Just a few weeks ahead of Thanksgiving, the city of Santa Clarita is preparing to widen its green belt, according to the agenda for Today’s City Council meeting.
Not quite two months after the Santa Clarita City Council approved the purchase of 242 acres in the Pico Canyon area for its prized Open Space Preservation District, 200 more are on the agenda in two separate items.
The first item on the agenda is approximately 40 acres of property owned by Encore.
The property northwest of city limits was part of the closed-session discussion for the Oct. 22 City Council meeting, which listed the negotiating parties for the transaction as Councilwoman Laurene Weste, L.A. County, the Hartigan family and the city.
Property negotiations are typically done in closed session and exempt from state disclosure laws. The cost of the property for the city is reported to be approximately $195,000.
The second property set to be added for open space is 169 acres owned by John and Beverly Hartigan.
Approximately nine of the acres of the Hartigan property, an undeveloped lot “in the northeast quadrant of the Santa Clarita Valley in an area currently lacking open space land,” is just outside the city’s voter-approved Open Space Preservation District. Those 9 acres are being paid for from the general fund, according to the city’s agenda.
“In recent years, the city has paid an average of $5,747 per acre when acquiring open space land,” according to today’s agenda. “The Hartigan property costs $4,000 per acre, resulting in a total purchase cost of $676,000.”
In July 2007, more than 69% of voters approved the district, a 30-year annual assessment of $25, with the funds used to “assist the city in purchasing land in and around the city that could otherwise be developed,” according to the city’s website.
The city’s 2023-24 open-space acquisition plan noted that by the end of 2022, the city “had approximately 448 acres of developed parkland, just over 136 miles of trails and nearly 11,300 acres of city-owned open space.”
However, those figures didn’t quite meet the city’s stated goal.
The city’s General Plan requires 5 acres of active parkland per 1,000 residents, which based on the November 2020 population figure of about 225,000, put the city in a 677-acre deficit.
In September, the City Council approved 242 acres west of Interstate 5 for its Open Space Preservation District for $1.1 million.
