Slow-Growth Drives Scare Some Builders, but Effect Is Limited

Homeowner campaigns to limit development have begun in scattered communities near the San Fernando Valley, including areas that just a few years ago welcomed people and businesses fleeing Los Angeles.

In Agoura Hills last month, a group of residents angered by City Council approval of a large industrial park helped engineer the defeat of Mayor John Hood and election of a slow-growth majority to the council. Campaigns to limit growth also have begun in the last few weeks in Moorpark, Simi Valley and in the Santa Clarita Valley.

Some officials in those communities attribute the movements to the renewed development activity that has come with the recovery of the construction industry, which was slowed by the severe recession of 1982 and 1983.

Some Developers Scared

So far, resistance from homeowners has yet to seriously curtail economic growth in these areas, officials said. And officials in the two area cities that already have growth controls, Thousand Oaks and Camarillo, said they don’t believe their measures have prompted developers to take their business elsewhere.

Nevertheless, the latest movements have frightened some developers and business-minded city officials. For example, Woodland Hills developer Robert Voit said he put off buying the land he needs for a $70-million, 68-acre industrial park in Simi Valley because of uncertainty created by a temporary freeze there on certain kinds of development.

“You can imagine how concerned we all were when we have been working on our project for well over a year and have a great deal of capital invested in it,” said Voit, who estimates he has invested more than $1 million in the project. “Just as we were about to secure financing, we hear of a moratorium that seems to affect our property. It’s like having an atomic bomb dropped on you.”

Simi Valley, historically one of the friendliest communities in the area to developers, passed a freeze in September that temporarily limits construction of hillside projects and large projects that might contribute to traffic problems. The City Council was considering extending the freeze late Monday.

Despite his concern over the freeze, Voit said he is moving ahead with the project. He said that recent conversations with city officials have convinced him that he will be able to build the industrial park.

Simi Valley Mayor Elton W. Gallegly believes the city has not lost any business yet out of concern for the freeze and whether it will be extended. Gallegly said, however, that some businesses, including a department store he wouldn’t name, have sought reassurances from him that the freeze isn’t the beginning of long-term plan to slow growth.

Long Moratorium Opposed

Gallegly said city officials oppose a long-term moratorium on development. “There’s no question of the adverse effect it would have on the economic development and the adverse effect it would have on being able to attract a premier department store or commercial enterprise to our city,” he said.

Others say they are concerned that even the slightest hint of slow-growth policies may scare away developers.

‘Bend Over Backward’

“I would think that any major developer or corporation entering this area will say, ‘Do we want to go through with this or do we want to go a few miles away to where they will actually bend over backward for us?’ ” said Wayne Adelstein, president of the Agoura-Las Virgenes Chamber of Commerce, which lobbied vigorously for the industrial park proposed by Torrance developer Gerald Katell in Agoura Hills.

The controversy there began with Katell’s proposal to put seven buildings on a rolling, 34-acre site. Residents complained that the project would cause traffic congestion and ruin the natural beauty of the area.

The City Council approved the project on a 3-2 vote in July. Soon after, residents formed “For Agoura 85,” a group that supported the slow-growth candidates who won in last month’s election.

Katell said the slow-growth leanings of the new council won’t affect his project because it already has been approved. He also predicted that opponents of the project will grow to appreciate it once it is built.

“Once they are on the inside and really have the benefit of all of the facts that were necessary to make the decision, who knows?” he said.

Other Clashes Not Expected

Katell said he does not expect many similar developer-homeowner clashes along the Ventura Freeway corridor between Calabasas and Thousand Oaks because there isn’t much land zoned for commercial and industrial development.

Brad Rosenberg, vice president of the Johnston Group, a Los Angeles developer that has projects in Calabasas, also predicted that the kind of controversy Agoura Hills experienced will be rare in the Ventura Freeway corridor. “There is not a lot of land, so there will never be overbuilding,” he said.

Movements Dismissed

Other supporters of development dismiss the latest movements as representing the views of only a small, vocal minority.

“I’m not persuaded that signatures on a petition indicate that the people of a community support no growth. You can be told anything when someone is soliciting your signature,” said Louise Rice-Lawson, executive director of the Building Industry Assn. of Ventura County.

But, twice in this decade, voters in Ventura County cities have approved strict growth controls. In Thousand Oaks, a 1980 measure limits the number of new residential units in the city to 500 a year. Camarillo’s measure, passed in 1981, limits the number of new units to 400 a year.

In both cities, developers now compete for those units through a point system in which their projects are rated by city officials on a variety of factors, including price--with low-cost housing given more points--and proximity to schools.

Can’t See Effect

Officials in Thousand Oaks and Camarillo say that, because of the recession of 1982-83, it is difficult to assess the effect of the measures on their communities’ economic health. But Thousand Oaks Mayor Lawrence E. Horner, who opposed the measure there, said, “I can’t say we in the city have found a noticeable impact.”

Horner said some builders have told him they are reluctant to put up homes in the city, but that commercial and industrial development remains strong.

Even the head of the Conejo Valley Chamber of Commerce, which strongly opposed the growth-control measure in Thousand Oaks, said there is no evidence that the measure has harmed the city’s economic development. “I wish that I could say that it has, but it hasn’t,” said Steve Rubenstein, the chamber’s president and chief executive.

Officials in Camarillo said their limits on growth haven’t hurt the pace of industrial and commercial development either.

Similar Values

“The majority of the people in the city want to make sure development is in the right direction, and are concerned about the quality of life in the city. If you talk to industry people, they have similar values themselves,” said Matthew Boden, the city’s director of planning and community development.

Since the early 1970s, homeowners in many California communities have campaigned for laws limiting development in order to protect the environment and ease the strain on traffic and local services. The legal authority of local governments to do so was upheld in 1976 when the U. S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal challenging a law limiting construction in Petaluma, a Northern California city.

Since then, more than 40 cities and two counties in California have passed growth-control measures, according to Gov. George Deukmejian’s Office of Planning and Research.

Assessing the strength of the latest slow-growth movements is difficult. Homeowners in the Santa Clarita Valley last month said they wanted to blitz county officials with telephone calls to persuade them to limit development in the area, but Los Angeles County officials said they received fewer than 100 calls. Similarly, a campaign for a Thousand Oaks ballot measure halting construction of condominiums and apartments failed to attract much support.

Public Sentiment Strong

Nevertheless, slow-growth advocates say public sentiment to limit building is stronger than developers and city officials would like to believe.

Ed Sloman, a leading advocate of slow growth in Simi Valley, said he has surveyed more than 5,000 residents in the last month and that nearly 80% of those said they would vote for a growth-limit measure.

“I know if I wanted to go out now with an initiative to stop growth completely in Simi Valley, it would pass. There’s no doubt in my mind that we could get enough signatures, get it on the ballot and that it would get the votes needed to pass,” Sloman said.

CLASH OVER DEVELOPMENT Community: Action Taken Agoura Hills: Slow-growth majority elected to the City Council earlier this month; mayor ousted. Camarillo: Residential Development limited until 1995 under a measure approved by voters in 1981. Moorpark: Homeowners pushing for initiative to limit residential development. Santa Clarita Valley: Homeowners lobbying for development moratorium. Simi Valley: Certain kinds of development, particularly hillside construction, temporarily frozen by City Council. Thousands Oaks: Residential development limited until 1990 under a measure approved by voters in 1980.