Melody Ranch Motion Pictures Studio has filed a lawsuit against Placerita Canyon Corporation (PCC), the entity responsible for the operation of a gate that controls access to the Newhall neighborhood, alleging they have failed to meet the requirements established in a prior suit more than 20 years ago.
The lawsuit primarily focuses on allegations that PCC has failed to provide the studio with the level of access through the gate granted by a previous lawsuit, along with multiple instances of damage to vehicles allegedly caused by malfunctions with the gate.
The gate in question is on Placerita Canyon Road, just over a half-mile west of Sierra Highway and its associated onramps to the 14 Freeway. It was previously the subject of some controversy in the wake of its initial installation in 1995.
A group of Santa Clarita residents organized the Homeowners Against Liability and Traffic (“HALT”) campaign and were successful in an effort to claim private ownership for homeowners with a portion of Placerita Canyon Road running through their community.
The court ruling issued in 1995 officially extended the boundaries of their properties to include the road and granted the homeowners authority such that they “may, to the extent provided by law, regulate traffic and deny, limit or otherwise control access to the use of the Road by others who do not have an ownership interest in the Road as determined herein.”
Soon after the ruling, several homeowners in the area established the Placerita Canyon Corporation (PCC) who officially installed and operates the gate.
Within months of the installation of the gate on Placerita Canyon Road, Melody Ranch filed a legal action, which resulted in a permanent injunction issued by the court that required PCC to provide “unlimited and continuous access to Melody Ranch to the Veluzats (the Plaintiffs) and their agents, employees, servants, and invitees, through the Gate with no delay between uses.”
The injunction, issued May 1998, also entitled Melody Ranch to 12 keycards and required PCC to install a keypad at the gate.
The new complaint filed with the Los Angeles County Superior Court raises multiple allegations related to Melody Ranch’s access to the gate and its operation, primarily on the grounds that the gate is no longer in compliance with the 1998 injunction.
“We want for things to be open and above aboard, lines of communication to be open, and the gate to open the way it’s supposed to work both for compliance with the permanent injunction and for the benefit of the community,” said Diane Stanfield, an attorney from law firm Alston and Bird representing Melody Ranch in the case.
Under the injunction, PCC is permitted to change the keypad code for “reasonable purposes” with 48 hours notice, however, the complaint alleges PCC began to change the code as frequently as every 48 hours while also occasionally failing to inform Melody Ranch of the new or accurate code.
Keycards can only be used once every 15 minutes, despite the injunction’s stipulation that Melody Ranch have access to the road “with no delay between uses.”
Officials contacted the vendor who installed and maintains the gate, Vortex, on behalf of Melody Ranch and were informed that the gate is intended for residential purposes only and was not designed to accommodate traffic such as the large trucks regularly accessing Melody Ranch.
The vendor also informed them that PCC instructed them not to have further conversations with the plaintiffs, according to the complaint.
Multiple vehicles operated by Melody Ranch or its clients have been damaged by the gate due to these and other modifications made to the gate, according to the complaint.
“The modifications and maintenance failures resulted in the Non-Complying Gate arm slamming down on top of some cars and Vehicles as they attempted to pass through,” the complaint reads. “At the same time that the Non-Complying Gate arm closes prematurely, the spikes automatically come up, either making it impossible to continue through the gate because the front and back wheels are straddling the spikes or, on some occasions, popping tires, disabling Vehicles and putting them out of service for hours or days.”
At some point during the ongoing discussions between Melody Ranch and PCC, the gate was damaged when a driver ran through the gate.
Melody Ranch officials identified and submitted proposals from multiple vendors to replace the gate with one that would be in compliance with the permanent injunction, some of which were less expensive than the cost to repair the damages, according to the complaint.
Instead, PCC informed Melody Ranch in late March that they would opt not to replace the gate and would instead move forward with repairs from the original vendor, Vortex.
“Melody Ranch, the Veluzats and I spent months trying to resolve this with PCC before we filed a lawsuit, but finally realized we weren’t going to be able to resolve it and filed,” Stanfield said.
The complaint also alleges a lack of transparency with PCC leadership and instances of arbitrary revocation of keycards issued to community members.
“There is something fundamentally wrong with how PCC is running the gate, it’s not transparent or accountable to the community,” Stanfield said.
The complaint cited one example as a particularly egregious example of a keycard revocation.
“Most recently, PCC revoked a keycard of a community member because he used his card to hold the Gate open so that vehicles fleeing a fire could get through – cars whose drivers had been diverted down Placerita Canyon Boulevard toward the Gate by fire department officials and who were otherwise stopped dead by the closed Gate,” reads the complaint. “His wife’s keycard was also revoked although she provided photographic evidence that she was out of town when the event occurred.”
In response to the new suit, PCC sent a letter to its members which informed them of the litigation, that “the current Board Members vigorously oppose the allegations made therein” and announced their intent to file a countersuit “to protect the Community’s interests.”
“Despite the recent filing of this lawsuit by Melody Ranch Studio/Veluzats, PCC and its Board continue to work to meet our responsibilities to the Community of maintaining the Road and Gate, as well as our obligations under the Agreement,” the letter reads. “But now, PCC must also focus our time, efforts, and unfortunately your funds, dealing with this recently filed lawsuit rather than other planned projects, such as Road and Gate improvements, re-striping, signage repairs, and e-filed documentation for Gate card privileges.”
The suit is scheduled to move forward starting with a case-management conference at Chatsworth Courthouse on March 8.
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