Not in my backyard. NIMBY. Where are we going to get the water? What about traffic? It could take us hours to get to the valley. Will the electrical power be available? And schools – what about the schools?
Just what is a “planned community”? Why here and now?
Is this talk about the Newhall Land developments west of Magic Mountain and South of Highway 126? Yes and no. This is the talk we heard as Valencia was being planned and built in the mid-1960s.
As much as I don’t like my home valley being filled with homes and malls, I must admit it is pretty well planned. Traffic flows OK even at rush hour. There are lots of trees along the major streets and in the individual neighborhoods.
Before Valencia, the area north of Lyons Avenue was nearly devoid of trees. The area was mostly onion fields and some dirt roads. There wasn’t any way to get from what is now Magic Mountain Parkway to Lyons. Of course there wasn’t a need for people to want to do that.
Some of the early designs for Valencia showed high-rise buildings on the ridges west of what is now McBean Parkway. Thankfully that didn’t happen.
Those of us here in the SCV prior to Valencia may think it was better back then – but was it? For major shopping, we had to go to “The Valley.” Except for buying a Ford or Chevrolet, we had to go to “The Valley”. Many drove to “The Valley” to go to work.
Late summer and fall, the whole SCV smelled of onions being harvested. It was also a busy time at the stockyard, so we had that smell, too. There were dairy farms in Placerita Canyon and up Bouquet Canyon, plus a large hog farm and another farm for turkeys.
We had Newhall, Saugus, Castaic, Val Verde, Agua Dulce and Acton. Streets and infrastructure were designed and maintained by the county, when it was done. That wasn’t that often.
Some fairly major developments, at the time, were put in place: Bonelli Tract and North Oaks, to name a couple. Those places were built without concern for access roads and traffic flow on Soledad Canyon Road or Highway 6 (aka Sierra Highway).
So along came Valencia and we all screamed, “NOT IN MY BACKYARD.” Then we started to see that it really was well planned. Newhall Land and Farming could have designed the streets in a straight grid pattern like “The Valley.” Instead they created what has come to be a pretty, tree-filled town with walkways (paseos), bike paths and well-maintained parks.
Soon we could stay right here in the SCV and do all of our shopping. Our schools remained some of the best in the whole of California and the nation. We even learned that the students at California Institute of the Arts were not all “hippie freaks” as we once feared.
Meanwhile, out on the eastern side of Saugus (called Canyon Country today), home building ballooned with little tracts all over the place. There wasn’t any planning or phasing in the home-building to match the needs and ability of schools to support all those new students. There wasn’t a plan in place for roads. Shopping centers were thrown in here and there without much regard for how a neighborhood would want it or not.
Traffic was becoming a huge problem, too. If you lived in Valencia, you has access to Interstate 5, which had just been completed to replace Highway 99. Highway 14 wasn’t quite ready for prime time, and it wasn’t easy to get on or off of that road near Soledad Canyon Road.
But Valencia was planned and phased in so that the infrastructure was in place or ready to be improved in short order. Want proof of this? Take Lyons, McBean, Valencia, Magic Mountain, or Newhall Ranch to the I-5. Now drive up Soledad to where? Even the new Golden Valley-Newhall Ranch Road is slow. Stoplights are slowing that commute, and you still have the usual Sierra Highway route.
So, lack of planning back when created many of the problems in Canyon Country. Hey, it wasn’t easy in 1966, either.
So, back to the new development near Magic Mountain, south of Highway 126: It appears the battles in the courts are over. The environmental impact reports have been approved. It has taken 20 years for Newhall Land to trudge through the county’s approval process and the court system.
You know that Newhall Land could have given up and sold the land to investors who could have created small little areas that would not be connected or have a organized plan? No planning for infrastructure. No real road improvements. No sites set aside for schools and fire stations. Just small tracts of maybe 100 or so homes at a time.
We’ve seen what little or poor planning has done to our valley. For those of us who watched it grow, we’ve also seen what good planning can be and do.
Do I like to see the hills where I used to ride a horse be taken over by houses and such? Not really, and I will miss those places. But it is private land owned by a private company. Time to stop the nonsense and get on with the future.
The old adage, “You can’t stop progress,” comes to mind at this point. Some don’t consider all of these new homes to be progress. Those who seem to yell the loudest weren’t here when we had nothing. “Hicksville,” “Nothing there but cows, pigs and turkeys, plus a really great place to stop for lunch called Tip’s, when you can’t smell all those cows.”
Maybe we’ve made progress and maybe we haven’t. Whatever happens, we should make sure it is well planned and executed. Newhall Land did it before in Valencia. I think they are up to the job again.
Darryl Manzer grew up in the Pico Canyon oil town of Mentryville in the 1960s and attended Hart High School. After a career in the U.S. Navy he returned to live in the Santa Clarita Valley. He can be reached at dmanzer@scvhistory.com and his commentaries are archived at DManzer.com. Watch his walking tour of Mentryville [here].
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36 Comments
D Chris Young
They’re going to have to do something about the streets and the 5 Fwy is going to get even more horrendous than it is the fact is SVC just doesn’t have enough roads to keep traffic flow through our community even with the Cross connector from the 5 fwy to the 14 Fwy Newhall Ranch Rd/Golden Valley traffic gets built up and the planned roads to help just don’t come fast enough to make a difference. I think that the actual building there won’t be a problem if the City and fixe the existing problems that impact us all.
They need whole new freeway systems.
I thought the City wanted a “ring around the valley” of mountains. Is this “outside” this ring?
Just what SCV needs … more damn people !
Tax revenue. That’s all this is about.
Sigh. So much for the wild beauty of the SCV.
I dislike this!!!
Considering the amount of projected job growth in SCV why should this come as a surprise?
Job growth..please..It has always been more the rule than the exception in SCV that “those who work here don’t get paid enough to live here, and those who live here have to commute to L.A. in order to afford to live here”. So what good will these so called ‘new jobs’ really bring?
Not too sure I agree with the early portrait of SCV before Valencia. I could drive to Hart High in 6 minutes from the corner of Bouquet Cyn. and Seco. We had a Howard and Phil s in Saugus for clothes and the Hubbards in Newhall for everything else. There were also shoes stores and a mens clothing store in down town Newhall. I could also take the back road from 126 (Magic Mtn. PKWY) to Newhall ave. to Lyons. If there was traffic. We also didn’t have these stupid strip malls.
I’ve only lived in SCV for 6 years and if it wasn’t such a convenient commute for my husband, I’d leave tomorrow. The traffic is already terrible in this town. People are too much in a hurry, rude, tailgating, not following traffic laws, accidents all over the place…it’s horrible. And I’ve lived in places like Houston and thought that was bad until we moved here. This valley is overcrowded, the schools are all overcrowded, crime is on the rise…I can’t imagine this many more people added to this area. I’m just hoping that since it took 20 years to get approval that it takes another 20 years before all these new homes and shopping centers actually get built. Good planning or not, this town doesn’t need more people.
Don’t know about a short 6-year time span, but actually crime is a LOT lower than it was 20 years ago or 30 years ago. And even 20-30 years ago we were significantly lower than the L.A. County average.
And they will all be commuting elsewhere for work most likely
I have only been in the SCV for nine years. I have seen the traffic change in that short amount of time. I liked it nine years ago, more than now. I like the open spaces and the hills and mountains. Due to the drought conditions, I am against building more homes, at this time. But I understand progress, too. Good article.
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Great they can add 20 more lights with more left turn arrows and it will take another 20 mins to get across town oh yea :/
I have stated that for years no one wants to believe it.
How much interest does bob Kellar have in this. Scv could have bought that land and kept it.
We can’t sell the over priced garbage in Scv now let alone, create more. Can’t fill our retail, or any of our huge industrial center. They are at 56% the city will not tell you that.
Then build bones rather than mini malls it’s the high rents that put industry from filling those stores not the fact that there’s to many of them. Do t forget that Disney is building studios on the other end of SVC and those jobs cod be filled by ppl who will buy homes and shop in SCV adding to tax revenue of SVC and there is the fact that Six Flags MM could possibly provide more year round opportunities for out youth in the jobs area. There’s a lot happening around SCV as long as traffic flows and they keep open areas then it’s ok.
And it would help that dead area of restaurants over on the old road I know so many owners who have closed there because they can’t make the business work for lack of clients this area needs help
Can’t wait to move outta here
I am really looking forward to the new development Marlee Lauffer :)
Hasn’t this been on going for 20 years or so? Kinda late to the dance to complain……
Go Kings Go!!!! ;)
^ awesome
The environmentalists have only lost a small battle. If they’ve made this a serious cause du jour, they’re not going to give up so easily when they could seek remedy in appellate court, then state Supreme Court, all the way to SCOTUS. They could get the EPA in intervene as well. I wouldn’t get too excited yet.
And I am sure the developers will fill this up with a ton of three-story apartment buildings, none with elevators, and cram as many rent payers in there as possible. Affordable housing it will NOT be, I will bet money on that. Can’t we just have a little more open space around us? I have lived here since 1996, before Stevenson Ranch was developed, and have seen the changes that go with too many apartments and high density housing, and it is not pretty. The traffic is horrible, and of course, more progress means more crime. Just because we plant a few trees, that doesn’t mean we are mitigating overpopulation for what our water and infrastructure can bear. We can’t even flush our toilets now.
Excuse me , but Darryl manzer….you haven’t ived here in umm 20 years!!! How are you so knowledgeable???
You don’t live here!!!!! You haven’t since.25.. 30 years ago!!! You lived in Virginia, Kentucky…???
??? If Darryl Manzer has not lived here in 30 years, I wonder who the Darryl Manzer I have been having lunch with and going to Heritage Junction Newhall functions with is? It is the same Darryl Manzer who has been living in our little slice of heaven for two and one-half years now. He lives here, he knows what goes on here, and he, unlike some, has a lot of brains and acumen under all that hair on his head.
Christopher Tobin
I Hate this plan..Money talk’s and Bull-s____ walks comes to mind.
The traffic flows at rush hour? Yeah, right! It doesn’t take much to bring the traffic in the Newhall Pass to a crashing stop on the freeway, the Old Road, Balboa and Foothill. We could surely use a few more cars in the mix!