Today, June 5, a front-page story in The Signal introduced a new proposed 10-unit affordable housing project for Walnut Street in Newhall. Take a minute to view a map of the location of the building and how close it sits to Hart High School. To put a 10-unit building where only one family lives now is an impossibility unless there is underground parking, which is not mentioned in the article.
I managed a four-unit building on Kansas Street which had two, two-car garages for the four one-bedroom units. None of the residents at that time utilized their garages for parking because they needed storage and with the proximity to Hart High and students parking off campus consistently, the street parking became non-existent for everyone in the neighborhood of single family homes,
For once I would hope the City Council and Planning Commission will consider such things when they approve any development in the Santa Clarita Valley.
I have attached my personal list of changes to the SCV over the many years I have been here. It seemed like a good idea at the time:
1) The Metrolink, which lately has had to cut back on the number of trips offered.
2) The Chiquita Canyon Landfill and its unfortunate existence in the first place.
3) The city offered to finish the second access into the (Vista Canyon) development when (the developer) ran out of money and for two years a portion of Soledad Canyon Road has been a construction zone with none taking place.
4) The Hartwell project in downtown Newhall that is now up for sale.
5) The Master’s University attempting to change a rural community into a bustling college campus.
6) The former Smiser mule ranch on Wiley Canyon Road, a development in which school expansion for Wiley Canyon Elementary has never been mentioned nor that of Placerita Junior High or Hart High schools.
7) How many stories will the Belcaro development be when it is built in front of the existing single-story school? One good thing: The seniors won’t have children needing education.
8) The former swap meet area and hills conversion to homes, which recently eliminated retail shops so that traffic will be impossible on Soledad.
9) The development on the busy corner of Sierra Highway and Golden Valley Road, which has been pitched as for seniors, but I doubt that includes the hotel. I live in Friendly Valley and we all seem to have two cars so that is not even a logical argument. Drive by and see the extent of the grading and excavation that will need to be completed prior to building, if it is even logical to consider.
If you journey from the Valencia and Newhall areas that far, continue up to Sand Canyon and Soledad and look or turn left and see the six huge apartment complexes occupying that area on the hill along with its new shopping center and traffic.
Has anybody in power considering doing vacancy studies of these developments to see if there is still a demand for more and more and more?
Marybelle Knight
Newhall
Editor’s note: Regarding the parking question on the Walnut Street project, as noted in the June 5 article, the project is seeking an exemption from parking requirements because it is within a half-mile of a major transit stop. State law provides such exemptions for affordable housing projects.
