RESIDENTS FIGHT STREET PROPOSAL; GROUP SAYS ROAD ACCESS NEEDED.

Byline: Angela M. Lemire Staff Writer

Residents wanting through-access between Calgrove Boulevard and Valley Street are mobilizing against city efforts to create cul-de-sacs on the public roads.

Citizens Against Barricades has organized petition drives, presented arguments to the proposal and hired an attorney to press legal action if necessary as the city studies blocking the through-access, group spokeswoman Glenda Bona said.

``To close roads doesn't make sense,'' said Bona. ``This is a needed road in a city that has too few as it is.''

Traffic and planning officials are pursuing plans to create the cul-de-sacs, heeding a request from two other neighborhood groups. The closure would require an amendment to the city's general plan as well as extensive environmental studies.

The Santa Clarita City Council ordered the city staff last month to study downgrading the secondary-road designation of Calgrove Boulevard between Creekside Drive and Maple Street in the general plan - Santa Clarita's master guideline for development.

Citizens Against Barricades - composed of members from the Rancho LaSalle, Oaks, Oakridge Estates, Champagne Lane, Happy Valley and Brittany Lane neighborhoods - says the council's Sept. 28 vote is a ``blow against democracy.''

The group argues that the cul-de-sacs would favor only select residents, rather than the city as a whole. Continuing population growth warrants the need for more roads - not fewer, they say.

Other concerns are that cul-de-sacs would increase police and fire response times and traffic on Wiley Canyon Road would become too heavy, putting students at Wiley Canyon Elementary School at risk.

City officials noted that the public will be able to voice supporter opposition to the cul-de-sac proposal as it moves through the 12-18 month general plan amendment process. Feasibility studies that take subdivision regulations into account and assess the proposal's impact on traffic patterns, air quality and noise would be followed by approval hearings before the Planning Commission and City Council.

Bona said Citizens Against Barricades will follow the general plan amendment process closely, to prove that the need for an alternate access route between Calgrove Boulevard and Valley Street already is great. The group continues to raise money in case the members decide to sue, she said.

``If we can't settle this out with them, and they don't like the way the council voted on this, then unfortunately, that will be their last and only recourse for them to take,'' Mayor Jo Anne Darcy said of a possible lawsuit. ``They have to do what they have to do. And if a judge says we have to make it a through-street, then that's what we'll have to do.''

A pivotal issue in the cul-de-sac dispute has been the mechanical gate that sits on private property linking Valley Street to Calgrove Boulevard, two public roads in Newhall. The Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission approved its installation in 1983 at the request of Valley Street residents when the Hidden Valley tract was built.

Residents from Calgrove Boulevard and Valley Street want cul-de-sacs between their roadways to permanently end a 15-year dispute over the card-activated gate maintained by the Hidden Valley Homeowners Association on Calgrove.

Residents organizing against the cul de sac proposals baffled Valley Street resident Linda Redel, a cul-de-sac supporter who fought to find an alternative to the gate for 15 years.

``It's been a public road up to the terminus on each street, but the public has never had through-access through each terminus,'' said Redel. ``The notion that the city is closing a public road is false. It's never been an open road.''

Cul-de-sac supporters also have argued that the winding and tree-lined Valley Street cannot handle high traffic volumes. They also say recent improvements to Wiley Canyon Road provide motorists with comparable access between Calgrove Boulevard and Lyons Avenue. The cul-de-sac option would permit public safety vehicles to pass between them.

The gate between Valley and Calgrove was opened briefly following the Northridge Earthquake in 1994 and El Nino storms in 1997 to provide emergency access when nearby roads were damaged or flooded, said city traffic engineer Bahman Janka. Motorists have been able to bypass city-installed barriers on the public portion of the roadway since vandals broke the mechanical gate last spring, he said.

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