A property owner’s request was denied unanimously amid concerns about “spot-zoning” for a proposed change to Santa Clarita’s Lyons Avenue corridor plan, during a city Planning Commission hearing Tuesday at City Hall.
The vote was 4-0, with Planning Commissioner Tim Burkhart recusing himself due to the proximity of a property he owns.
The request in front of the commission was for permission to proceed with the study of a self-storage center near the Aldi market, which would have required a text amendment of the corridor plan, as that’s not an approved use.
Phillip Lee, representing the Cerritos-based developer that owns the shopping center at Orchard Village Road and Lyons Avenue, said he’s been trying to lease out the remaining space since Ralph’s left town in 2014. An Aldi market came in 2016, but that left about 26,000 square feet of vacant space, he told the commission.
There has been a very active effort to market the space, he said, from fitness centers to discount stores to furniture warehouses, receiving more than 40 formal rejections, with most citing the parking problem, he said.
A self-storage center wouldn’t have the same requirements for parking as some of those other businesses, he said, which is why it’s a really good fit. He also said that the demand for climate-controlled, indoor, Class-A storage was still high for the region.
Hunt Braly, a registered city lobbyist working on Lee’s behalf, said the request was vital for the center’s viability, noting the rest of the space was 100% leased.
He also told the commission that he wasn’t looking for their approval with the appeal, but only the opportunity to continue to study a plan that ultimately could require the zone change.
City Planning Manager Patrick Leclair said that also meant, in most scenarios for the project, an approval or denial of the applicant’s ability to study the plan likely would result in that plan itself heading to the City Council for a final approval, which the Planning Commission mentioned multiple times in its discussion.
Commissioner Nathan Keith, who also works as a real estate executive, said he saw both sides, noting the city had a plan that was approved, but also “that plans get stale.”
“And so I would be amenable to just — add an extra note of, ‘Let’s look at today’s,’ — let’s just call it, ‘economy, and if it makes sense or not,’ and ultimately, if it doesn’t for them, it’s their choice or not,” he said, deferring to the applicant’s need and the City Council’s ultimate role in approving any text amendment to a city plan.
Planning Commissioner Pamela Verner said she could sympathize with Lee’s challenges from her own professional experience, but expressed a concern about the message that could be sent if the commission overturned the denial.
“I deal with zoning and parking challenges with the city on a daily basis so I understand how challenging it can be to fill those vacant spaces,” Verner said, alluding to her ownership of SCV Commercial Real Estate, a commercial brokerage company.
“But I just feel like we’re setting this precedent now — if we allow it here, and it’s going to affect all of the properties in the LU-3 zoning, then who’s to say someone’s not going to come back to the Soledad Corridor Plan or the Old Town Newhall Specific Plan, or any of the city plans that have been in place.”
Planning Commissioner Lisa Eichman said she’d be hesitant to go against the staff recommendation if the City Council was likely to send the project back through the planning process anyway on a procedural denial.
Two neighbors from nearby Avenida Balita, who said their backyard would share a fenceline with the storage facility, asked for the appeal to be denied. They said the project would severely “disrupt residents’ daily lives” due to unpredictable late-night hours, adding “that level of activity does not belong in the backyard of established family neighborhoods.”
