It’s in the Mail

Developers of a proposed 866-home project on one of the most pristine parcels in the Santa Clarita Valley are taking no chances.

Elaborate informational packets--complete with color renderings, aerial maps and answers to seemingly every imaginable objection--are being distributed in advance of public hearings on the proposed Golden Valley Ranch project.

Developers routinely send such packets to public officials and perhaps a few community leaders. But these packets are being sent to surrounding neighbors--more than 4,000 of them--at a cost of more than $50,000.

Postage alone is costing $16,000, according to the developer’s consultant, Allan Cameron.

The approach marks an extraordinary effort by a developer to win grass-roots support for a project and to head off opposition before it mounts.

“Extremely impressive,” said Santa Clarita Planning Commissioner Dennis Ostrom. A former homeowner group president and leading opponent of previous projects at the site,

Ostrom called the public relations campaign “a step beyond.”

PacificUS Real Estate Group of Pasadena, through a subsidiary called PacSun, is seeking to build the development on a 1,310-acre site south of the Antelope Valley Freeway at Golden Valley Road. The parcel stretches from the freeway to Placerita Canyon Road, abuts Angeles National Forest and is adjacent to the exclusive Sand Canyon community of equestrian estates.

The next step in the developer’s campaign, which Cameron calls “a community outreach program,” is a series of informal meetings with residents, starting Saturday.

Over the past 12 years, seven major proposals on the same site by previous developers were shot down one after another by both the community and county planners. Armies of protesting neighbors attacked each with unified vehemence, fighting all plans to build mixed clusters of single-family homes, condominiums, apartments and commercial areas.

Those proposals ranged in size from 1,200 to 2,400 units. The Los Angeles County General Plan, adopted after years of debate within the community, designates a maximum density of one

unit every two acres, or up to 712 homes, according to a draft environmental impact report.

The developer is seeking permission to build 154 more homes than would be allowed under the general plan, but argues that an exception should be made to make the project economically feasible.

That is expected to draw opposition from residents, who have long embraced the concept that the land be reserved for rural ranch estates.

Cameron, who was one of the community leaders involved in Santa Clarita’s 1987 cityhood campaign, said the first objective is to present the new proposal as radically different from previous plans, formerly called Santa Fe Ranch.

“The current owners are not in any way associated with the old owners,” he said. “The current owners are not those people at all. This is entirely different than what was proposed.”

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A key difference calls for preservation of 865 acres--66% of the site--including major ridges and hiking and riding trails. The homes, all single-family dwellings, would be built in three clusters, using 25% of the site. Also proposed is a 51-acre shopping center adjacent to the freeway, a school site and 10-acre park.

Developers propose to annex the parcel, which is in unincorporated county territory, into the city of Santa Clarita, giving jurisdiction to local government. Nearly 68 acres of the parcel in Angeles National Forest would be donated to the city.

In a letter to residents, John W. Jameson, executive vice president of PacSun, wrote: “We are convinced that Golden Valley Ranch is a project that benefits from full disclosure about every aspect of its design.”

Jameson in an interview said the cost of the promotional campaign, the most elaborate ever conducted by his company, is “money well spent.” He said developers studied all of the aspects of previous proposals that drew the greatest opposition “and planned them out of our project.”

“We tried to think of the best way to reach as many people as we could, to properly inform everybody about what the project is,” Jameson said, then quickly added, “or is not.”

A booklet in the packet addresses 146 questions, including a series of anticipated objections to density, lot sizes and traffic. It also boasts about efforts to preserve oak trees, streams, wetlands and endangered species.

An opinion survey, designed to identify the strongest objections to the proposal, also is included, complete with a self-addressed envelope with an environmentally friendly stamp featuring whimsical sea creatures.

The $3.20 postage on the red, white and blue envelope consists of a series of 55-cent stamps commemorating World War I flying ace Billy Mitchell and a friendly fox on a $1 stamp. The stamps were applied by hand, specifically to help grab attention, along with personalized address labels and cover letters, Cameron said. The effort is taking a crew of more than 15 people days to complete.

“We wanted to make it something that people will actually open up,” Cameron said. “Development in general can be very controversial. If you have a sound platform to begin with, then the more information people have about your sound platform, the better off you will be.”

Diane C. Wilson, a representative of the Sand Canyon Homeowners’ Assn. and a leading opponent of earlier proposals, said she and others continue to object to the latest plans. “We oppose intrusive development and zoning changes which destroy beneficial land uses,” she said.

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Among others, she said a key objection is proposed lot sizes ranging from 4,000 to 7,000 square feet. She said the small lots, typical of other new home developments throughout the Santa Clarita Valley, limits construction to mostly two-story homes.

“We’re rural,” Wilson said, referring to the Sand Canyon area. “We think there is still a big group of people who like a rural community, such as single-story homes but which are hardly ever available anymore.”

Cameron said developers are prepared for objections. “There are pluses and minuses to everything,” he said. “But I think that if people understand this project in total, the pluses are many times greater than the minuses.”

Public hearings on an environmental study were to begin this fall, but were delayed at the request of developers who decided to first test the tempers of the neighbors, city planners said.

The informal meetings beginning Saturday are scheduled at 9 a.m., noon and 3 p.m. at First Christian Church, 27421 Homyr Place.