‘Slow Growth’ Emerges as Key Issue in Local Politics

From coast to coast suburbs are coming of age, taking on new roles--and new problems as they outgrow their bedroom community past. Today’s suburbs are home to a large and cosmopolitan population, a complex economy, a variety of businesses and industry. Yet these very modern metroplexes are overseen by governments set up for the simpler suburbs of yesterday--a system that now is hopelessly outdated and naive.

Mark Baldassare

UC Irvine professor and

author of “Trouble in Paradise”

A revolution, of sorts, is brewing in Orange County.

In at least five of the county’s cities, local candidates who favor slowing the building boom are hoping in Tuesday’s elections to become the voice of an electorate that is increasingly frustrated over traffic, pollution and a perceived decline in the quality of suburban life.

From Huntington Beach to San Clemente, the “slow-growth” movement is changing the face of city politics.

Urban planners see the movement as an attempt by residents to gain some control over their neighborhoods. It transcends party lines and traditional differences between conservatives and liberals, with conservative Republicans willing to support liberal Democrats for city council posts, so long as they are willing to say no to developers.

Last June, for example, Larry Agran and Ed Dornan, both liberal Democrats and advocates of slow growth, were the top vote-getters in the City Council election in predominantly Republican Irvine, despite developers’ efforts on behalf of pro-growth candidates.

Mark Baldassare, a UC Irvine professor who has written extensively on America’s changing suburbs, had this explanation for the emergence of the slow-growth movement:

“The change in the definition of what a suburban area is has upset and unsettled Orange County residents, particularly in the south county, which has seen the greatest amount of change. They see the county changing from one with predominantly single-family homes and open space to one with office buildings, commercial strips and apartment complexes.

“I don’t think people are saying they are unhappy with their city. What they are unhappy with is what’s happening around them.”

Irvine City Councilman Ray Catalano, a UCI planning professor, observed: “Orange County’s typical homeowner is someone who is fairly well educated. They have paid a premium for their home and have the kind of personalities where they are concerned about control over their environment. When you put that mix together with an aggressive development community, there’s a lot of tension. And that’s what we’ve got.”

The scene varies somewhat from city to city.

- In Costa Mesa, some homeowners say they fear that the South Coast Plaza area--already home to several modern office buildings, the Performing Arts Center and a massive shopping center--will become the county’s unofficial downtown. Further construction, they argue, will destroy the city’s small-town atmosphere.

- In affluent Newport Beach, a group calling itself Gridlock was organized to oppose the City Council’s approval of a proposed $300-million expansion of Newport Center by the Irvine Co. Opponents say traffic would choke neighborhood roads and cause further pollution.

- In Huntington Beach, residents were spurred into action several months ago to fight ambitious redevelopment efforts by the city in its aging downtown. Describing themselves as a grass-roots group that supports “moderate, controlled growth,” members of Huntington Beach Tomorrow have challenged the City Council’s approval of Pierside Village, an 87,500-square-foot project that includes 60 new shops, three major restaurants and a three-story parking structure along a stretch of ocean-front highway.

- Last February, San Clemente developers’ plans to build about 10,000 new homes by the year 2000 in the city’s hilly back country prompted voters to overwhelmingly pass an initiative limiting construction to 500 units a year. The two authors of the measure are on Tuesday’s ballot for council seats.

- And while there is little room left to build within Laguna Beach, most of the seven candidates running for the City Council have expressed concern that the growth explosion in neighboring cities will bring a greater influx of tourists and cars to the popular and picturesque beach town.

Economic, Social Roots

Catalano says the slow-growth movement has both economic and social roots.

“People who have purchased residential property along the coast see the coast as a sanctuary from the unpleasant and maddening characteristics of the intense metropolitan centers that are only 10 or 15 miles away from them,” he said.

“They have paid high prices for their homes and are economically stretched to keep that,” Catalano said. “When that happens and they see that their environment is being, in their minds, threatened by development that will make their residential areas the same as their work areas, they don’t like it.

“The sociological aspect is not so much that places are changing, but the rate at which they are changing. More important is the feeling (among residents) that the people who are responsible for the change don’t give a damn about the effect. That scares people.”

Development Study

And, Catalano noted, “We’re headed for one hell of a lot of development.”

According to a 1986 regional study by the City of Irvine, about 100 million square feet of development is scheduled for six cities and unincorporated areas of southern Orange County through the year 2000.

The study included Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Irvine, Orange, Tustin and Santa Ana. It indicated that about 61 million square feet of office development, 16 million square feet of commercial/retail space, 18 million square feet of industrial development, 127,000 residential units and 4,800 more hotel rooms already have been proposed by developers for the area.

While county developers are being forced to pay attention to the wave of slow-growth sentiment, they say they are not alarmed.

“It all seems to go in cycles,” said Malcolm Ross, the director of planning and design for C.J. Segerstrom & Sons. Ross felt the sting of slow-growth sentiment earlier this year when 200 Costa Mesa residents appeared before the City Council to protest his company’s plan for a 32-story office tower on its Home Ranch property off Harbor Boulevard, just north of the San Diego Freeway. After hours of heated testimony, Ross, realizing he didn’t have the votes, withdrew the plan.

‘A Second Look’

“I don’t think citizens are really saying enough is enough,” Ross said. “I think those who are thoughtful are saying, ‘Let’s have another look, a second look.’ ”

Still, the Segerstrom executive and president of the Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce conceded: “The perception of increased traffic is a driving force in that whole (anti-growth) attitude. That is something that everyone--homeowners, developers, politicians--needs to work on very hard. It doesn’t matter if there is any more development or not: The situation is going to get worse.”

Ross said many of the slow-growth advocates, particularly those in Newport Beach, would like to go back to the 1940s.

“We live in a basin with 12 million people and 6 million automobiles,” Ross said. “I don’t think you can go back in time.”

But those involved in the slow-growth movement argue that their city councils should be doing more to help keep urban expansion at bay.

Tom Rogers, a longtime county resident and Republican activist, said he and other slow-growth proponents will consider taking the initiative route to control future development if their candidates are not successful in Tuesday’s council elections.

“The general feeling among us is that if through our cities we can’t, on some immediate basis, stop this unlimited, irrational growth, we are going to a countywide initiative. We are running out of time.”

The urban nightmare that Rogers and others conjure up is a sea of cars on inadequate freeways, destroying “any movement or enjoyment of the county as we have known it,” he said.

“It’s time for communities to stop allowing new developments unless streets and the necessary support services are in place before construction begins,” said Jim Aynes, a spokesman for Costa Mesa’s slow-growth political action committee, Mesa Action.

Said Baldassare: “The quality-of-life issues are not going away as cities chart their own destinies. People might feel better about their city and city government, but I don’t think it will affect how they feel about what’s going on around them. If an Irvine, Newport or Costa Mesa become slow-growth areas and the communities around them don’t, there is still traffic passing through them from other cities.”

“The question,” Catalano said, “is what are these towns going to be like and who will be calling the shots?”