About a dozen Fair Oaks Ranch residents took to City Hall Tuesday urging the Santa Clarita City Council to help resolve issues, such as lack of parking, they say have negatively impacted their quality of life.
“Please, bring us a solution that allows us to have our neighborhood back,” said resident Kevin McDonald to council members. “Don’t we want our retail establishments healthy, and our neighborhoods healthy? Please dig in for our residents.”
McDonald was joined by several Fair Oaks Ranch homeowners who believe the neighborhood has been “overrun by the Lost Canyon Apartments due to their lack of parking for their tenants and guest,” according to a letter by resident Leigh Nicholson, which she read aloud to City Council.
The apartment complex, built in 2012 and located on Terra Verde Place in Canyon Country, was developed with 157 three-bedroom apartments and 45 guest parking spots, an amount nearby homeowners say is far too low for the volume of units, which is causing tenants to park outside their houses.
“The Los Canyon Apartment tenants and their (guests) are parking commercial vehicles, RVs and leaving their third and fourth vehicles on our street,” read the letter. “At this time the city of Santa Clarita is not maintaining our streets. They are not even being swept on a regular basis because the vehicles never move long enough to sweep the trash out of the streets. This problem is affecting our curb appeal of our homes and as a result it’s reducing their value.”
Other residents who spoke during public comment said the parking issue has increased traffic congestion, crime and street littering, with at least one incident where a homeowner has had to remove condoms and syringes found on the pavement.
Nicholson and others suggested some solutions, including to put signs to stop people from parking on street cleaning days and allow two-way parking on Lost Canyon Road from Lark Way to Via Princessa.
City staff has responded to residents’ concerns in the past, according to City Manager Ken Striplin. Some of the solutions suggested, including on-street parking, have been considered unsafe due to the possibility of increased collisions with parked vehicles, according to an email between Nicholson and Jerrid McKenna, assistant to the city manager.
Striplin, who clarified that the apartments were approved by Los Angeles County and inherited by the city, said the city staff will “dig in that a little deeper” for short- and long-term solutions.
Councilman Bob Kellar urged the staff to “roll up their sleeves and help these folks resolve this problem. This is inappropriate in residential areas; people should not have to endure these kind of problems.”
