Issue Won’t Hit Ballot Until Next Year : Del Mar Council Delays Growth Vote

City Council members voted unanimously Monday night to delay until April 8 an initiative that could take the final decision on downtown development projects out of their hands.

The proposal, if approved by a majority of the voters, would require that every large commercial development be approved by a majority of the city’s voters. If voters vetoed a development, its promoters would be forced to redesign the project and submit it to the voters again.

Mayor Arlene Carsten won approval for a study of the citizen initiative to determine what it would cost the city and what its impact would be on city operations.

“If it doesn’t comply with city rules and laws, we have a real problem,” she said.

Council members faced the choice of passing an ordinance enacting the initiative legislation or placing the issue before the voters.

The April vote is the last possible date for the vote, but it allows the council to avoid the $6,000 cost of a special election. Del Mar will hold its regular city elections in April.

Under the initiative, a citywide vote would be required to approve any downtown-area project on a parcel of 25,000 square feet or larger or one that contains 11,500 or more square feet of building space.

Major projects that would be affected immediately are a proposed shopping center-hotel-office building complex on the northwest corner of Camino Del Mar and 15th Street--the site of the historic Hotel Del Mar--and the renovation and expansion of the Del Mar Plaza shopping center on the east side of 15th Street at Camino Del Mar.

A three-week petition drive collected about 1,100 signatures, 30% of the city’s estimated 4,000 registered voters. County registrar of voters officials validated 999 signatures.

The initiative would require developers to pay for the citywide elections needed to approve their projects.

Although Chuck Newton, a spokesman for the citizen’s group sponsoring the initiative petition, said that the initiative was not an attack on City Council powers, members of the loose-knit organization conceded that a pro-development stance by council members had precipitated the initiative.

The Greater Del Mar Chamber of Commerce distributed circulars urging Del Mar residents not to sign the initiative petitions. Chamber President Sam Borgese warned that passage of the initiative would end the revitalization of downtown.

Borgese also argued that the initiative would add “yet another review process” to the city’s already cumbersome legislative processes and would “polarize the community” by separating the slow-growth advocates from those who feel that commercial development is needed to increase city tax revenues and to improve the appearance of downtown.

Proponents argued that the plaza and hotel project would add traffic congestion. Both projects include plans for underground parking but propose only minor changes to the Camino Del Mar traffic circulation system to cope with added traffic.