The Santa Clarita City Council on Tuesday approved 107 more condominiums for a Saugus property weeks before the area was scheduled to get its first district representative.
The City Council voted 5-0 on the city staff recommendation to change its previous city entitlement for the Riverview project, which included a potential offer of land from a developer, which is now going to be more condos.
The staff recommendation that the council approved for the site of the former Saugus Speedway called for the city to: accept an offer of $1.6 million to city coffers, in exchange for giving up a future city claim on a 7.4-acre parcel next to Soledad Canyon Road; and allowing the developer to build 107 condos on the land it’s no longer required to offer to the city.
Integral Communities, the developer expected to partner with Lennar on the residential portion, said it was asking for a change on its 2024 entitlement on the former home of Saugus Speedway, because it couldn’t find tenants for the 127,000-square-foot manufacturing element.
City Councilman Jason Gibbs said Wednesday he was inclined to approve the developer’s ask, because, as Gibbs put it, “I believe they had the law on their side.”
He reiterated a legal question that City Attorney Joe Montes raised during the discussion.
“The project still falls under the Housing Accountability Act, and regardless of the original deal, there was still significant concern that should the council refuse to approve the additional housing on a site — when there is a mechanism in the municipal code that allows for the removal of the commercial piece in exchange for simply having residential — that we could be violating state law and put ourselves into a legal issue,” Gibbs said.
The original Riverview plan approved by the City Council, over objections from the city’s Planning Commission, called for 318 market-rate condos on 27.8 acres of the property surrounding the 22500 block of Soledad Canyon Road. Tuesday’s request renamed the 7.4-acre parcel as Riverview West.
The Planning Commission objected to the way the developers were being allowed to ignore the amount of housing that city planners had initially “considered” for the site. The 318 homes were several hundred fewer than what the city initially expected to be built on the property. It was also expected to have a much higher allotment of affordable housing.
Mayor Laurene Weste appealed the project on the developer’s behalf, bringing it before the council.
During the approval process in 2024, residents upset over the loss of jobs from the former swap meet site were told there would be more jobs coming with the mixed-use portion of the project. A city estimate called for about 100 jobs to be created through the light industrial portion. The
127,000 square feet had been envisioned to include a sound stage and other light manufacturing uses, according to a presentation Tuesday from Integral Communities. Failing that construction, after three years, Integral was to make an “Irrevocable Offer of Dedication” to the city for the commercial portion.
The developer tried for several years to find a partner, according to Ninia Hammond, the project manager for Riverview.
“We had two tenants fall out of escrow — one of them, because it was proposed for a soundstage, and the next tenant fell out because you can’t truck under the light industrial use, and that’s a very important consideration,” Hammond said.
She said the requested changes in the staff recommendation would create a “cohesive residential community,” which would also mean less traffic for the surrounding neighbors, according to the proposal and its traffic study.
While the real estate in question is considered desirable for development, financing challenges have been repeatedly stated by commercial developers.
Three highly visible examples include: Vista Canyon, which is contemplating a similar type of request to increase the amount of residential units in its plan, according to developer Jim Backer; The Hartwell, a mixed-use project on Main Street, which was entitled and then put up for sale; and Shadowbox Studios, a billion-dollar sound-stage investment planned for Placerita Canyon, which stalled amid rumors about financing challenges. The Placerita Canyon land is now being considered for its housing potential, according to a source speaking on background.
Valleywide, the vacancy rate of industrial space has nearly doubled in the past year, from only 5.4% in the second quarter of 2025 to 10.1% in the most recent figures from the SCV Economic Development Corp.
Ryan House, co-owner of Cornerstone Realty Advisors Inc., said the developer’s valuation made sense from a market standpoint, and he was certainly aware of the challenges in the sector as a local commercial Realtor.
Office space has more than twice its traditional vacancy rate, House said, with the latest SCV EDC figures indicating there’s nearly 4 million square feet available.
House also said the asking price was in line with the land based on the restrictions mentioned and the significant cost to add infrastructure.
Had the City Council upheld its original terms — despite the tacit threat of a lawsuit — the city would have been able to take the highly visible property next to the market-rate housing project and formed a “7-11 committee,” a community group that could have recommended uses to the city for what would be considered a “surplus property,” according to Montes, in response to a question from Gibbs.
Instead, the city accepted $1.6 million from the developer in order to remove the conditional offer of the land to the city. City officials explained the $1.6 million fee for the land as being what the developer had offered, according to city staff.
Incoming City Councilman Brett Haddoak, who recently won election to represent District 2 on the City Council — which includes the Riverview property on Soledad Canyon — asked why the council had to make a decision Tuesday, when he was expected to be sworn in next month as the area’s first elected representative.
Carrie Lujan, communications manager for the city, did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request to speak to the person in charge of the timing of the item on Tuesday’s agenda.
While several of the council members congratulated Haddoak, they continued their discussion and approval of the project.
