Vista Voters Back Growth Plan Favored by Developers

Taking a buzz saw to the budding slow-growth movement in North County, voters in Vista on Tuesday rejected an initiative calling for a tight cap on development in favor of a City Council-sponsored growth-management measure backed by the building industry.

Proposition A, the council-backed measure designed to ensure that public facilities and services keep pace with growth, garnered 54.3% of the vote.

That was good enough for the proposition, which got solid support from the real estate and building industry despite its curbs on growth, to beat out Proposition B, a rival, more-restrictive slow-growth initiative favored by 50.4% of the electorate.

Mayor Gloria McClellan, a staunch advocate of Proposition A, heralded the victory as proof that Vista voters are behind the council’s efforts to manage growth in the city.

“This means we can now move forward with the street work and other projects that will be needed instead of dealing with the lawsuit that would have resulted from Proposition B,” McClellan said. “This puts the council in the position of being pro-active instead of reactive.”

Refuse to Admit Defeat

Backers of the slow-growth measure, meanwhile, refused to admit defeat. “We’re very pleased that Proposition B won,” slow-growth leader Jeff Baker said, referring to the fact that the initiative got a majority vote.

With a sparse, 28.5% turnout at the polls, 3,072 residents voted yes on Proposition A and 2,587 voted no. Proposition B, which would have put a cap on the number of dwelling units that could be built each year in Vista, got 2,801 yes votes and 2,755 no votes.

Though Proposition B got a majority vote, a clause in the council’s measure stipulates that, if the two competing propositions received support from more than 50% of the electorate, the one with the largest total would prevail.

That so-called “killer clause,” however, was recently challenged in nearby Carlsbad by a slow-growth group whose initiative got a majority vote but was not implemented by the council. A Vista Superior Court judge rejected the organization’s challenge of the killer clause last week, but the slow-growthers say they probably will appeal that ruling.

Baker and other Vista slow-growth advocates say they also will challenge the killer clause. “We don’t accept the legitimacy of the killer clause because no elected officials have the power to rob us of our constitutional right to the initiative process,” Baker said. The Vista election marked the second ballot battle on growth in fast-developing North County in a week. On April 21, voters in Oceanside favored a tight slow-growth initiative similar to Vista’s Proposition B over a managed-growth measure backed by the City Council. Developers contributed more than $100,000 to back the council measure.

Indeed, supporters of Vista’s slow-growth measure took heart in the days following the Oceanside vote, saying that they felt that the verdict in the neighboring community would spark additional support for Proposition B. Backers of Proposition A, meanwhile, continued to express optimism as the campaign wound down, stressing that Vista voters have not always followed the lead set by Oceanside.

Other cities in the region also have addressed the growth issue in recent months. In a high-stakes battle last November, Carlsbad voters favored a City Council-backed growth-management plan over a slow-growth initiative pushed by two citizens’ groups. And grass-roots groups in other North County municipalities are gearing up for similar efforts in hopes of putting the brakes on growth.

Like the growth elections in Oceanside and Carlsbad, the battle in Vista pitted a poorly financed effort by a feisty band of slow-growthers against a well-organized campaign mounted by the city Establishment and heavily funded by developers and real estate interests.

Of the nearly $26,000 raised by two groups opposed to Proposition B, $15,000 came from the California Assn. of Realtors and $5,000 came from a single Orange County-based developer. In contrast, Vistans for Honest Government, the group pushing Proposition B, raised only about $775, relying instead on a volunteer telephone bank, precinct walking and hand-lettered signs to get their point across to voters.

During the campaign, slow-growth advocates hammered on the theme that City Hall could not be trusted to produce land-use legislation that would curb the flood of development that has swept across the community. They pointed to Proposition B as a measure that would work quickly to slow down construction of new homes, giving city leaders a chance to take a breath and make improvements to city services and facilities.

Proposition A’s backers stressed that it represented a more palatable choice, one that will assure that public facilities are kept in line with growth. They blasted the rival slow-growth initiative as a poorly written proposal that would only hurt city services and prompt a spate of lawsuits from developers.

Proposition B is modeled after the Oceanside slow-growth initiative and similar measures adopted by almost 60 cities nationwide. It would have limited construction of new dwelling units to 569 a year beginning in 1987 and running through 1999.

It also called for creation of a development evaluation board to rate project applications and determine which will be allowed to proceed under the annual quota. The city Planning Commission would serve as the board to evaluate each development in terms of public facilities provided, architectural strengths, and the inclusion of parks or open space.

Among the projects that would be exempted from the annual cap would be remodeling work on existing homes, construction of single-family homes on a lot, projects in the city’s redevelopment area, and housing for senior citizens or low-income residents.

Proposition A was drafted by a special committee established by the City Council when the other slow-growth measure appeared on the political horizon.

It requires a public vote to increase housing densities above those outlined in the city’s existing land-use plans. The measure also contains provisions prohibiting development without needed public facilities, and mandates the adoption of a plan outlining what facilities are needed and design review guidelines.

Proposition A also includes a cap on housing construction of 500 units a year through 1999. But the measure does allow a broad exemption: Developers of projects that have received a “specific plan,” which outlines public facilities that will be provided by the developer, could proceed unimpeded by the annual cap. Under that rule, seven of the city’s largest developments would be excluded from the annual limit on construction.