Palmdale City Council approves high-speed rail station area plan

PALMDALE – The Palmdale City Council voted Tuesday evening to to move forward with plans guiding future development around the proposed high-speed rail station in downtown Palmdale. The City Council’s action caps a four-year planning and community engagement effort, funded in part by station area planning funds from the California High-Speed Rail Authority.

The Palmdale Transit Area Specific Plan lays out how land can be developed in the 750 acres surrounding the future station to create a mixed-use area that embodies sustainable, economic and social development. The plan focuses on increasing density around the future high-speed rail station and creating a pedestrian-friendly mix of commercial and public uses that are mindful of neighborhood’s character.

“The concept is to have all the different modes — California High- Speed Rail, Metrolink, local transit, Brightline West, Amtrak, Greyhound and future light rail — in one location,” Palmdale Mayor Steve Hofbauer said. “This plan will accomplish that and more. It will help create a vibrant city center that will be an important part of our future.”

LaDonna DiCamillo, the authority’s Southern California regional director, said the approval is “a significant milestone in the ongoing progress of the high-speed rail program and the partnership between the authority and the city of Palmdale.”

Palmdale is an important rail crossroads, “and we look forward to continue working with the city to grow the local economy and vastly expand transportation options with this station,” she said.

The 746-acre project area is generally bound by Technology Drive to the north, 10th Place East to the east, Avenue Q-9 to the south, and State Route 14 to the west. The Palmdale Transportation Center is part of the Bakersfield to Palmdale project section, an 80-mile corridor that travels through or near the cities of Edison, Tehachapi, Rosamond, Lancaster and Palmdale.

The authority issued the Draft Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement for the Bakersfield to Palmdale project section at the beginning of this year, with the Final EIR/EIS scheduled to be issued in the spring.

The high-speed rail project is currently under construction on 119 miles in the Central Valley, with more than 4,500 construction workers dispatched since the start of construction and 570 certified small businesses contributing to the high-speed rail program from throughout the state.

For more information on the Palmdale’s action or the plan itself, visit: https://cityofpalmdale.org/426/Palmdale-Multimodal-High-Speed-Rail-Stat.

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