Sand Canyon residents aired out concerns for hours Tuesday on the new Belcaro senior-housing community proposed for Sand Canyon, at Lost Canyon Road.  At the end of the project’s second hearing, the Santa Clarita Planning Commission ordered staff to bring it back on an as-yet-un determined date, along with recommendations for conditions of approval the commission can consider passing onto the City Council.   The commission also asked for a month’s notice to review the concerns about the project and the applicant’s responses to all those concerns, for the third go-round.   In addition to fire-safety and traffic concerns, Sand Canyon residents shared a similar gripe as Placerita Canyon residents have recently — they say the city is ignoring the special standards district that preserves their rural, equestrian lifestyle, in favor of development.  Commission members responded by saying state housing laws really narrow the scope they can use to review a project, leaving their hands tied in many respects.   The discussion at Tuesday’s Planning Commission hearing for Belcaro Sand Canyon brought tough questions and criticisms of traffic studies and the process. The discussion started off with a statement from city staff that it will look at changing how it reviews projects in the future.   There were 31 public speakers on Tuesday, with all but two opposed to the project, which calls for 341 single-family homes on individual lots between Highway 14 and Sand Canyon Country Club, with approximately 30 acres of land north of the railroad tracks there being given to the city as open space.   Before public comment began, John Musella, a spokesman for the project’s developer, New Urban West, highlighted the community benefits from the project.  “The project brings real benefits to the canyon. It adds much-needed senior housing while replacing raw, unmanaged brush with fire-hardened homes that buffer the existing neighborhood from wildfire,” Musella said. “It opens a new, dedicated evacuation route connecting Robinson Ranch Road to Lost Canyon Road, including a full-width road under the railroad, giving the canyon a second way out it does not have today.”  The presentation from city staff stated recognition of concerns from residents about traffic and fire evacuation, which included calls from residents for the expansion of Sand Canyon Road to four lanes and a second bridge.  Residents questioned claims by city staff, the project’s traffic consultants and even L.A. County Assistant Fire Chief Patrick Sprengel, who spoke to the project’s safety based on county and state standards, which were their standard metrics for evaluation.  One of the project’s claims residents found dubious came from a traffic study that reported a roundabout at the project’s main intersection at Lost Canyon Road, even with Belcaro’s buildout, would ultimately make the canyon’s evacuation times improved over a do-nothing scenario, over time, accounting for the surrounding area’s planned development.  Residents were little comforted by that report, questioning how a roundabout like the one proposed could possibly accommodate the commercially sized horse trailers that are used in large-scale evacuations, in addition to an increase in the current traffic volume.  After public comment, Planning Commissioner Tim Burkhart drilled into the metrics used for the traffic studies with Patrick De Guzman, city senior traffic engineer, asking again if the numbers are something the city is willing to stand behind.  De Guzman said, yes, the projected numbers studied do not trigger a two-lane roundabout or four lanes on Sand Canyon, to which Commissioner Lisa Eichman responded flatly, “That doesn’t make sense.”  Burkhart said he understood normal daily volumes might not trigger a requirement for four lanes, but in the interest of safety, questioned how an evacuation scenario wouldn’t require additional capacity.  Sprengel and a plan-check official with the county both vouched for the project’s abidance with the state’s Fire Code, which Sprengel said was his primary responsibility. He also said fuel modification on otherwise raw natural land like the canyon project site would make the area less susceptible to a wildfire.  De Guzman said the traffic-analysis review was based on the city’s general plan, and emergency-evacuation scenarios aren’t contemplated in level-of-service traffic studies — those are part of a different study.   De Guzman said there was no standard or comparative study for “how evacuation analysis contributes to the … daily operation for level of service,” and that “the city’s standard guidelines are what we use.”  Burkhart said he understood the importance of standards, but he didn’t like the idea that city staff shouldn’t contemplate a public-safety scenario just because there’s no standard for it.  Commissioner Pam Verner also questioned how the design of a two-lane roundabout at that intersection wouldn’t create daily gridlock at school-dismissal times, which is anticipated to a certain degree, in the plan. A report anticipates a 15-minute clearance time for the roundabout around school pickup and dropoff times.   She also said that the project’s traffic study appeared to look at a small charter school at a neighboring site on Lost Canyon Road, whereas the current plans are for a campus expansion by Santa Clarita Christian School, which would add about 375 students there every day. Eichman added that parents in a hurry for school pickups and dropoffs were unlikely to strictly adhere to the proposed new, complicated traffic diagram, calling the two-lane plan “a disaster waiting to happen.” Eichman said looking into the specifics of the safety elements was the most important thing the commission could do, due to recent state laws that limit local control on housing projects.  Several residents mentioned the 2016 Sand Fire, which resulted in the death of a man who didn’t evacuate in time, as to why the concerns were a life-or-death scenario for canyon residents. “I don’t want blood on my hand — because people are gonna … this looks like, people are gonna die here,” Eichman said to applause from Belcaro’s opposition, which she then shushed so she could finish her comment.  “I don’t want the project, period, I don’t think it’s the right place for it, but I think our hands are tied in a lot of ways,” she said.  Verner said positive things about the project and the developer but also mentioned that she didn’t like how it violated the special standards district and didn’t feel like this was the best place for it. She also said the state’s housing laws limited how the city could review the project.  Prior to the start of the discussion, city Planning Manager Patrick Leclair read a statement that explained the city’s process behind the Belcaro hearings and also promised to change it going forward.   The first hearing on the project was held about 24 hours after the city staff released the project’s draft environmental impact report to the commission. It contained 7,000 pages of study, and provided limited time for the commission to review and discuss possible concerns before the meeting.   It was questioned because it further limited the commission’s opportunity to address the anticipated concerns, in light of state law that limits the project to a total of five public hearings, which includes City Council review. The next hearing will be the project’s third.  “We understand the concerns and frustrations over the review timeline in the face of the ever-changing legislative landscape,” Leclair said in his statement. “Given that, we will make changes to our process, and we’ll make sure the commission and public have the necessary time to review environmental documents before the first public hearing for future housing projects.”  The Santa Clarita Planning Commission unanimously followed the staff recommendation to continue the talk on the Belcaro Sand Canyon project for a third hearing, which is expected to be scheduled for 30 days after the project’s environmental impact report is complete.   The impact report would have the developer’s responses to all of the public comments, as well as any additional items brought up during the public-comment period. There also would be proposed terms of approval for the commission to consider as recommendations to the City Council, which ultimately has final approval on the project.   “Since a date has not been set yet, all of the standard noticing will be completed prior to it being scheduled again at a Planning Commission meeting, including updating the new meeting date on the public hearing signs, posting the notice in The Signal and sending notification to residents within 1,000 feet of the project, as well as everyone on the project interest list,” wrote Jason Crawford, community development manager for the city, in a text Wednesday.   “The Planning Commission requested that the Final EIR be released 30 days prior to the next public hearing to allow the public and the commission additional time to review before the meeting. So, we will make sure that happens.”  He said the release of the agenda report, including the draft conditions requested by the Planning Commission, will be posted on the Thursday prior to the hearing, which is standard.  The post Commission, residents question traffic plan for Belcaro appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal. ...read more read less