City officials shared a sneak peek at what is expected to be in front of the five-person Santa Clarita Planning Commission as it deliberates on development over the next few months.
During the commission’s Jan. 16 meeting, Santa Clarita Planning Manager Patrick Leclair discussed a recent memo on a forecast he sent to the commissioners regarding “a relatively busy schedule” over the next few months.
The commission’s next meeting, Feb. 6, is a joint kickoff budget meeting, a council and commission study session in the Carl Boyer conference room at City Hall.
The board is scheduled to appoint its new chair for the year at its Feb. 20 meeting, and after that, Leclair expects the commission to be meeting once a month, the third week of each month, he said.
A wireless facility and some property subdivisions are expected to be on the agenda for that meeting.
The Wiley Canyon Project is expected to come to the Planning Commission for review, including an environmental impact review, during the March 19 meeting, with the EIR expected next month to provide a 45-day review period.
“The proposed project consists of a four-story senior living facility including 130 independent living units, 61 assisted living units and 26 memory care beds, 8,914 square feet of commercial floor area, 379 apartment units and publicly accessible outdoor recreational field space,” according to the state’s California Environmental Quality Act website, ceqanet.opr.ca.gov. “The project would include up to 65,000 cubic yards of cut and 77,000 cubic yards of fill, including 500,000 cubic yards of over-excavation and the import of approximately 62,000 cubic yards of fill.”
The Town Center Specific Plan, the city’s vision for what it would like the area encompassed by the mall to be — an area stretching west on Valencia Boulevard from its intersection with McBean Parkway to Magic Mountain Parkway, and bordered on the north by Magic Mountain Parkway heading east until it intersects with McBean again.
The plan became something the city started working on when it learned Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield was making plans to abandon nearly all of its U.S. commercial retail portfolio. URW defaulted on its nearly $200 million loan for the property in January 2023. It reported selling the property to Centennial for reportedly about the same amount in September.
“There’s been a lot of community outreach on that and we’ve been working hard with our consultant to draft that plan and environmental impact report,” Leclair said, adding it should be coming to the commission in April.
Leclair said the report for the commission would be more a “higher-level review,” as opposed to Wiley Canyon, which would be much more specific.
