Security Guard in Porter Ranch, CA

New home construction that was completed in the Porter Ranch area in the 1990s-2000s, including the Renaissance Summit development, was mired in controversy and Los Angeles politics in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Existing residents of the Porter Ranch area feared the increased traffic that would be brought by the planned building of an area commercial complex to service the new homes being built. Developments were also criticized for destroying the natural beauty of the brush and wild areas that inhabited the space before the houses were built.

However, Shapell Homes, a company founded by Nathan Shapell, a major Los Angeles builder, brought together powerful Los Angeles political figures to support the new home building.

In the late 80s, there was an attempt to connect Sesnon Boulevard, the road that flanks the north side of the neighborhood, to its counterpart across the Aliso Canyon, also named Sesnon, via a bridge to be named simply, the “Aliso Canyon Bridge”. This plan never came to fruition due to demonstrations from the residents of Porter Ranch, the primary opponents of the bridge, who believed that connecting the road to the neighborhood across the canyon would bring “crime…drag racing, and drug dealing”. Residents were also afraid of Sesnon becoming “a [highway] 118 alternate route”, which would “send many cars through Porter Ranch”.