Representatives from Valencia by FivePoint spoke to a room full of business leaders last week at College of the Canyons in Valencia about their growing community — what they’ve done and what’s yet to come.
Don Kimball, executive vice president of Valencia operations for FivePoint, began with some clarification about Valencia by FivePoint.
“Look, we’re still The Newhall Land and Farming Co., which is what our company was many, many years ago out here, operating and developing the town of Valencia,” Kimball said. “It still exists. It’s a subsidiary part of FivePoint. We just brand ourselves now under the FivePoint brand.”
He spoke about the beginnings of the Valencia by FivePoint project west of Interstate 5, and how in 2017, much of the “crazy stuff” they’d talked about doing “on site” and “off site” has since become a reality. But there’s much more in the works.
The project, he said, includes about 15,000 acres, not including another 16,000 acres that goes into Ventura County. The long-term vision comprises up to 21,500 homes, which Kimball said is about what they built on the east side of Interstate 5 — about 20,000 homes.
“It took us about 50 years — if not 60 — to do the first half of Valencia,” he said. “We’ll probably look at something maybe about half of that, maybe, going forward on the west side. We think we’ll have about another 60,000 residents.”
Homeowners began moving into Valencia by FivePoint’s homes on the west side in 2021. According to a slide in a presentation that Kimball showed, over 1,500 homes have sold to date and 300 restricted affordable family and senior housing units are still coming.
Kimball added that 1,000 homes — or 66% of the homes in the development — sold below the Los Angeles County median home price.
Valencia by FivePoint is most proud, Kimball said, of its balanced master plan community, saying that they’re not just building homes in the Santa Clarita Valley to address the growing housing shortage in greater Los Angeles, but they’re also adding jobs and contributing to economic development.
Additionally, Valencia by FivePoint aims to protect open space and continue designing to achieve net zero emissions of greenhouse gases from the project’s construction and operations.
Among some of the projects addressing those needs, homes have and will continue to have solar power, there’s a growing trail network for neighborhood-provided electric vehicles — golf cart-like vehicles and e-bikes that members of the community can use on those trails — and as many as 2,000 electric vehicle charging stations will be available within public and commercial areas in the community.
One way to address those net zero goals includes Valencia by FivePoint offering opportunities to new Valencia homeowners to apply to receive exclusive subsidy reimbursements to put toward the one-time purchase of an eco-friendly mode of transportation.
That’s on-site work, Kimball said. The developer is also doing off-site work to address net zero needs. Valencia by FivePoint has gone into disadvantaged communities in L.A. County and completed various projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
According to Kimball, they’ve installed solar panels and cool roofs on residents’ homes, done pool covers at L.A. County and L.A. City pools, which saves natural gas to heat the water — the covers are intended to keep the heat in. They also partnered with the L.A. Dodgers to retrofit Gonzales Park in Compton, adding solar car ports, EV chargers and solar panels to power the field’s scoreboard, among other projects throughout the county.
Another part of the Valencia by FivePoint project they’ve focused on is recreation, which, to Kimball, has always been a priority.
“We built probably 45 recreation centers in the original Valencia community,” he said. “We are big on providing recreational opportunities for our residents.”
That focus, Kimball said, will continue.
As for the growing community and a potential need for a new school in the future, Kimball said Valencia by FivePoint set aside a site for an elementary school, should the Newhall School District decide another campus is warranted.
He added that they’ve also identified a site in the Mission Village area of the development for a new Los Angeles County Public Library.
And, they have a plan for a new permanent fire station in the area.
“Obviously that’s a really, really big topic right now,” Kimball said. “It’s fire suppression, fire protection, fire hardening within communities.”
Sandy Sanchez, vice president of policy at FivePoint, spoke about the project moving forward. She focused on an upcoming part of the plan called the Entrada South development.
“Don spoke to you about what we’re doing in Mission Village, but we’re also implementing that as we move forward through our other villages and through the entitlement process,” she said. “And we’re also looking at 730,000 square feet of commercial within the Entrada South development, and this, again, is to continue to encourage local jobs and good opportunities for businesses to thrive locally, so that we don’t have to get in our cars and go elsewhere.”
She talked about being water conscientious, utilizing purple pipes, which is a pipeline for recycled water, smart irrigation systems so that water isn’t wasted, and drought tolerant landscaping.
The Entrada South development, she said, will include about 1,500 homes, and about 10% of those homes will be designated as affordable housing.
“We’re very proud of that fact because it is very hard to have price-attainable housing like we have in Santa Clarita, let alone affordable housing,” Sanchez said. “So, Don spoke to you about what we’re doing in Mission Village, but we’re also implementing that as we move forward through our other villages.”
Both Kimball and Sanchez said they welcome community feedback and what people would like to see in the coming developments. For more information or to comment, go to ValenciaFuture.com.
