City and county officials confirmed this week there are a pair of plans for Bouquet Canyon at various stages that will bring more than 650 homes to Saugus.
City planning officials confirmed this week a flurry of recent activity seen up Bouquet Canyon Road is part of a Lennar development of 375 residential units and a realignment of Bouquet Canyon Road.
Just up the road, on vacant land near the intersection of Bouquet and Vasquez canyon roads, Los Angeles County received plans from Synactico Investments for 281 residential lots on nearly 329 acres.
The plan within city limits was approved by the City Council in November 2020, and has seen significant construction activity in the past few months. The plan just north of the city is currently going through the L.A. County approval process, and has not started development.
Lennar plans
Lennar’s Bouquet Canyon construction site is on the east side of Bouquet Canyon Road, south of Copper Hill Drive and just southwest of Camp Joseph Scott, a currently unused facility but designated as “the only county facility for non-serious female/gender-expansive youth” in the future realignment of the juvenile justice system.
The land, a mixture of landscapes — prominent hills on its western side and Bouquet Creek flowing from east to west in the northern part — has drawn attention lately due to the recent fencing and grading activity.
A call to the project’s applicant for Lennar was not returned Thursday.
The development is now in the first of five phases, which will add a residential community consisting of up to 375 attached and detached, two-story, for-sale housing units located within five neighborhoods. The actual building area for the homes is just under 16 acres, according to the 2020 plans.
The first phase is described as Planning Area 1, which is the west side of the project site, where 52 homes are planned for just under 3 acres. The northern portion of that will have nine units with a proposed gated entry and cul-de-sac for access from where Bouquet Canyon Road already exists, opposite Pam Court. The southern portion consists of 43 units with access from the new segment of Bouquet Canyon Road, which is also a part of the plan. City officials indicated the realignment of Bouquet, which is part of the work, is also considered in the city’s general plan.
The second area is the southern side of the project, east of the Canyon Country retail area, where 12 homes are being planned for a three-quarter-acre area.
The third planning area consists of single-family detached homes and an “eight-pack cluster,” which would be accessed by a new road within the planning areas.
“The homes would be designed as two-story structures, generally in clusters of eight units (with varying configurations), with attached, two-car garages on lot sizes averaging 1,635 square feet. Four plans are proposed, with three to four bedrooms and two to three baths, with approximately 1,498 to 1,801 square feet of total living area,” according to the plans.
The fourth planning area has units designed as two-story townhomes with attached, two-car garages, in groups of three attached homes, arranged around a common driveway, and including private backyards. The fifth area’s housing is described as “rowtowns,” designed as two-story, townhome structures, with four to seven attached homes in each “row.”
The plans also call for approximately 75 acres of open space.
Synactico plans
The Synactico project is still being worked on with county officials, according to Chad Stadnicki of Synactico Investments, who indicated Thursday that Synactico was the owner-developer for the property. He said he did not expect to see any action on the project in front of county planners until later next year.
The property is located along Bouquet and Vasquez canyon roads, south of LARC Ranch, where the county recently announced its first progress on a long-awaited water pipeline.
The plans for the unincorporated areas propose the creation of 281 residential lots, 33 homeowner association lots, four water quality basin lots, three L.A. County Flood Control lots, one water tank lot and one Santa Clarita Valley Water Agency lot on 328.7 gross acres, according to the environmental review documents for the plan.
“The development is organized into three areas as follows: Area 1 has 75 residential lots and is located west of Bouquet Canyon Road; Area 2 has 48 residential lots and is located north of Vasquez Canyon Road; and Area 3 has 158 residential lots and is located south of Vasquez Canyon Road.
The plans also call for an entitlement for an administrative housing permit for 15 affordable set-aside units provided at a maximum affordability of 135% area median income or less, in compliance with the county’s inclusionary housing ordinance.
The plans call for 233 acres of the land to remain open space. The planning documents also detail the scale of earthwork involved in the project, which calls for the grading of more than 4 million cubic yards of dirt, and 1.6 million cubic yards of “export/import.” For comparison’s sake, the Hoover Dam has 3.25 million cubic yards of concrete.
The project would be accessible from Bouquet Canyon Road and Vasquez Canyon Road, which are both considered “limited secondary highways,” which refers to its capacity.
There are several road improvements being considered: Vasquez Canyon Road is currently 60 feet wide and will be widened to 80 feet under the plan; Bouquet Canyon Road is currently 40 feet wide and will be widened to 80 feet.
The plans also indicate that the project’s first planning area will be accessed from Bouquet Canyon Road through Riley Street, which will be renamed and widened to 60 feet and will connect to various public streets.
