COLONY OF 830 HOMES PLANNED WEST OF I-5.

Byline: Heather MacDonald Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA - Plans are under way to build 830 homes and apartments north of Towsley Canyon and to establish the city's first community on the west side of the Golden State Freeway.

The developers of Lyons Canyon Ranch, on what was once the Warner Bros. Movie Ranch and the rugged backdrop for the ``Dukes of Hazzard'' television show, envision a community blended into the lush wilderness of the Santa Susana Mountains.

``We recognize that this area is the gateway into the Santa Clarita Valley and really want to do a good job and create something everyone can be proud of,'' said Vince Daly, a development consultant to the property owner, Western Pacific Housing. ``It's a very beautiful site.''

Tract homes are rapidly replacing the rolling hills and bucolic canyons that began attracting the entertainment industry to the Santa Clarita Valley in the 1920s. Even though Santa Clarita is just 30 miles from Hollywood, it once easily passed for the Old West on celluloid.

The developer's vision of Lyons Canyon Ranch calls for 184 estate-style homes to the rear of the property, along with 227 smaller homes and 419 apartments and town homes along The Old Road at Calgrove Boulevard. About half of the apartment units might be reserved for senior citizens, Daly said. Near Interstate 5, a small commercial center is also planned, he added.

The annexation would be monumental for Santa Clarita, which has fought since its incorporation in 1987 to gain some influence over development west of the freeway - where nearly 50,000 homes are planned - but has been blocked at every turn. Except for the recently annexed Towsley Canyon wilderness, the I-5 marks Santa Clarita's western border.

Making Lyons Canyon Ranch part of Santa Clarita also could provide a pathway to annexing much more land, including the Sunset Pointe and Stevenson Ranch communities, officials said.

As proposed, the project would leave about 70 percent of the 350-acre ranch untouched, and preserve about 80 percent of the property's 2,500 oak trees.

The development also would have to protect several endangered species that call the verdant hillsides home, including the coastal California gnatcatcher, Daly said.

``The project has been revised a couple times already,'' Daly said. ``We went back to the drawing board to save more oaks and preserve more of the major ridgeline that runs through the project.''

In addition, the developer intends to restore some of the wetlands in Lyons Canyon, while building trailhead parks and paseos for the community's projected 2,000 residents, Daly said.

The project's effect on the hillsides, oak trees and wildlife are expected to be among the complex issues studied in the environmental impact report for Lyons Canyon Ranch, said Planning Manager Vince Bertoni. That review is expected to take at least a year to complete.

Councilwoman Laurene Weste has already raised concerns about the project, calling it a high-density development slated to be built in a county-designated significant ecological area.

The Santa Clarita City Council has long sought to establish a greenbelt around the city to protect forests in the Santa Susana Mountains and provide a habitat for wildlife and a corridor for animals traversing the San Gabriel Mountains.

Heather MacDonald, [phone]

heather.macdonald(at)dailynews.com