The Santa Clarita City Council on Tuesday declined to agendize another Placerita Canyon discussion about concerns that a permitting process is letting The Master’s University transform an equestrian neighborhood without giving residents any say.
After residents again came to the council, upset that city-issued high-occupancy permits have created a commune of “campus cottages,” Mayor Bill Miranda said he’d prefer a “wait-and-see” approach to TMU’s pending master plan.
Over a number of years, the campus has steadily expanded its holdings in the area, sometimes with residents approaching the university when they’re ready to move, and in some instances TMU offering above-market value before a home hits the market.
Some estimates have put the number of homes at around 40, out of a total of approximately 415 in the neighborhood. TMU has declined to discuss its holdings, or its plans, for this story.
However, the legal real estate transactions represent the expansion of a “world-class university” the community should be proud of, Miranda said Wednesday.
He understands the residents’ situation, but maybe some of the residents weren’t fully understanding of the university’s role, or the city’s, he said.
TMU is a longtime presence, and it has property rights, too, he said. And he intimated that he also was open to seeing more change in the canyon.
“And as it turns out, (TMU is) a major property owner in the (Placerita Canyon Special Standards District),” he said. “So, you know, I’d be hesitant to take away their rights, but I don’t want to take away the special district’s rights, either. I get it, but there’s, there’s an in-between, middle point where they can both realize their needs and not interfere with the other. And let’s find that. Let’s find that middle ground. But to turn around and say, ‘We’re a special district in perpetuity’ — that’s not a word that I like being used when I wear my City Council hat.”
Jason Crawford, director of community development in Santa Clarita, said in a phone interview that, based on TMU’s currently approved master plan, it’s not able to build anymore until the planned extension of Dockweiler Drive is completed. City officials previously said the extension of the road is a two-year process expected to begin shortly.
Crawford also confirmed TMU has presented several new proposed structures for informal review, but the city has indicated any other approved construction would need to be presented through a revised master plan, which would be a public process.
Penny Hand and Chris Townsley were two of the residents who spoke out Tuesday over concerns about the potential changes to the campus first reported in The Signal in October.
Hand said her concern was the “ever-increasing number of homes” in the Newhall area, which was estimated at around 40 by the Placerita Canyon Property Owners Association. The unbridled growth, which has put as many as a dozen or more students in single-family homes, has caused problems with parking and safety, she said.
“The situation is exacerbated by at least seven additional boarding houses in the neighborhood, where owners are renting out rooms and guest houses to students,” Hand said Tuesday at the council meeting. “Single-family homes lack the structural capacity, and this overcrowding dramatically increases risks related to fire safety, electrical overloads and insufficient egress in an emergency.”
During his response to public comment, City Manager Ken Striplin said he is anticipating a revised master plan from TMU soon, which was required by city staff in response to the changes being requested by TMU.
Mason Nesbitt, spokesman for TMU, said the university is working with the city on its plans.
“We continue to work closely with the city and to follow their process regarding future development of our campus,” he wrote in an email Wednesday. “To that end, we are in the process of revising our master plan and intend to submit it soon. Our goal is to ensure that our plans both preserve the beauty and character of the Placerita Canyon neighborhood and allow us to most effectively serve our growing student body.”
Councilwoman Marsha McLean didn’t care to wait for the university to do something while more and more residents were becoming upset by what’s going on. She called for the council to agendize a discussion of what’s going on and what the city might be able to do in a regulatory capacity.
In response, Councilwoman Laurene Weste, who owns multiple acres near the campus zoned for mixed-use development, asked City Attorney Joe Montes about housing-density laws and whether the city could really impose its will on the college in terms of housing.
Weste’s point was that due to state housing laws, the city could do little to impose its will on the university, even if there was a desire to do so.
“Recent state legislation has severely curtailed the city’s ability to regulate the development of housing,” Montes said Tuesday, adding every year dozens of new laws are enacted that grant developers more power to build as a means of solving the state’s declared housing shortage.
“In terms of specifically restricting the housing and density in Placerita Canyon, we have not looked at that, recently, in connection with these new laws.”
He also said that, without the city’s permit program, the city would have no way of tracking what was going on with respect to occupancy.
“So based on the comments that were just made, (TMU) can go ahead and they can buy up more houses and they can have more students stay in those houses, and we have no control over that,” McLean said. “I really don’t accept that we don’t have control over stuff — there seems always a way to talk about things and to try to make things better.”
Montes reminded the council the topic wasn’t on the agenda, and there would need to be an agendized discussion to talk about any further action. But there was no additional call to do so after McLean’s comments.
Miranda said Wednesday there needs to be more communication between the two sides to bridge their differences.
“We can say that we want TMU to have a plan. We can encourage them to submit the plan sooner rather than later. We could do that,” he said. “And I think both entities would probably need to sit down and discuss their goals and objectives.”
