County’s Problems Described as Worse : Growth Report Raises Red Flags

A county official warned the Board of Supervisors Tuesday that the problems of growth in Orange County have worsened to the point that “it’s time to wave the red flags.”

Building of new homes and businesses across the county has increased the need for new roads, libraries, fire and police protection and other services that may prove too expensive for county government, said Anthony J. Carstens, manager of the monitoring and forecasting department in the county administrative office.

Carstens presented the supervisors with the eighth annual “early warning report” on projected growth in the county and its impact on a wide variety of services.

Sources of Funds

The report is more pessimistic than those of previous years. But for the first time it offers recommendations for finding new sources of funds or reducing services.

Among the recommendations is a proposal that residential developments should not be approved unless they include workplaces as a way of easing commuter traffic congestion.

The report said in the last year “several problems worsened and we are in effect warning that it’s time to wave the red flags,” Carstens said.

A major theme of the report and of comments by the supervisors was the need for closer coordination among the county’s 26 cities in dealing with planned development and transportation problems.

In the past six years, nearly 80,000 dwelling units were added in the county, nearly three-quarters of them in the cities, the report said, with Irvine, Huntington Beach and Anaheim being the leaders.

Supervisor Roger R. Stanton said the report “dispels the myth that unregulated growth in unincorporated areas is the source of the problem. Unregulated growth is spread across 26 cities.”

Stanton charged that some city officials, whom he did not identify, were guilty of “substituting emotionalism and politics for sound reasoning and judgment of what the problem is and how to solve it.”

Although the document acknowledges that transforming unincorporated areas into cities will cost the county a loss of property tax revenue, it said residents wanting more services will be better off in cities, a development the supervisors have encouraged.

“It will be increasingly difficult for the county to deliver city-level services to all unincorporated communities,” the report said.

“Municipal-type services including higher levels of police protection, park and landscape maintenance services, neighborhood library service, and fire protection and paramedic services are appropriate for urban areas that are annexing to cities or in areas that will become new cities.

“The county will find that these service requirements will compete with regional county services such as regional parks, courts, health and human services, jails, flood control and highways for available revenues.”

The passage in 1978 of Proposition 13, which cut the growth in property taxes, dealt a stiff blow to the county, as did the phase-out this year of federal revenue sharing. In the next few years the county will also face large increases in spending for new jails and courts, as well as possible spending increases for health and welfare programs it provides across the county.

Decade of Growth

In the 1970s, when land was cheap and easily developed, federal and state governments subsidized loans for housing and built miles of highways, water projects were developed and the public supported growth and development, the report said.

“Today, land is more costly, the effectiveness of government housing subsidies has been reduced considerably, major highway construction has all but ceased, the growth in the supply of water is being reduced and obtaining additional water from Northern California will be an uphill struggle, and the public is increasingly questioning the location and rate of growth and development,” the report said.

The report recommended that county planners by June come up with criteria to evaluate the relationship between jobs and homes in new developments proposed for south Orange County. In addition, developers should be given specific numbers of jobs to aim for in new developments and told when to provide them.

It also suggested that the county consider asking local voters to raise the state-imposed limit on county spending and noted that the county is considering putting a bond issue for new jails on the ballot next year.

User fees may have to be raised to bring in more revenue as well, the report said.

The supervisors ordered that the report be provided to county departments and all cities. In addition, the county Planning Commission will consider the recommendations and report its findings to the supervisors.