Centennial to Address High Housing Need

By Ann Wishart Valley Press Business Editor

GORMAN – Standing in the hot autumn sun out across miles of desolate, drought-parched landscape, it is hard to imagine a city of 23,000 homes, businesses, parks and schools.
The only relief to the eye is the fast-flowing blue water of the California Aqueduct. In the distance, traffic along Interstate 5 hums by. An occasional vehicle going to or from Gorman roars along State Route 138.

The city of Centennial may be hard for the unpracticed eye to conceptualize in the middle of the Mohave Desert, but players in the community development field have taken the first steps toward realizing the dream. Tejon Ranch Co., Pardee Homes, Lewis Investment Co. and Standard Pacific Homes formed a partnership called Centennial Founders LLC and filed plans in September proposing the community 30 miles north of Santa Clarita and just 14 miles west of Lancaster's city limits.

The newest and northernmost Los Angeles County project was announced in March 2000 on a much smaller scale - a mere 4,000 acres. In the last Two years the dream grew; it now encompasses 11,700 acres, with more than half allocated to housing and the rest to be preserved as open space.

Construction is not slated to begin until 2006, when all reviews have been completed and all parties have been heard from, said Gregory Medeiros, vice president of community development for Centennial Founders. The first homes should be ready for occupancy by 2007, he said. Planned to run along both sides of the aqueduct, the city will spread out about 6 miles from east to west and three miles from north to south, and take about 25 years to complete, Medeiros said.

The site is just a fraction of the 270,000-acre Tejon Ranch, which dates back to 1843, and has been grazed by cattle for more than a century. So far there have been no environmental reasons to hold up the development, he said. Regions with scrub oak will be left as open space. The area to be developed is relatively flat with little vegetation.

“There is one tree, and I make a promise today that we will save that tree,” Medeiros told the board of the Greater Antelope Valley Economic Alliance at their September meeting. He said that Pardee Homes has ‘an aggressive green builder program’ and an advisory group has been set up to keep the project developers apprised of the issues.

Centennial Founders sent out 8,000 letters to homeowners in the north Los Angeles region and received 600 replies in mailing “similar to an ascertainment study,” he said.

“We've been real pleased with the support we've received with the ascertainment study,” Medeiros said, adding that replies listed concerns about infrastructure such as water and police protection. The developer is compiling a list of the questions and intends to mail out a second letter addressing the concerns, he said.

“It's early in the process, so it's easy to tweak things” to align with government and community requirements, Medeiros said.

Three years ago Los Angeles County Planners balked at the idea of planting a city in a remote area, citing long commutes, poor access along the 138 and sufficient snowfall to occasionally close Interstate 5. They recommended Centennial Founders build the city across the nearby Kern County line, where IKEA is building a central distribution facility for its home furnishing products at Tejon Industrial Complex. Since the community has grown to include more commercial ventures and, theoretically, become more self-contained with more city-based jobs, the issues may rate less consideration. The future of the project, now filed with the Los Angeles County planners, should be set in the next 18 months, he said.

Medeiros made a case for the project by noting the huge and growing demand for housing in Los Angeles County, particularly in the Antelope Valley, where homes are still affordable. Centennial home prices are projected to begin at under $200,000 in 2002 dollars, he said. The county has a housing shortfall of about 28,000 homes a year, with only one housing unit built for every five jobs created. The Department of Housing and Urban Development is projecting a 25% suburban development with a 35% unmet housing need around the corner, he said.

“What's the alternative to this?" he asked. "Do you want growth in Santa Monica Mountains?”