Planners breathe life into 10-year-old housing plan

A decade-old plan to build 75 homes on about as many acres in Mint Canyon at the Santa Clarita Valley border with Agua Dulce was extended for another year this week by regional planners.

The Sierra Way Estates housing development project promises 75 single-family homes to be built on 67 acres, roughly a mile and a half north of Vasquez Canyon Road and Sierra Highway.

Since it was approved by the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission more than 10 years ago, on Nov. 1, 2006, the plan has called for 179 acres of the 246-acre site be set aside as permanent open space, which is nearly three-fourths of the site.

On Tuesday, the developers successfully asked for the project’s deadline to be pushed back one year, to Nov. 1, 2018, according to Mitch Glaser, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning.

In addition to the 73 homes, the Sierra Way Estates plan calls for four public facility lots, three open space lots and one water tank.

Regional planners described the land set aside for the project as hilly with many steep slopes.

The findings of the Regional Planning Commission concluded in 2006: “The irregularly-shaped property is approximately 246 gross acres in size in a mostly natural condition with level to steeply sloping topography. Approximately 105.6 acres are within 0 to 25 percent slopes, 81.6 acres within 25 percent to 50 percent slopes and 58.7 acres have slopes 50 percent and over.”