The city of Santa Clarita has denied an initial appeal of plans to put an apartment complex into a Bouquet Canyon Road parking lot behind the Cinema Drive business park.
The plans for Promenade Flats call for 7,230 square feet of ground-floor commercial space, 26 one-bedroom and four live-work one-bedroom apartments on the floors above, which would be built behind the existing International House of Pancakes.
The primary owner of the adjacent Cinema Drive business park, Reena Newhall, said she and several other tenant-owned retailers in her center are worried about the impact the development will have on their parking.
So much so, she said, that they’ve filed an appeal of the decision to the city’s Planning Commission — at a cost of about $4,300, Newhall said.
She said she had had discussions with representatives for the project, who indicated they would be open to working with her to try to avoid a further appeal.
Hunt Braly, an attorney for the project’s applicant, Henry Neman, said he met with Newhall on April 26, adding that a parking-management plan was part of the project’s proposal.
The developer is planning the construction of 41 new parking stalls on the southwest portion of the site, which meet the city’s code requirements.
Braly said in a phone interview Thursday the project’s applicant had reached out to its parking consultant to see what could be done to address the concerns from Cinema Drive, and while the applicant was waiting to hear back from the consultant, a further appeal was filed.
Braly said the intent was still to try to address the neighbors’ concerns.
The project, Promenade Flats, was appealed to the hearing officer by multiple parties, according to an email Thursday by Patrick Leclair, senior planning manager for the city, in response to a request for comment on the status of the project. The hearing officer approved the project.
“However, the hearing officer decision has now been appealed and must now be heard by the Planning Commission,” Leclair wrote. “We hope to schedule the public hearing before the Planning Commission in the next four to eight weeks.”
Newhall said she was frustrated by the appeal process, which felt as though it had a predetermined outcome.
“There’s a lot of this going on,” Newhall said, referring to comments she’s heard from city officials who have lamented the lack of local control cities have in discussing housing projects. “And I think the city has no choice because of the state.”
