Imagine my surprise when I read the Nov. 28 edition of The Signal to find an article about a possibly leaked plan for the Valencia Town Center project.
Apparently, the new owners, Centennial, have revived a previously failed plan to build a Costco outlet, along with a multi-pump — as in 25 to 30 pumps — gas station as part of the new Town Center. I, and over 250 of my neighbors, fought this Costco project back in 2020 because of its significant negative impact on our community, our mall, and our local environment. At the time, those of us who opposed this project referred to it as the “stealth project” for its lack of transparency and the shameless attempts to expedite its approval through the city’s review process.
Imagine the same kind of — actually worse — traffic congestion, noise pollution, fumes from idling vehicles, possible soil and water contamination from rain runoff and fuel spills; significant re-configuration of Valencia Boulevard, Magic Mountain Parkway, Citrus Avenue, and possibly McBean Parkway — not to mention the damage, both during and after construction, to our streets, and the corresponding air pollution, from convoys of construction equipment during the two- to three-year project followed by the fleet of fuel trucks delivering fuel at all hours.
And, by the way, the city will be responsible for the increased and ongoing costs to maintain the degraded roadway infrastructure resulting from the increase in heavy-vehicle traffic — i.e., Costco product delivery trucks and fuel trucks. Added to the above is the negative effect such a large-scale fuel facility will have on our visual aesthetics from both the fueling site and its accompanying weather and lighting canopies.
As the former project manager for a large local municipality’s fuel tank and piping replacement project created to meet the year 2000 federal deadline for double-wall tanks and piping, I have extensive and firsthand knowledge of the many hazards that accompany large-scale fuel sites — we referred to them as “super sites” — and fueling operations. In earthquake-prone areas like the Santa Clarita Valley, large concentrations of fuel tanks, piping and aboveground fuel dispensers are not something you want in an area (in close proximity to) an elementary school, a pre-school, a senior living center, a library, our valley’s only hospital high-density residential complexes immediately to the south, east and west, not to mention the residents of the planned Town Center properties, a river, a courthouse; and the seat of city government.
Additionally, Los Angeles is well-known to terrorists as a “target rich environment,” and nothing is more “target rich” than a large concentration of fuel tanks, piping and dispensers situated near a dense retail and population center.
The Costco fueling site plan was a bad idea in 2020, and it is a bad idea now. As far as we know, nothing has changed from the original plan except, perhaps, the fuel site being moved north a few hundred yards. And keep in mind that Costco, for years, talked about building its new outlet in the industrial park where it could avoid many of the health and safety concerns that will negatively affect the Valencia Town Center and surrounding residents, including significant numbers of school-age children.
Centennial Chief Executive Officer, Steven Levin, in a Sept. 5, 2023, press release announcing the new Valencia Town Center project, stated, “…when we approach a redevelopment, it is always in partnership with the community, taking the community’s wants and needs into account.” I wonder if Mr. Levin truly means to extend that level of commitment to, consideration for, and concern about the needs and wants of untold numbers of local residents who will be negatively impacted by the construction and operation of an outsized fueling facility in the center of our town.
An independent environmental impact study should be conducted — with full public transparency and involvement, as well as adequate public notification — before the Costco fueling site plans proceed any further. Hopefully, the city’s Planning Commission will be more objective and less of what many of us perceived as a rubber stamp for the Westfield Group and Costco than they were in 2020.
I, and my 250 like-minded neighbors, are less concerned about a Costco outlet being built as part of the Town Center redevelopment than we are about a major fueling site in our backyard and in the very heart of our westside community. As such, a number of us are considering reactivating our coalition of concerned citizens to oppose this ill-advised plan.
With the current — and I believe more transparent and objective than in 2020 — composition of the city Planning Commission, I hope that plans for this fueling site fiasco will dissipate as quickly as the benzene vapors from a gasoline dispenser.
William Creitz
Santa Clarita
