A local environmentalist group is suing the L.A. County Board of Supervisors over a decision last month to allow 510 homes to be built next to Towsley Canyon Park.
New Urban West’s latest project is looking to develop land west of The Old Road and south of Sagecrest Circle near Stevenson Ranch.
Jonathan Frankel, a New Urban West executive on the project, said the plans will help the county in a much-needed area: attainable housing.
“We know that housing affordability remains the leading challenge in our entire region, and the project works to meet this challenge head on, include 71 affordable homes, and that exceeds the county’s on-site inclusionary housing requirement by nearly 300%, nearly three times what is otherwise required,” Frankel told county planners at the July project hearing in front of the Department of Regional Planning.
The Santa Clarita Organization for Planning and the Environment, or SCOPE, appealed planning’s approval to the Board of Supervisors in August “in an effort to address fire and habitat concerns,” according to an email from Lynne Plambeck, president of SCOPE. “It will destroy around 300 protected trees, approximately 260 oaks, of which 18 are heritage oaks, and it will underground several streams. It will also place future residents in a Very High Severity Fire Hazard Zone with inadequate evacuation and high to unobtainable insurance rates.”
Plambeck’s letter also said the county’s repeated approvals for senior homes in areas with a high fire concern “is just bad planning.”
In a statement Thursday, John Musella, spokesman for New Urban West, also brought up the open space that would be preserved by the project, at a rate of 1.25 acres per home.
“The Trails at Lyons Canyon has extraordinary community benefits including miles of new public trails, preservation of hundreds of acres of open space and affordable housing for seniors,” Musella wrote. “We’re grateful the L.A. County Board of Supervisors unanimously upheld the Planning Commission’s unanimous approval.”
The appeal and now lawsuit state several “hopes” for the project: that a fire station would be included, as was guaranteed in a 2008 plan for the area; that The Old Road would be widened at least to the Calgrove Boulevard exit to ensure timely fire evacuation; back-up energy storage would be required for the four-story senior apartments for seniors to ensure lights and a functioning elevator in the event of a multiday power outage; and better protection for the significant ecological area, oak trees and mountain lion habitat.
Plambeck indicated in a phone call Thursday that no court date had yet been set for the lawsuit.
