A pair of local environmentalist groups filed an appeal Friday of L.A. County’s approval of the Homestead South project, a 3,600-home FivePoint Valencia community started more than two decades ago as part of what was then called Newhall Ranch.
The homes would be built west of The Old Road and south of State Route 126, west of Mission Village, another portion of the Valencia by FivePoint project, which is currently under construction.
The Santa Clarita Organization for Planning and the Environment and the Friends of the Santa Clara River co-signed a 13-page letter to the county Board of Supervisors, which claims, among other concerns, that a 2014 Notice of Preparation for the project found a separate environmental impact report, or EIR, was due.
The project’s appeal is expected to be heard by the Board of Supervisors at a future meeting.
“Now, 12 years later and many changed circumstances, the L.A. County Planning (Department) found that an EIR is no longer needed in spite of many changed circumstances and increased development projects far beyond what the 2012 General Plan anticipated due to state-mandated densification,” according to the letter signed off by leaders from both SCOPE and the Friends of the Santa Clara River.
Representatives for FivePoint, which is the parent company of The Newhall Land and Farming Co., the entity that had the original Newhall Ranch plan adopted in 2003, did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
“(The) Newhall Ranch Specific Plan considers the changes in society and the economy that may occur over the 25-year buildout of the community,” according to the L.A. County Regional Planning Department’s website. “The Specific Plan also establishes the protection of open areas next to the community and two large special resource management areas totaling approximately 6,170 acres.”
The appeal formally submitted Monday disagrees with county planners’ contention that an EIR is no longer needed.
The letter states several grounds for this disagreement, including: new findings and evacuation requirements for building in a “very high severity fire hazard zone”; the project’s location, directly across the Santa Clara River from an active, 90-acre underground trash fire at the now-shuttered Chiquita Canyon Landfill, as well as the waste-disposal infrastructure and air-quality questions that situation brings; a climate-change impact study, which was not a state requirement during the 2003 approval; and addressing any recent additions to the endangered-species list.
Another contention in the letter is that the project went relatively unnoticed, from a public-meeting perspective, with no official community meetings on the project since 2014. FivePoint indicated to the Castaic Area Town Council that Homestead South wasn’t being presented to them because the project was just outside the council’s boundaries on the south side of the Santa Clara River.
There were 26 people who came in person to the Regional Planning Commission July hearing in Downtown Los Angeles.
Lynne Plambeck, president of SCOPE, was the lone voice of opposition during a discussion of the project in front of the commission, which gave its unanimous approval July 29.
During his presentation to the commission, Alex Harrell, senior vice president of FivePoint, highlighted several environmental protections in the housing development that came from the legal process and community discussion.
Addressing some of Plambeck’s comments, Harrell said at one point during the hearing that previous project studies addressed concerns about the potential impact to the local habitat and the project’s infrastructure.
County staff said a denial required evidence of a “specific adverse impact on public health or safety, and no feasible method to satisfactorily mitigate any significant impact.”
During public comment, residents of the nearby FivePoint neighborhoods shared how they loved the master-planned elements of the community, which several said improved their lives.
A number of the environmental protections in the project came from a previous lawsuit that was settled more than a decade ago, in what the plaintiffs referred to as a “landmark” victory against Newhall Ranch/FivePoint Valencia: a housing development expected to create a “net-zero” impact on greenhouse gases, through a number of measures, and the creation of a spineflower reserve.
The Centers for Biological Diversity, which was one of the parties that brought forth that action, said it could not comment on the project due to the terms of the previous settlement.
The Homestead South Project will be accessible from Long Canyon Road to the north and Magic Mountain Parkway to the west, and the plans ask the county to authorize the extension, realignment and expansion of Magic Mountain Parkway and Long Canyon Road, which are both secondary highways on the county’s master plan, according to the project description.
The breakdown of those homes would come from a variety of neighborhoods, mostly in 50 multifamily lots that would have 3,051 detached and attached residential condominium, townhouse and apartment units within 1,013 buildings.
There also would be 566 single-family lots and several hundred affordable housing units would also be considered for the multifamily portion. In compliance with L.A. County’s housing ordinance, approximately 10% of the units, or 362 homes, are scheduled to be built as affordable.
