santa Clarita government has approved construction of larger, more obtrusive developments. They question why the city hasn’t opposed the 25,000-unit Newhall Ranch project, which if approved would bring 70,000 residents to an area just outside the city, near Magic Mountain.

Representatives of Evans-Collins will appear today before the Board of Supervisors seeking an amendment to the county’s General Plan, allowing the company to build more than twice the 1,109 units the plan currently calls for. The company is also requesting that the area, now within an agricultural use zone, be rezoned for residential use.

The county Regional Planning Commission, which has recommended that the supervisors grant the request, has declared that the benefits derived from the development would outweigh any negative effects.

“This is a good project,” said John Evans, one of the owners of the development company. The soccer and other sports fields “will provide a huge benefit to the children in this community. . . . I can’t think of a more important consideration than helping children.”

Tesoro del Valle would have 1,601 single-family homes and 901 condominiums. The property, once owned by cowboy-movie actor Harry Carey, would provide six miles of equestrian trails and 900 acres of open space, along with the parkland, schools and a small commercial district.

Dave Blazey, president of the Youth Sports Assn., says the development would be one of the best projects ever built in Santa Clarita.

The association is composed of several athletic organizations, including the American Youth Soccer Organization and William S. Hart baseball and softball leagues. The association’s mission, in an effort to represent more than 10,000 young athletes, is to obtain parkland for them to play on.

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There was nothing wrong with involving children in the letter-writing campaign and taking part in the political process, Blazey said, rejecting Santa Clarita’s claims that Youth Sports Assn. leaders were duped into supporting the project.

He said that in 1995, the housing company came to him with an offer to donate land for playing fields. Blazey said it was association officials who suggested that they write the supervisors--a year after the builder’s initial offer.

“They never said anything like, ‘If we give you the park, you’ll support us,’ ” Blazey said. “We offered to write the letters ourselves.”

Blazey acknowledges that the developer paid the costs of sending the letters.

One of the stipulations that Blazey insisted on was that the developers reach an agreement with the local school district to provide school facilities, as required by state law. Sources close to the William S. Hart Union High School District have said that an agreement is very close.

Not enough, say Santa Clarita officials. They contend the project is too big for the rural area, where many of the homeowners keep horses and livestock.

The developer also is proposing to grade about 21.5-million cubic yards along the hillside, which Santa Clarita would not allow within its boundaries.

“Developers come in, sell the houses, make the profits and then leave,” Mayor Smyth said. “The [Youth Sports Assn.] doesn’t have to worry about the guy who can’t reach the freeway because of the traffic.”

Even with support from soccer moms, approval of the project is uncertain.

“The developer has to show that the pluses of the project are greater than the minuses,” said Antonovich, who will listen to testimony on the project today. “So far, I don’t think that’s been done.”