The Santa Clarita City Council voted 4-1 Tuesday to deny an appeal from a Cerritos property manager, with Mayor Laurene Weste making an argument for the appellant’s request to change a general plan over several concerns from her council colleagues about “spot zoning.”
The squabble involved the owner of a retail center at the northeast intersection of Lyons Avenue and Orchard Village Road — a high-priority area for the city — who wants to lease out about 26,000 square feet of building to a “class-A, climate-controlled” self-storage facility.
The problem is, the city’s planning staff told the property owner nearly four years ago that a self-storage facility was not an allowed use for that area, according to a staff presentation by planner Andrew Olson.
The owner moved ahead with the application, which was denied by the city’s director of community development, who cited the City Council’s stated preference for not putting self-storage in areas like the Lyons Avenue intersection.\
Hunt Braly, representing the property owner as a registered lobbyist, said the owner just wanted the city’s permission to study a change to the current zoning, which his client would cover.
“I don’t understand why we’re here,” said Councilwoman Marsha McLean, who shared a similar sentiment to Councilman Bill Miranda, saying the developer’s issue was one he needed to solve, not one for the council to change its general plan or unified development code over.
“You’re asking to open up and set a precedent that would allow others to come in and say, ‘You did it for them, you have to do it for us.’ And that’s not the kind of use that’s really conducive to uplifting an area.”
The council approved changes to its development code in 2003 in direct response to concerns about placing self-storage projects in high-trafficked corridors, in response to a project that had been approved in such an area that upset council members at that time, according to comments Tuesday from City Manager Ken Striplin.
However, as Phillip Lee, the property applicant, pointed out, there has been more than one project similar to his approved by the City Council since that code change was made limiting storage facilities.
Lee mentioned a self-storage project that was approved later that same year, in 2003 — a council that included McLean and Weste. City records also show a Valley Center project was approved in November of 2020 by a City Council that included McLean, Weste and Miranda, which allowed a minor use and a conditional use permit for a nearly 4-acre, three-story self-storage facility next to the cross-valley connector.
Jason Crawford, the city’s director of community development, said Wednesday that there were setbacks on the 2003 storage project that gave it a different consideration from the council. The 2020 project had an adjacent zoning that made it legally permissible for the property owner to ask for a zoning change.
Lee told the council his company bought the property in 2014, when Ralph’s was an anchor tenant.
Then Ralph’s left a 46,000-square-foot space there and Aldi took over about 20,000-square-feet, leaving the owner with about a half-acre of viable commercial property sitting there unused.
Lee said he has marketed the space using local and national advertising, and he’s received more than 40 rejections by everyone from gym owners to furniture retailers who have told him there’s not enough parking there for their needs.
McLean essentially told him he should have thought of that when he leased about half the available space there to Aldi. She also said that space was designed to be retail and create jobs, which a storage space won’t do.
Miranda questioned whether the property owner was being flexible enough on his price point considering the market had not responded in more than a decade.
“I will tell you, as a former business person that doesn’t make sense to me, that absolutely does not make sense to me,” Miranda said. “You have space to rent, and you’re saying you can’t rent it, 14 years, and I’m saying, ‘Are you trying to make a deal, or are you trying to get what you want in terms of rent, and won’t make a deal.’”
Lee could be seen shaking his head in response from his seat.
Weste said she felt supporting the business and filling the space was a higher priority than strict adherence to the code, and economic need wanted to be considered.
“Vacancies in our city, when they’re massive and there’s a lot of them, are detrimental to the overall health of the community and to the city,” Weste said, “so you have to think about what can come out of it.”
