AREA ROADWAY TO EXPAND DESPITE PROTESTS.

Byline: Teresa Jimenez Daily News Staff Writer

Residents at a council meeting Tuesday night called the proposal to expand Newhall Ranch Road to eight lanes an attempt to build a freeway through town - and right on the other side of their fences.

But to the council majority that approved the plan to eventually widen the road, it was merely a way of accommodating the expected traffic as more and more homes are built in and around the city.

``They perceive it as being a freeway but it isn't - it's a six-lane roadway with two turnout lanes and a nicely landscaped median and lights,'' Councilwoman Jo Anne Darcy said. ``And it's not something that's immediate, it's for far-future need.''

Still, Councilwoman Jill Klajic, who voted against the expansion with Mayor Jan Heidt, said the plan creates a commuter thoroughfare through town.

``The long-term implication is that city planners envision a major freeway through town,'' Klajic said. ``It's commuter traffic vs. city traffic. And they just opened it up to commuter traffic.''

The Newhall Ranch Road expansion was part of a much larger circulation element of the city's General Plan that addressed road and traffic systems for the city's future.

Last month, a split council approved the eventual expansion of Valencia Boulevard between the Golden State Freeway and McBean Parkway to eight lanes. The expansion will occur as developers build homes and commercial buildings with fees paid on projects going to support the work, officials said.

At the same meeting, a unanimous council voted to block the extension of The Old Road between Valencia Boulevard and McBean Parkway. The stretch, labeled a significant ecological area by Los Angeles County, has some of the oldest oak trees in Southern California.

The council asked city staff to revise the traffic plan after controversy erupted five years ago over a state Transportation Department plan to extend Highway 126 to the Antelope Valley Freeway through Santa Clarita.

As a result, the Planning Department developed alternatives for improving future traffic flow between the west and east sides of the city.

In October, a split council, with Councilman Carl Boyer providing the swing vote with Klajic and Heidt, approved a different traffic plan that would have limited the widening of Newhall Ranch Road and Valencia Boulevard to six lanes instead of eight.

But at the next meeting, another split council - this one made up of Boyer, Darcy and Clyde Smyth - voted to revisit the issue. Tuesday's vote ended the debate.