Santa Clarita city officials confirmed Tuesday that there will be no closure of Bouquet Canyon Road in December, after plans were announced at a community meeting last month that drew strong backlash from residents.
A spokesman for national home-builder Lennar declined to comment Tuesday, but a person familiar with the situation confirmed the closure plans were on hold while the company considers the community feedback it received.
A new community meeting with an update about the plan is expected to happen in January, but a date has not been finalized yet, according to officials. There’s been no announced date for the closure.
The concerns from residents involved the traffic adjustments proposed for a 375-unit Lennar housing development being built on the east side of Bouquet Canyon Road, south of Copper Hill Drive.
The plan the City 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.
When the builder came to the community with its plan for Bouquet Canyon at its first public meeting, the 11-month timeline was roundly criticized by residents who said it would create safety concerns in an emergency and a daily traffic nightmare around morning and evening rush-hour commutes.
The developer shared a website of the 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 that the plan is still a work in progress.
“This realignment is intended to facilitate safer local and regional travel through a more direct route between Plum Canyon Road and Vasquez Canyon Road,” according to the developer’s website. q
The proposed work would remove sections of “old Bouquet Canyon Road” and David Way, keeping “old Bouquet Canyon Road” as one lane in each direction but constructing a “secondary highway,” as well as extending Copper Hill west toward the new realignment, per the website.
That’s one of two significant projects expected to bring change to the canyon.
A little farther up Bouquet Canyon 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 plans for the unincorporated areas call for 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.
