Growth Plan Is Approved for Fall Vote in Carlsbad

Billing it as an alternative to a looming slow-growth initiative, the City Council on Tuesday adopted an ambitious growth management plan and took steps to put it on the November ballot.

The council voted unanimously to approve the plan, which is designed to keep public services in line with future development in this rapidly growing city.

In a related action, the council unanimously agreed to draft language for a ballot measure that, if approved by voters in November, would make the growth management plan a part of the city’s bylaws, prohibiting future councils from tampering with its provisions. The council is expected to make a final decision on that matter next Tuesday.

If placed on the ballot, the plan would probably vie with a slow-growth initiative sponsored by two citizen groups. That citizen initiative, which proposes a cap on the number of dwelling units that can be built in Carlsbad each year, is also expected to qualify for the November ballot.

Councilman Mark Pettine called the growth management proposal “a step in the right direction,” but criticized his colleagues for their decision to scratch provisions that would have forced developers to phase in projects more gradually.

The council’s action ends more than six months of planning and debate on the growth management document, which went through dozens of drafts before reaching its final form.

The plan comes amid increasing concern in Carlsbad that the city’s development boom has gotten out of hand. Residents have seen rapid residential and industrial growth double the city’s population in the past decade.

As outlined by the plan, developers will have to build or pay fees for public facilities such as roads, parks and libraries as well as water and sewer lines or treatment plants. By doing that, Carlsbad officials hope city amenities will keep pace with the increased demand caused by growth, making the proliferation of development more palatable to residents.

Before the growth management plan can begin operating on a day-to-day basis, however, city officials will have to hammer out numerous operational details, a task not expected to be completed before late September.

In the meantime, a moratorium on the processing of all development permits, which has put plans for 8,500 homes on hold, will remain in effect.

Developers have chafed at the moratorium, complaining that delays could jeopardize the economic viability of their projects. In addition, builders are eager to rev up the bulldozers to beat the slow-growth initiative expected to go before voters in November.

The initiative proposes a cap on residential construction in Carlsbad, limiting the number of homes built in the city to 1,000 in 1987, 750 the next year and 500 annually for each of the following eight years. In recent years, the city has been approving about 2,000 new homes annually.

Some slow-growth advocates characterize the growth management plan as a prescription for avalanche development, laying the groundwork for needed facilities while doing nothing to control the pace of growth. Thay contend that the city’s building spurt needs to be checked before Carlsbad is stripped of its prized small-town ambiance.

Several time-consuming assignments remain for city planners before the growth management plan will be at full steam. During the next three months, they will be kept busy drawing up a citywide plan that outlines what public facilities will be needed and where they should be built.

When that overall scheme is drafted, planners will divide the city into 25 smaller sections and draw up more-detailed plans for those areas. As part of that process, developers will be required to provide plans detailing how they would finance construction of needed facilities.

The city will review each local facilities mangement plan annually to ensure that the needed roads or sewers are being built. If they are not, development would be ordered halted.

Although the council has ordered a hold on most projects within the city until the growth-management plan is fully implemented, about 3,500 dwelling units already under construction or eligible for building permits have not been affected.

In addition, the council agreed two weeks ago to exempt two projects planned for the shores of Batiquitos Lagoon--a graduate university proposed by Sammis Properties and the 1,700-acre Pacific Rim Resort and Country Club, a sprawling residential and hotel development being built by the billionaire Hunt brothers of Dallas.

Although those projects are not as far along as several developments snared by the moratorium, council members gave the go-ahead after officials from the two firms agreed not to block plans to dredge and do other work in the lagoon as part of a long-awaited, $15-million restoration project.