Official Wants North County’s Cities to Cooperate on Planning

Concerned that the cities of North County are managing growth in a piecemeal fashion that is doomed to fail, a councilman here has proposed that a regional planning board be formed to steer the rapidly growing area into the next century.

As proposed by Councilman Mark Pettine, the board would be composed of the planning directors from Carlsbad, Oceanside, Escondido, Vista, San Marcos and Poway, as well as a county official representing the unincorporated pockets of the region.

Members would meet monthly and perform an advisory function only, addressing the environmental impacts of specific projects and recommending long-range policies on growth management, land use and transportation to city councils and the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.

“It has occurred to me recently that the cities of North County are really not in sync,” said Pettine, who won election to the council on a slow-growth platform in 1984. “What we need is a forum that allows the cities to exchange ideas and come up with recommendations that will prevent us from becoming another Orange County.”

On Tuesday, the Carlsbad City Council--with Mayor Mary Casler and Councilman Richard Chick absent--endorsed Pettine’s proposal in concept. Pettine now intends to approach officials in the neighboring cities for support, then draft a joint powers agreement formally establishing the regional board.

Interviews with elected officials throughout North County suggest that Pettine will get a mixed response to his plan. While several civic leaders called the proposal a good idea whose time has come, others described formation of such a board as pointless.

“It sounds like a waste of time to me,” Oceanside Mayor Larry Bagley said Wednesday. “People always assume the way to deal with problems is to set up another layer of government, another committee. I disagree.”

Escondido Mayor Ernie Cowan said he is “supportive of a regional planning approach” but believes it can best be accomplished through an existing organization--the San Diego Assn. of Governments (Sandag).

“Sandag is already doing this kind of thing, so the creation of a new group is not necessary,” said Cowan, who is vice chairman of Sandag. “What I’m receptive to doing is reordering Sandag’s agenda to put emphasis on developing guidelines for growth management. That would be a valuable exercise, but it should be done for the entire region, not just for North County.”

Pettine, however, counters that Sandag’s focus and capabilities are on “providing data” and not on studying specific growth-related problems. Further, he argues, “I can’t believe that Sandag’s staff is as qualified to deal with these specific issues as the planners we have right here in North County.”

On that point, Pettine won support from several corners.

County Supervisor Paul Eckert called the proposal “a terrific idea” and said the formation of a regional board is “way overdue” and necessary to keep North County cities from “doing things that adversely affect their neighbors.”

As for Sandag, Eckert said, “God bless Sandag, but it’s in San Diego and it really never worries about North County. We need a board of our own.”

Vista Councilman Lloyd von Haden echoed that view, calling Sandag “an ineffectual group that does a lot of busywork.”

Von Haden, who describes growth management in North County as “haphazard and insufficient,” said he supports Pettine’s proposal but would like to see council members or North County residents included on the panel.