Slow Growth Initiatives Top all Other Issues on the Ballot in Carlsbad

Growth. It has become the political battle cry of northern San Diego County residents from the sea to the grassy, inland valleys. From Encinitas to Escondido, residents have organized to fight development they believe is eroding the character of their communities.

In Carlsbad, the debate over growth has sizzled like nowhere else. Over the past decade, the city’s population has more than doubled. In many cases city services like roads and parks have lagged behind demand.

On Nov. 4, residents in this sprawling coastal city will go to the polls and choose between two competing ballot initiatives that aim to restore order to the development boom.

Proposition G, an initiative sponsored by two citizens groups, would put an annual cap on housing construction. The measure proposes that 1,000 residential dwelling units be built in the city during 1987, 750 units in 1988 and 500 each year thereafter through 1996. At that time, the measure would appear again on the ballot, giving voters the option of extending it for five years.

As an alternative, a majority of the City Council has pushed Proposition E. Instead of controlling the rate of growth, the measure would help keep city services apace with future development, backers claim. In addition, Proposition E mandates a limit of 54,599 housing units in the city, meaning Carlsbad’s population would top out at about 135,000 people. (The current population is about 50,000.) Finally, the council-backed measure stipulates that if both propositions pass, the one receiving the highest number of votes will become law.

Carlsbad’s neighbors will be watching the election contest closely. Similar growth-control campaigns are emerging in Oceanside, Vista, San Marcos and Escondido, where activists hope that a slow-growth victory in Carlsbad will propel their movements forward.

“There is a considerable amount of interest on the part of all the surrounding communities,” said Anthony Skotnicki, a slow-growth advocate and an architect of Proposition G. “This election will not only be important for Carlsbad, it will be important for the entire county. Our efforts will serve as a pioneer effort for others.”

The Carlsbad growth campaign has, so far, overshadowed the races for mayor and for two city council seats. Two other ballot measures--one proposing the public purchase of a eucalyptus grove threatened with development, the other recommending the city spend $3.5 million for a sports complex in Macario Canyon--also have received little attention compared to propositions E and G.

Debate over growth is a relatively new topic for Carlsbad.

Incorporated in 1952, Carlsbad has long been attractive to developers lured by the city’s inviting terrain and hospitable city government. Never has that development activity been as noticeable as recently.

While builders planned projects at a brisk pace, a sluggish economy restricted construction for several years. Moreover, limited capacity at the city’s major sewer plant forced the council to restrict building in the late 1970s.

As the economy has turned around, builders have emerged in force. Residents suddenly began seeing fleets of earth-moving equipment plowing the way for new homes in all corners of Carlsbad.

That activity prompted a loose-knit coalition of residents to band together and back a slate of slow-growth candidates in the November, 1984, election. One of those contenders, attorney Mark Pettine, was elected.

During the following months, Pettine and longtime Councilman Claude (Buddy) Lewis began pushing for adoption of a growth management plan, which they said was needed to ensure that development helped pay for its impact on city services like parks, roads, sewers and police protection.

The council balked at the idea in July, 1985, prompting Skotnicki and other slow-growth advocates to begin planning for Proposition G. But when word of the citizens’ initiative hit City Hall, the council majority reacted by endorsing the Pettine-Lewis plan and enacting a moratorium on development.

Over the following months, numerous public hearings were held as city officials tinkered with the growth management plan, which was finally brought on line in September. In addition, the council majority voted to put Proposition E on the ballot, seeing it as an alternative to the more restrictive slow-growth initiative being pushed by Skotnicki and the others.

“We see it as an antidote to Proposition G,” said Mayor Mary Casler, a supporter of Proposition E. “It gives voters a choice. Proposition G puts an artificial limit on growth and does nothing for public facilities in the city.”

According to Casler, development is necessary to finance construction of roads and other facilities already lacking in the city. Under Proposition G, developer fees would be insufficient to cover existing shortfalls in public services, she said.

“I think (Proposition G) will not allow the city to correct the deficiencies that exist today,” Casler said. “We will not get the developer fees to do that because there won’t be as much development.”

Although Proposition E does not put a cap on the number of units built each year, it would help curb the rate of growth by enforcing stricter requirements on developers, Casler argues.

“It will be much more difficult for anyone to build,” the mayor said. “I think it will do a great deal to slow growth.”

Moreover, as Casler and other Proposition E backers tell it, the measure would give the growth management plan the strength of a referendum, making it immune to the tinkering of future city councils.

But boosters of the citizens’ slow-growth initiative tell a different story, saying Proposition E was launched simply to confuse voters.

“It’s a tricky political thing to try to kill our initiative, and that’s all,” said Nelson Aldridge, co-chairman of Concerned Citizens, one of two grass-roots groups that sponsored Proposition G.

While Proposition E professes that no development would be approved unless public facilities and services are guaranteed by the builder, it does nothing to protect the city’s growth management plan from the tampering of elected officials, slow-growth advocates say. Therefore, they argue, the growth management plan could easily be weakened by council-initiated amendments.

“Mary Casler keeps trying to tell voters they’re voting on the growth management plan, but they aren’t,” said attorney Thomas Smith, another leader of the Proposition G forces. “Even if Prop. E passes, the council could change the growth management plan on a day-in, day-out basis. And they will.”

In addition, slow-growth advocates say Proposition E promises something that has long been part of the city’s land-use regulations, but has often been ignored--that public facilities will be kept in line with growth.

“It’s just an open promise from the City Council, and they’ve been notorious for not keeping their promises,” Aldridge said.

Other slow-growth backers contend that current shortfalls of city facilities and services should not be financed by future development, as Casler and other Proposition E supporters have espoused.

“That would be operating the public facilities program like a Ponzi scheme,” said Anne Mauch, a Proposition G supporter. “The next guy would pay for the guy before, who paid for the guy before that. It’s just not right.”

Instead, many slow-growth boosters say, existing public facility shortages should be corrected with current revenue. In addition, the rate of growth needs to be slowed to help ease the demand for services and facilities, they maintain.

What is needed, Skotnicki said, are the strict, voter-approved controls on the rate of growth that would come with Proposition G.

“If we don’t do it now, we’ve had it,” he said. “If we don’t put some dampers on growth, you soon won’t be able to tell the difference between Orange County and San Diego County.”

While backers of each proposition have fought each other, the developers oppose both.

Under the banner of the Carlsbad Community Builders Assn., the development community has begun pushing for defeat of both Proposition E and G, saying they are poorly thought-out attempts to limit new housing.

Proposition E, they argue, would force developers to put bigger houses on bigger lots, causing home prices to skyrocket. Doug Avis, president of the developer group, warned that Carlsbad would begin to look “a lot like a snobby Beverly Hills” under Proposition E.

Proposition G would prompt a different result, Avis said. Because the measure would not restrict construction of government-subsidized projects, builders would likely turn to that sort of work to stay in business, he said.

“While there is nothing wrong with helping the poor and elderly, new development that is exclusively for those who have great needs for community services puts Carlsbad on the road to disaster,” Avis said. “It is not very pleasant to picture our city turning into a small-scale Detroit or Cleveland.”

Supporters of Proposition G counter that such arguments amount to scare tactics. Specifically, they note that there has been no rush by builders to develop government-subsidized projects in other communities where growth-control measures have been approved. Rather, growth has merely been slowed and, in many cases, the increased competition has produced housing of a higher quality than before controls on development were enacted, they say.

Should either proposition prevail Nov. 4, the battle over growth would likely switch to the courts.

Slow-growth advocates maintain that Proposition E’s limit on the number of residential units that can be built in Carlsbad is unconstitutional. City officials, however, contend the cap is legal because it serves as a way to determine the extent and cost of public facilities and services that will be required by residents.

If Proposition G is approved, developers would probably launch a legal battle to reverse the decision. Currently, a similar slow-growth law is being challenged in Camarillo.

More than 40 cities and two counties in the state have passed growth controlling initiatives since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal challenging a law limiting construction in Petaluma, a Northern California city. The courts have yet to overturn any limits.

Not surprisingly, the growth issue has become central to the Carlsbad council campaigns. To the dismay of several contenders who want to be judged more on their qualifications than their support of either proposition, the growth issue has served as a litmus test of sorts.

The race to succeed retiring Mayor Casler pits Buddy Lewis, a councilman since 1970, against former Councilman Robert Prescott. Lewis, who supports Proposition E but says he can live with Proposition G if it is approved, has consistently attacked Prescott as a pro-growth advocate, citing his record during his term on the council in the early 1980s.

Prescott, meanwhile, has refused to take a stance on either proposition, saying he feels the voters should decide the issue. Instead, he insists he is “a middle grounder” on the growth issue, saying the council needs to take steps to overcome the most obvious symptom of growth--problems with traffic congestion.

In the council race, 11 candidates are vying for two seats. Marylynn Brown-Bellman, a planning consultant, has refused to take a stand on the two propositions, saying she feels either one would suffice and wants to leave the decision up to the voters. Susan Miller-Repasky, a businesswoman, opposes both propositions.

Among the candidates backing proposition G is Pettine, who says the annual cap on the rate of growth is needed in concert with the city’s growth management plan to solve problems caused by past development.

Also supporting Proposition G are: Lois Humphreys, board president for the Leucadia County Water District and an unsuccessful candidate in 1984 for the congressional seat held by Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad); Pat Holzemer-Runsvold, a teacher; Roger Burke, a training administrator for Southern California Edison Co.; Richard Repasky, a private investigator, and Albert Mendoza, a retired government administrator who is backed by Concerned Citizens.

Backing Proposition E are: Eric Larsen, a manager of an agricultural cooperative in Carlsbad; Dennis Brandmeyer, a real estate broker, and John Mamaux, a former Carlsbad school board member and former Carlsbad city manager during the 1960s.

Mamaux, in particular, has come under sharp attack from Proposition G supporters, who claim the council candidate is pro-development. Mamaux maintains he is a slow-growth advocate.

“If you don’t do it the way Proposition G supporters want you to do it, they crucify you and say you’re anti-Carlsbad,” Mamaux said, adding that he would like to see the council candidates tackle other issues such as the drug problem.