Plan’s Demise Could Arrest Development : Santa Clarita: Public outcry over rampant growth forces the city to reject the Santa Catarina condos-for-roads proposal, and the decision may affect politics and planning in the area for years to come.

It was a debate that, in the words of Santa Clarita Mayor Jo Anne Darcy, has “literally torn this community apart.”

After five months of lengthy and often rancorous public meetings, the Santa Clarita City Council last week killed a controversial project in which a developer at one point agreed to provide $55 million in road improvements in exchange for being allowed to build 1,452 condominiums.

Although some City Council members originally hailed the plan as a way to solve traffic problems, they finally bowed to intense public pressure from homeowners who said the project was poorly planned and environmentally unsound.

The political repercussions of the decision will reverberate for some time, setting the stage for new conflicts that may guide planning, growth and politics in the city for years to come, according to those involved in the debate.

The fall of the Santa Catarina project could influence the fate of a growth-control initiative now in the works, the proposed recall of one councilman and the overall way developers conduct business in the Santa Clarita Valley.

In many ways, Santa Catarina acted as a political lightning rod, drawing together various forces in the city, all of which are tied to discontent with the rapid development of the Santa Clarita Valley.

The various movements--for a recall and for growth controls--were symbolically united in the fight over Santa Catarina. “It all started to come together,” said Kevin La Sota, a spokesman for homeowners opposing the project.

As Councilwoman Jill Klajic sees it, the lesson of Santa Catarina is quite simple: “The lesson is, the community out here is sick and tired of development. The community wants to see some control, some restraint.”

The Santa Catarina project took many forms over the months, but G. H. Palmer Associates initially proposed building 1,452 condominiums on 135 acres in Canyon Country, north of Soledad Canyon Road and southwest of Ermine Street.

Santa Catarina was just one part of a complex deal that would have allowed the company to build two other housing projects in the city in exchange for millions of dollars in road improvements that Santa Clarita engineers said the city could not afford to build. But homeowner activists said the project was too large and unsuited for the site, and they charged that the Santa Clarita City Council was willing to let developers run roughshod over the city just to get some roads built. The activists also questioned the need for the roads, saying the new thoroughfares would encourage even more growth in the area.

The activists even enlisted the aid of the state attorney general’s office, which in May said the city should compel Palmer Associates to revise the environmental impact report for the project. The report, prepared by a consultant for Palmer Associates, “inadequately, inaccurately or altogether failed to address a number of significant issues,” the attorney general’s office said in a letter to the City Council.

Council members tried to placate homeowners by saying that they would allow no more than 800 dwelling units on the site. But when the developer said he could not afford to scale back the project, the council said it would allow up to 1,292. The council later changed its position again, saying the new cap was 1,000 units.

Developer Dan Palmer, trying to save the deal, said Tuesday night that he could build the project with only 800 units after all. But by then, council members said there was no way they could swiftly resolve the environmental concerns raised by the attorney general and homeowners. What’s more, they said the deal had become too complex and unwieldy to handle. They voted it down 4 to 1.

“The City Council, after months and months and months of public hearings, finally decided to listen to the people,” said John O’Dwyer, a homeowner who was a popular and colorful figure at Santa Catarina hearings, blasting the project with humorous speeches, poetry and even flash cards. O’Dwyer attended council hearings wearing a T-shirt that said: “Just Say No to Devious Planning.”

La Sota, who said he did not think that Santa Catarina would be defeated, said he was encouraged by the outcome because it proved that the City Council was willing to respond to the public. Three of the council members--Darcy, Howard P. (Buck) McKeon and Carl Boyer III--had tried for months to forge a compromise to save the roads-for-condos deal.

“As long as you have the facts, you can fight City Hall,” La Sota said.

Marsha McLean, a civic activist who watches City Hall closely, agreed that the council’s decision to scuttle Santa Catarina would enhance its reputation. “I think that’s to their credit,” she said.

But for Boyer, the lone council member to vote against killing off Santa Catarina, the repercussions could be far more serious.

Shortly after Tuesday’s vote on the project, Boyer was formally presented a notice by a citizens group calling for his recall. The notice said Boyer ignored the will of residents and promoted bad planning.

The demise of Santa Catarina, meanwhile, has buoyed the hopes of a citizens group that hopes to place a growth-control measure before city voters, perhaps by next spring.

“I feel it just makes us even more convinced that we’re going to win,” said John Drew, spokesman for the group known as Citizens Assn. for a Responsible, Residential Initiative on Growth, or CARRING.

The group was recently encouraged by a public opinion poll, commissioned by the city, that found that 60% of those surveyed would support a slow-growth initiative. The initiative is still being drafted, but Drew said it would probably place limits on the number of units that could be built each year and set forth the criteria that would be used when the council considers a development proposal.

The activists who opposed the Santa Catarina project formed a grass-roots organization that wisely used the expertise of citizens who are lawyers, engineers or planners, Drew said. These professionals were able to pick apart the project’s environmental impact report, a move that lead to the project’s demise. CARRING is confident that it can duplicate that strategy, he said.

The failure of Santa Catarina also puts developers on notice that they will have to win the support of homeowners if they expect to get their projects approved, Klajic said.

What’s more, homeowners will demand that developers build parks, donate money for schools or build roads as the price of their support. “This is a good message to the developers--that they’re going to have to give a lot more than they have been giving to develop here,” McLean said. “And that’s a good message.”

Developers are already unpopular in the Santa Clarita Valley, a city that incorporated in part because of the fear of overdevelopment. But the Santa Catarina debate lowered their stature even further. O’Dwyer, La Sota and other critics regularly charged that Palmer Associates treated homeowners with disrespect and disdain. Company officials said they were frank and responsive with residents.

“They poisoned the well not only for themselves but for the rest of the development community,” said Allan Cameron, a planning and political consultant for developers in the valley. Cameron said developers will have to work hard to overcome the stigma of Santa Catarina.

Other developers, meanwhile, said Santa Catarina could scare off builders who otherwise might want to annex into the city of Santa Clarita.

Just a few hours after the Santa Catarina proposal was killed, Gary Cusumano, chief operating officer of Newhall Land & Farming Co., the valley’s leading developer, told the City Council that he did not want to have company property west of the Golden State Freeway annexed into the city.

“There’s a considerable amount of unrest in this community,” Cusumano told the council. The defeat of Santa Catarina, coupled with the initiative drive by CARRING, sets the stage for growth controls that could inhibit Newhall Land’s future building plans, he said.