The owners of Vista Valencia Golf Course want the pastoral property next to the quiet Fairways neighborhood to remain in operation as a golf course, even though the property is up for sale.
The owners — American Golf Corp. — hope to find a buyer willing to keep them on to manage the golf course.
Citizens who worried Wednesday that the land sale would pave the way for a “massive housing development” — as touted on a flier circulated throughout the Fairways community, around Trevino Drive — were reassured by city officials that no deal had been struck.
“In connection with our previously announced strategic plan, AGC has been exploring the sale of multiple (golf) courses to potential buyers who are interested in retaining AGC to continue to manage and operate the properties as golf courses following such sales,” AGC spokesman Rand Huguely said Thursday.
“Vista Valencia is among the courses for which AGC is exploring this possibility,” he said. “However, at this time, Vista Valencia has not yet been sold.”
On Thursday, citizens fearing sale of the golf course land would mean home construction began phoning officials at City Hall, as directed on the fliers.
Santa Clarita spokeswoman Carrie Lujan told callers the same thing she told The Signal, she said.
“We haven’t seen any sort of application for that property,” Lujan said Wednesday. “We didn’t buy it, and we don’t have any plans for it. I’m not sure what generated the flier.”
If the property is sold, then the process for transforming that land into something other than “open space” would be long and time-consuming, said Jason Crawford, planning and economic development manager for the city.
The land was zoned in the 1960s as open space, Crawford said Wednesday,
“Any project would have to overcome zoning changes and all the formal reports under CEQA,” he said, referring to the California Environmental Quality Act.
And, while it remains a mystery over who printed the fliers and paid to have them distributed, officials with the Fairways Homeowners Association caught up with individuals paid to hand them out.
“It’s a rumor,” Gary Choppe, spokesman for the Valencia Fairways Homeowners Association, said of the “massive housing development” mentioned in the flier.
“Our security firm interacted with a couple of the individuals distributing fliers,” Choppe said. “There is no clue or idea of where these originated.
“Whoever hired them to put the fliers out there, didn’t say,” he said.
