The Newhall Ranch project will add 21,000 units over the next two decades. “Auto-oriented urban sprawl” is not the answer either to climate change or our housing and health needs.
Future communities need to be localized to include home, work, schools, entertainment and green spaces, that can be easily reached on foot, bicycle and clean rapid transit.
Santa Clarita is primarily a commuter community. Surrounded by three landfills, two freeways, a truck route through the town, and a World War II explosive manufacturing and testing site that still has issues — some areas of the Whittaker-Bermite brownfield in Santa Clarita will never be suitable for residential development — community members are aware of present concerns about our air and water pollution.
They are also concerned about the impacts of the project to the Santa Clara River, Los Angeles County’s last free-flowing river, with several threatened and endangered species.
Grading by FivePoint on 4,000 units has already begun in spite of community resistance and concern about the possibility of carcinogenic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) leaching up into the new homes. Our beautiful mountaintops are being removed for landfill.
Our history of oil and mining industries and explosives manufacturing indicates we are already on the front line of the extractive industries’ negative impacts to communities and neighborhoods.
How will our home values, health and already exhaustive commutes be further affected by the increased pollution this massive project is bound to create?
Nancy Oliver
Valencia
