Valencia, California

Valencia is an unincorporated community in northwestern Los Angeles County, California, United States. The area, west of Interstate 5, is expanding with residential development and already includes major commercial and industrial parks. It straddles State Route 126 and the Santa Clara River.

A major expansion of Valencia is under construction with new residential neighborhoods and the expansion of commerce and industrial developments. Spanning the Santa Clara River, the massive Great Park development (formerly Newhall Ranch and FivePoint-Valencia) was conceived by the Newhall Land land management company in the 1980s. After lengthy delays due to environmental challenges and change of investors, the project broke ground in 2017. The new development is directly west of Six Flags Magic Mountain which is also in the unincorporated community.

The area is a traditional land of Native Americans. The Tataviam people migrated there in A.D. 450 when the Chumash people were living there.

Newhall Ranch was ranched and farmed until the 1960s when Newhall Land and Farming Company started a community named after a crop that was grown there, the Valencia orange. The completion of Interstate 5 through the Santa Clarita Valley in 1967 provided an improved route south into the San Fernando Valley. The same year, Newhall Land finished construction of the first homes in Valencia. With stores, parks, hospitals and schools, the community was intended to be self-contained. Construction began in November 1969 on the Magic Mountain amusement park which opened on May 29, 1971, as a development of the Newhall Land and Farming Company and Sea World Inc.

In the late 1980s, Newhall Land had one of the last big parcels of undeveloped real estate near Los Angeles with the 37,250-acre (15,070 ha) Newhall Ranch. They estimated that ten thousand acres (4,000 ha) was developable and about 3,500 acres (1,400 ha) of the master planned Valencia neighborhood had already been built out with 8,000 single-family houses, apartments, and condominiums. Nearly all of the homes were built by the Newhall Land company and they had approvals for some 3,000 additional homes. The area slated for industrial parks, that already had 300 companies and their 8,500 employees, was expanding. Much of the land for industrial and commercial development was sold to other companies to be developed. The large master-planned Great Park development (formerly Newhall Ranch and FivePoint-Valencia) in unincorporated Valencia was conceived by Newhall Land as a greenfield development not included in the original Valencia master plan.

When it incorporated in 1987, the city of Santa Clarita combined four communities, including most of the built out portion of Valencia east of Interstate-5, to form a city of 25,000. Although this was the only city, the population of the entire Santa Clarita Valley had reached 125,000. City council members of the city of Santa Clarita objected to the Newhall Ranch project in 1989. They were concerned with the congestion it could bring along with the environmental issues that had been raised by other groups. The city was also asking for this area to be included in their sphere of influence, just two years after the city incorporated. The sphere of influence is a municipal growth boundary that delineates the area that the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) believes is the appropriate and probable future city limit. The formation committee's proposal for the city included a much larger area than was finally allowed to proceed by LAFCO.

The 1990 LA County General Plan Update identified the unincorporated area of Newhall Ranch for urban development. They filed an application with the county to develop the area in 1994. The Northridge Earthquake fractured an ARCO pipeline just east of Interstate 5 in 1994.

Newhall Land started construction on the Valencia Marketplace in 1995 which became a major commercial center and a major source of sales tax revenue for unincorporated Valencia. By 1996, Newhall Land had developed 5,000 acres (2,000 ha) in Valencia with some 12,000 homes. In 1998, Valencia area had 1.1 million square feet of industrial space under construction with a 2% vacancy rate in the existing developments. The unincorporated area northwest of the intersection of Interstate 5 and State Route 126 had plenty of acreage and entitlements to accommodate additional industrial space. Valencia Commerce Center and IAC Commerce Center are master-planned business parks with mixed-use with office, industrial and retail. Centered on Commerce Center Drive, major tenants include Remo, Pharmavite, Mechanix Wear, and ITT Aerospace Controls.