Go Slow on Growth Initiative

Proponents of a slow-growth initiative have unveiled their long-awaited document. It has gotten the community’s attention as surely as the proverbial rap on a mule’s nose with a 2-by-4. Getting the community’s attention should be enough.

The measure, which would enact growth controls based on traffic conditions, is being aimed at residents in all 26 cities in the county as well as the unincorporated county area.

Its major provisions seek to ban construction projects except where average speeds on local streets and highways are at least 30 to 35 m.p.h. and where vehicles don’t have to wait for more than one traffic light change at intersections.

To qualify for next June’s ballot, the initiative must receive the signatures of 10% of the registered voters in each jurisdiction. It also could be placed on the ballot individually by the county Board of Supervisors and the city councils, but few if any are expected to do that. Nor should they.

We are in total sympathy with the goal of those who drafted the initiative. How could anyone who has driven the traffic-clogged streets of Orange County not be? Furthermore, we strongly support the initiative process.

But this proposal is flawed and could even promote the growth in traffic congestion that it seeks to prevent.

For one thing, it raises valid concerns that not every community can meet its traffic reduction provisions. Inner cities with older, narrow and congested streets and near-empty treasuries may well find the cost of modifications prohibitive. But the measure is silent on the question of where the money for costly road improvements will come from.

Another problem is that to really be effective, the control measure must be passed in all 26 cities and the unincorporated area. Traffic is a regional problem and must be approached on a regional basis, not piecemeal. In an area as compact as Orange County, one city’s growth policy affects the others, and jurisdictions without controls could be subject to heavier than normal development and attendant growth.

Passage of growth restrictions will surely curtail some development and in the process drive the cost of existing homes higher. That will only encourage growth in neighboring counties, like Riverside, which is welcoming the boom, and make commuter traffic to Orange County’s job market even heavier than it is now, with no source of funds for road improvements.

In addition to the economic shortcomings, the initiative poses legal questions that are sure to lead to lawsuits. And it raises practical concerns, like using an initiative for land-use planning. That’s too inflexible an approach. Once approved, it could be changed only by another election. That’s costly, time-consuming and unnecessary.

Given the growing dissatisfaction with traffic congestion and local government’s record of accommodating builders, a showdown on the rate of growth was inevitable and necessary. The initiative effort serves that purpose. It brings the issue into the public forum. More important, it also forces local government to counter with something realistic and workable.

Some public officials have been working earnestly on traffic problems exacerbated by growth. An example of that was seen last Tuesday when the proposed ballot measure to limit development was presented to the supervisors. In the same session, the county board approved the outline of a plan under development for the past six months that would require builders to make about $120 million worth of road improvements in southeastern Orange County before any new development could take place.

The supervisors are also planning to stagger work hours for as many of the county’s 12,000 employees as possible, and some cities are requiring commercial projects to provide van pools and to stagger employee starting times as conditions for approval.

Those kinds of traffic-reduction conditions must be built into the permit process throughout Orange County and be vigorously enforced. The county board and some city councils are moving in that direction. But they have been moving as slowly as the county’s traffic. Leadership and coordination is lacking. The emergence of the initiative drive should speed them up, and remove the need for its passage. If it doesn’t, there is plenty of time to then consider a more drastic approach.