The city of Santa Clarita got the message loud and clear from a contingent of Bouquet Canyon residents who spoke out at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, and according to City Manager Ken Striplin, “We still have work to do.”
The concerns came from residents around a 375-unit Lennar housing development being built on the east side of Bouquet Canyon Road, south of Copper Hill Drive. The residents said they did not like what was shared at a recent community meeting held by the developer.
An 11-month closure planned for a stretch of Bouquet Canyon Road was widely panned for a number of reasons, which prompted Striplin to distance the city from it, saying it was not approved, and it will be revised.
The plan the council approved Nov. 10, 2020, suggested closing off a section of Bouquet Canyon Road, between Pam and Hob courts, along with construction of a new alignment of the road and extending Copper Hill Drive.
Significant grading work began to be noticed by the community earlier this year as part of significant activity expected in the area, which also includes a new bike park expected to be completed soon.
The developer shared a website of their plan, which included a map, on a website it created called bouquetcanyonroad.com. The city released a more “user-friendly” version Wednesday, according to Carrie Lujan, communications director for the city, adding the that the plan is still a work in progress.
The project’s developers held an outreach meeting mentioned by several of the residents, which drew a number of concerns, according to Cheryl Redmond, a Saugus resident who laid out a list of problems she and several of her neighbors had with the information at the meeting.
When reached Wednesday, a representative for Lennar indicated the developer “has no comment as the detour plan is a requirement of the city,” and referred comment to city officials.
During the project’s original approval, 150 residents signed a petition of protest against the project, which was approved unanimously. There were 35 public comments in favor and 10 opposed.
Now some of those residents are back with the same concerns.
“There are different concerns based on where you live and or work,” Redmond said, adding she had discussed these concerns with a number of her neighbors. “The No. 1 concern for everyone would be the evacuation plan that is not published in case of a fire or other emergency. We have lived on Bouquet Canyon Road for 25-plus years, and have seen fires and flooding.”
There were multiple concerns on the impacts to how people would be able to get around the residential neighborhood.
“No. 2, they have planned improvements to the intersection of David Way, Copper Hill and Bouquet Canyon Road, but the improvements that would allow for an easier flow of traffic are not planned immediately.”
That includes the widening/restriping of Copper Hill, north of Haskell Canyon Road, she said, which she said is already a “bottleneck.”
Another project neighbor, Doug Zabilski, who said he was a retired fire battalion chief, questioned whether the full traffic impacts were considered for the project.
“This report is incomplete, and the brakes need to be pumped until it is complete. This is going to be much more than just a minor inconvenience. It’s going to cause ire and it’s just hard to believe that the engineering marvels we have today cannot come up with a plan that would not call for this closure.”
The number of speakers on issues in front of the council prompted Striplin to address the first group of 10 public commenters, and then the rest were given an opportunity at the end of the meeting, which some stayed or returned to take.
“Clearly, the speakers have addressed a number of issues and they’re issues that need to be resolved,” Striplin said, adding city officials were there and saw the response at the developer-hosted meeting, and it “was not effective” because it “created more questions than it did answers.”
“The detour plan that was presented is not the final plan; it’s not approved,” he told the council. “City staff was there. They heard loud and clear the concerns that were raised, then the concerns that are raised tonight, and we still have work to do.”
He also said there would be more meetings between city planners and Lennar on the plan, and then with the public, to address the concerns.
“And we will be back out with the developer in the community to have conversations about what the detour may or may not be, what the mitigation efforts may be,” Striplin said. “But it is not a foregone conclusion, and we will get back with the residents to try to resolve the issues as best we can.”
