Today’s Signal Opinion page featured several excellent opinion pieces on the hot topics of growth, density, sprawl and even -dare I say it- “small-town cronyism.” For local news geeks like me, it’s an opinion page I’ll save, or perhaps even frame.
For the main Opinion pieces in today’s paper, the Signal went to two sources who are quite in the know on local issues: Mayor Bob Kellar and Tim Myers, who’s column marks the first time we’ve heard from him in the Signal for several months.
Headlined is the question, “Urban or suburban? The future of the SCV,” and the two writers wasted no time jumping into the fractious, emotional debate over who we are and what we are to become.
Bob Kellar
In his column, Kellar said its incorrect to frame the matter in an either/or way. He says it’s “been a long time since Santa Clarita was a bedroom community,” thanks to all the businesses that have selected Santa Clarita as their home. But we’re not quite an urban center either, Kellar says, nor are we just a simple suburb to Los Angeles.
Kellar mentioned twice in his article that Santa Clarita needs to be a sustainable community, one where a balance between jobs and homes is achieved and where “dependence on the automobile” is reduced.
In trying to achieve that goal, Kellar says in the column that tools such as “mixed use [projects], greater density, and urbanization in specific areas” may need to be used to “create more livable and walkable neighborhoods…while at the same time reducing the sprawl of subdivision development over every hillside in the Santa Clarita Valley.”
Hot damn! Did he say what I just think he said? Our population is expected to swell to around a half million people, and Kellar seems to believe that we ought to build “up” rather than “out” in some places in order to combat sprawl. Yes, that’s right, our Mayor Bob Kellar, who made his fortune selling suburban bedroom community homes, has seen the light!
Overall the goal, Kellar says, is to build a community with a “strong jobs-and-housing balance” that creates wealth and generates higher property values.
Tim Myers
So now that we know what Kellar has to say on the matter, let’s look at Myers’ column.
Myers digs into the power and misleading nature of each catch phrase, that being “suburban bedroom community” versus “urban center.”
“Now these two terms possess a similar factual construct, but one’s feelings about them depend on one’s point of view,” Myers says, mentioning that to some, an “urban center” means a place for liberal elitists, while to others, a “suburban bedroom community” means a place devoid of life, a cultural “wasteland.”
Myers seems to agree with Kellar in that this isn’t a question of either/or. He cites a recent Economist article in which Valencia was different from other suburban communities in that its planners “actually brought industry that did provide some jobs for the local population.”
Mysers wonders if its possible that “city planners put Santa Clarita on a road to a good mix of both” urban and suburban elements.
The future looks like the past?
Above both columns is an excellent archive picture from a 1963 edition of the Signal. In it, an artists conception shows a real city with towers in Valencia. The caption reads, “The future civic center of Valencia, seen from McBean Parkway, rises beyond a chain of lakes.” Below Myers’ column is another photo, this time from Newhall Land and Farming, that shows a high density commercial urban area on the corner of the then-uncompleted Valencia Blvd and McBean Parkway.
The caption reads, “The original plans for Valencia called for a centralized urban area; residents were expected to get around locally by way of electric carts that could be driven on paseos.”
On the absence of other positions
If you’ve read through both columns, you may be wondering what’s actually being debated here. Neither writer is arguing that the traditional low-density suburban model is the way to go forward in all cases and in all places. That’s because, I believe, most of us have moved beyond that. Despite the letter writers who decry the idea of “urbanization” or Not a Ferry Fan who tells us that our homes are under “seige,” few actually believe that it’s wise to use available land in the way we have in the past. As with many political issues in this city, the volume with which some groups speak does not equate with how many people actually hold that view.
In other words, I suspect that if The Signal were to actually conduct a scientific poll, you’d find a significant majority of Santa Clarita’s residents agree with the Mayor’s argument, as he states it in this Sunday’s Editorial.
The Good Ol’ Boy Network now includes Female Secretaries
Moving on, I enjoyed the Signal’s official Editorial this Sunday, which decried Frank Ferry and Laurie Ender’s selection of commissioners for the Parks and Planning Commission, respectively.
The editorialist says that the Signal generally gives the benefit of the doubt to our elected officials. “We believe in the good intentions and integrity of each council member,” The Signal writes.
But when Ferry selected his personal secretary as a Parks Commissioner and Laurie Ender selected a comrade on the PTA as a Planning Commissioner, they made a “childish show of insider-ism and one-upsmanship” that “smacks of small-town cronyism, legitimizing scrutiny and criticism of the City Council.”
“Trust,” the Signal says, “is not a given; it must be earned.”
Ouch!
LTE Section
Finally, there’s two decent Letters to the Editor in this week’s opinion pages, both of which add some more fuel to the urban/suburban debate. Linda Pedersen, a frequent Letter writer, says that some planned “Urban center” developments defy existing General Plan zoning regulations and therefore threaten existing neighborhoods. Valerie Thomas of Newhall seems to echo that, stating that neighborhoods near such higher-density projects will suffer “catastrophic” effects.
Overall, today’s opinion page made for some excellent Sunday morning bagel-and-coffee reading. If you don’t get The Signal, go buy a copy and check it out!