The developer of the former home of the Saugus Speedway is set to take at least another lap through City Hall, with a new plan to replace the warehouse portion of the plan with more housing.
The developers behind Riverview, initially proposed as a mixed-use housing development in Saugus, are now looking to remove a commercial element from the mix in favor of more housing, according to plans presented to Santa Clarita City Hall on Tuesday.
John Musella, a spokesman for developer Integral Communities, did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
A city official confirmed the changes Friday, which The Signal found via a Public Records Act request of Santa Clarita’s Planning Division.
“Their proposal is to replace the previously approved light manufacturing building/portion of the project with residential units,” Jason Crawford, director of community development, said in a text message Friday in response to a question about the proposal. “The previous entitlement is still in effect, but they are asking to replace it with this amendment to the project.”
The new amendment calls for the developer to replace about 100 jobs the project is proposed to bring with 105 dwelling units — 98 duplexes and seven single detached condo units, according to the plans.
The units will vary in size from a 1,703-square-foot three-bedroom, to a 1,988-square-foot three-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom unit, but they’ll all be three stories tall and have tuck-under two-car garages.
The Santa Clarita City Council approved a plan calling for 318 single-family units on 27.8 acres, with about 7.4 acres of light manufacturing, which often involves the assembly, processing and packaging of smaller goods, and it would have created about 100 jobs.
The approval already faced a bit of controversy from the city’s Planning Commission, which rejected Integral Communities’ proposal in September.
Planning Commissioner Lisa Eichman was one of two “no” votes for the commission — which had four members at the time, meaning the 2-2 vote stalled the project.
Eichman said she was concerned there was a 474-home gap between what the property was being zoned for and what’s being asked for by the developer. The gap includes more than 140 affordable-housing units that would need to be built elsewhere, under the city’s Regional Housing Needs Assessment, a state-mandated plan. By calling for more than 90% of the homes to be market rate, the plan also depletes the city’s state-required amount of moderate housing for the area, she said, which also could create challenges for planners down the road.
The Santa Clarita City Council approved the project on appeal two months later, over objections from Councilwoman Marsha McLean, who raised similar concerns.
McLean said the concern for the city — which grew its total number of jobs by around 1% last year in a year-over-year comparison — is that there’s significant potential for economic development that’s not being utilized.
“It’s just that when you continue to approve mixed-use projects without mixed use, it’s just, you know, seems to go against, it goes against my grain,” she said during the hearing.
Mayor Laurene Weste, who personally appealed the commission’s rejection of project on the developer’s behalf, argued against asking the developer, Integral Communities, to try to change the plan, saying that type of commercial element would be tough to attract to the property.
There’s been no date publicly posted for the council’s discussion of the project.
