Grass-Roots Efforts to Slow Development Are Gaining Ground

The drive by Spring--the Seal Beach Preservation Initiative Group--to restrict development in Seal Beach is only one in a series of grass-roots efforts organized throughout the county in recent years that seek to cap two decades of virtually unrestricted growth.

The clearest expression to date of the emerging anti-growth sentiment came last February, when San Clemente voters swept into law an initiative measure that limits tract-home construction in that city to 500 new units a year. Four major developers spent more than $100,000 in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat the measure.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Ralph B. Clark said at the time that the vote reflected “the pulse . . . the public’s feelings toward growth in this county.”

A month later, two organized groups of residents in Costa Mesa successfully battled C. J. Segerstrom & Sons’ plans to build a 32-story skyscraper and major office project near Harbor Boulevard and the San Diego Freeway. The City Council, after hearing hours of testimony from residents who said the project was too big for the community, asked the developer to withdraw its plans. Segerstrom has since asked local residents for advice on how to build a project more acceptable to them.

The homeowners’ groups, which call themselves Mesa Action and the Costa Mesa Citizens’ Coalition, are a political force to be reckoned with in Costa Mesa. Just two years ago, they put themselves on the political map when they helped to elect slow-growth council members Dave Wheeler and Mary Hornbuckle.

In Irvine last July, a new “slow-growth” majority on the City Council reversed the city’s position on construction of three controversial freeways, and proposed changes in the city’s general plan to rezone hundreds of acres of land as permanent open space. The council, complying with the wishes of about 7,000 residents who had signed petitions, withdrew Irvine from a consortium of cities collecting fees from developers for construction of the freeways until a citywide vote could be held.

Movement in Newport Beach

Even in conservative Newport Beach, the slow-growth movement has gained a toehold. A group there calling itself Gridlock--aided by a well-established environmental group of prominent city residents called Stop Polluting Our Newport--garnered enough signatures on petitions to force a special election on the Irvine Co.’s $300-million expansion plans for Newport Center. The City Council has approved the project, but residents will have an opportunity to vote on the plan in a Nov. 25 special election.

Even in unincorporated areas of Mission Viejo, Laguna Niguel, El Toro, Laguna Hills, Lake Forest, Capistrano Beach and Dana Point in south Orange County, residents are pushing incorporation drives that could eventually lead to the formation of as many as six new municipalities. Among the reasons they cite in favor of incorporation is control of growth and development.

Wetlands Area

And in Huntington Beach, a grass-roots group calling itself Huntington Beach Tomorrow, banded together this summer to seek a voice in zoning and development decisions.