AFTER SLOW START, PLUM CANYON PROJECT PICKS UP STEAM : ROAD BEING BUILT; SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION STARTING.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

For years, a proposed housing tract, school and road have been on hold. With groundbreaking on the hilltop school site last week and with road construction under way, the project has regained its momentum.

Saugus Union School District officials estimate construction on Plum Canyon Elementary School will be complete by April 1998. Pupils may be able to move into the district's 12th campus that spring.

The road is expected to open about a year sooner. The two-lane stretch will join Plum Canyon Road and Whites Canyon Road, now separated by a mile-long gap, said Frank Faye, project manager for Shapell-Monteverde Partnership, the Beverly Hills developer building the street and houses.

``Ultimately, it will be a four-lane roadway,'' Faye said, noting the street is wide enough now. But when it opens in April this year, it will only have one lane in each direction, Faye said.

City and county officials expect that stretch of Plum Canyon Road will be a vital southeast-northwest thoroughfare in the Santa Clarita Valley.

``It'll be a godsend,'' said Santa Clarita City Councilwoman Jo Anne Darcy, noting there has been no direct route between, for instance, Bouquet Canyon Road and the Antelope Valley Freeway.

``It takes so long now. You have to go all the way around,'' said Darcy, senior deputy for Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich.

Rabie Rahmani, associate traffic engineer for the city of Santa Clarita, said plans originally called for the road to open by 1995. A bridge that links Whites Canyon Road and Via Princessa, built jointly by the city and county with $2 million in funds from Shapell-Monteverde, was completed in June 1994, and the Plum Canyon Road extension was to be built next, according to Rahmani and Faye.

Rahmani said the new street should reduce traffic on Soledad Canyon Road and Bouquet Canyon Road by a combined 10,000 cars per day.

``It is a major link,'' he added. ``It will reduce the delay considerably at two intersections: Bouquet Canyon Road/Soledad Canyon Road, and Whites Canyon Road/Soledad Canyon Road,'' Rahmani said.

Added Faye: ``It ought to reduce the commuting time from Bouquet to the freeway by 10 to 15 minutes during peak commuting times.''

Under a development agreement signed in 1988 between Shapell-Monteverde and the county, the developer was required to extend Plum Canyon Road to Whites Canyon Road to ease traffic flow that the proposed residential neighborhood would create.

About 170 houses - priced in the $200,000 and $300,000 range - were built in the Plum Canyon neighborhood where hundreds more ultimately will be built. In 1984, Los Angeles County officials approved the plan for 3,202 homes, including some multifamily housing. But when California's recession hit in the early 1990s and the real estate market fell flat, construction came to a halt, Faye said.

Construction of the Plum Canyon Road extension was delayed. A hillside caved in as workers graded the road in October 1994.

Now the homes are being built as fast as the lots are sold, Faye said. When completed, the 903-acre community will include a county fire station, two public parks, the elementary school and some commercial businesses.

``We think a recovery is beginning,'' Faye said. ``Hopefully, with the road and the school and some of the other amenities, (the tract) will take off and become a true destination community in the Santa Clarita Valley,'' he said.

Shapell-Monteverde sold the school district an 8.5-acre Plum Canyon site for an elementary school. ``They reserved that site way back at the project's inception. It's on a hilltop, and it's got a tremendous view of the surrounding area,'' Faye said. ``It's just a beautiful piece of property.''

Although the developer is required to build the road extension as a condition of approval to build housing, drivers all across the valley will benefit, Rahmani said.

``The city periodically gets calls and letters regarding the lack of roadways and links, and the congestion throughout the city,'' Rahmani said. ``What I have been hearing from residents is they have been waiting for this connection to take place for some time. It will benefit the city considerably.

``The city is looking forward to having this connection built, and having it relieve the traffic congestion on some of the roads.''