Escondido Joins Ranks of Slow-Growth Cities

Escondido became the latest city in the county to adopt a growth-managing ordinance after the City Council passed a novel measure that will make it more difficult to change land uses in the city.

Successfully defusing a growth management initiative that seemed destined for a public vote, the council Wednesday night adopted a compromise ordinance designed to temper the frequency and degree of land-use changes resulting in population density increases.

The ordinance also is intended to restrict “incompatible” land uses--such as small shopping centers in residential neighborhoods--and to add to the city’s inventory of permanent open space by requiring the city to acquire an acre of park land for each 100 approved residential units.

Proponents of the measure say it will go a long way in managing growth in Escondido because once a property owner receives a land-use zone change on his property, he would not be able to seek another change for at least four years.

Restrictions on Changes

Furthermore, a property owner could only seek a zone change to the next higher residential density category, so that the owner property zoned, say, for half-acre residential “estate” lots would be able to seek “single-family residential” zoning for up to 3.4 homes per acre, and could not seek zoning for smaller lots, condominiums or apartments.

Planning Commissioner David Barber, the ordinance’s chief author, said that with its passage Wednesday night he would now throw away petitions containing about 5,000 signatures of voters who wanted a somewhat more stringent proposal put to a citywide election.

“This ordinance is imaginative and innovative and accomplishes 90% of what we set out to do when we began our campaign in February,” Barber said. “I’m more than pleased that this was resolved (at the council level) because it shows what can be accomplished when there is cooperation among the people and government.”

The ordinance was approved by a 4 to 1 vote of the City Council. Councilman Doug Best denounced it, saying the city was being “blackmailed” by Barber’s initiative and that he resented being pressured by Barber and two other planning commissioners who were its chief proponents.

Councilman Jerry Harmon, the city’s most prominent slow-growth champion, voted for the ordinance but contended it would do little to actually slow growth. He said he will ask the council in two weeks to consider adopting a numerical limit on the number of new building permits to be issued by the city annually, saying that was the most effective way of slowing growth in Escondido.

“Even if we don’t change any more zoning, the General Plan still calls for a population of between 200,000 and 300,000 in our general planning area at build out. That’s what we’ve got to slow,” Harmon said.

Other council members in Escondido, however, have indicated no support for a building cap--a growth-limiting philosophy which has met mixed reaction around the county in recent weeks.

San Diego Ordinance

Just Tuesday, the San Diego City Council passed such an ordinance itself, limiting new construction in San Diego to 8,000 dwellings in 1988, about half of what was built in San Diego in 1986.

Voters in Oceanside, rejecting a softer measure proposed by their City Council, adopted a citizens initiative, which limits to 1,000 the number of dwelling units to be built in their city in 1987, and 800 a year the number that can be built through 1996.

Vista voters approved an initiative limiting to 500 the number of dwelling units to be constructed annually, but the measure had several striking exceptions, including specific planned developments which are subjected to greater city rules and regulations.

In Carlsbad, voters rejected a measure calling for a building cap in favor of another ballot proposal supported by the City Council itself which dictates that residential growth not outstrip city services and facilities.

The key features of the Escondido ordinance include:

- Limiting the degree of rezoning. The city’s existing residential land uses are summarized in seven categories ranging from rural agricultural (minimum five-acre lots) to “heavy multiple residential” (with up to 30 units to the acre). A zone change could only go to the next higher density category and not leapfrog to two or more levels higher.

- Limiting how often a zone change can occur. Once a zone change is approved, the owner cannot ask for another change for at least four years. And when property to be annexed into Escondido is pre-zoned, that zoning could not be changed for at least four years.

- Making it more difficult to change the city’s general plan. Such a general plan amendment would require a four-fifths consent vote of the City Council, as opposed to the simple majority that had been required and which, critics have complained, had made it too easy for such changes--resulting in higher densities--to occur.

- Requiring that an acre of open space or park land be purchased for every 100 approved dwelling units. The ordinance leaves open the question of whether the funds would come from the city itself or from increased developer fees or developer land gifts.

- Requiring “compatible” land use in rezoning cases. That is, commercial land uses would be considered incompatible--and therefore would be not be allowed unless overridden by a four-fifths vote of the City Council--if the established zoning on at least three sides of the property is residential. Also, increased residential rezoning would be incompatible if the established zoning on three sides of it is of a lower residential density.

The City Council could ignore the compatibility guidelines altogether if at least one side of the property is bounded by a freeway, flood channel or a major thoroughfare, such as Valley Parkway or Centre City Parkway.

- Adding credibility to the Planning Commission. Under the new ordinance, if the City Council overturns or significantly amends a recommendation of the Planning Commission on a land use decision, that decision must then be returned to the commission for a second review, and then be returned again to the City Council for yet another public hearing.

Bureaucratic Delay

While the Planning Commission would not necessarily have to bless the council’s action, it would nonetheless create a bureaucratic delay deliberately intended to frustrate a developer.

The logic for sending projects back to the Planning Commission, said Mayor Jim Rady, is that too often builders present something less than the best possible project to the Planning Commission, to see what they can get away with and knowing that improvements to the project can be made later if necessary to win City Council approval.

Now, those developers would risk a delay of two or more months in the process and will be more apt to put their best project forward at the commission level at the outset, Rady said.

Barber’s original initiative would have required a four-fifths vote of the council to overturn a Planning Commission decision. He said he consented to the compromise because builders now will be more likely to present better-quality projects earlier in the negotiations to save time in the long run.

The original initiative also did not allow the City Council to find exemptions to the “compatibility” guidelines in zone changes, as opposed to the four-fifths override vote the ordinance now allows.

But compromise was the name of the game, Rady let it be known Wednesday night.

When Ed Phillips, president of the Escondido Board of Realtors, complained about the need of a four-fifths council vote to make a general plan amendment, Rady answered, “I agree with you but we can’t do it that way. If we do, we buy an initiative. That’s the quid pro quo. That’s the deal.”

Phillips said the fourth-fifths condition “will allow a minority of the membership of the City Council to block projects which may be overwhelmingly acceptable to Escondido voters and equally acceptable to 60% of the members of the City Council.”

Noted Phillips, “The initiative is ransoming the City Council.” Said Rady, “That’s right.”

“What’s the need for this (ordinance) in view of the fact we’re spending nearly a half-million dollars on a general plan review?” Best asked.

“It will put some confidence in what we’re doing,” Councilman Ernie Cowan said.

“Confidence, heck,” Best said. “All we’re doing is being blackmailed . . . “

Cowan replied: “ . . . There are provisions in this which I don’t agree with but the spirit of this represents something to me that I can live with.”

Rady argued that the alternative--an election on Barber’s initiative--would be divisive to the community “at a time when we’re trying to pull the community together.” Compromise and cooperation, Rady said, was a better alternative.

‘Will Manage Growth’

Rady later characterized the ordinance as “as significant as any I can remember ever coming before us. It will manage growth.” He said he endorsed the ordinance because “in the past, the no-growth and slow-growth people have been the minority, along with the save-the-whales types. This time we’re hearing from mainstream Escondido. This is not the fringe anymore.”

Rady said he was unable to support an outright cap on building permits “because that would ignore the reality of the marketplace. You can’t control the economy.

“What happens if a community says it can sustain 4,000 dwelling units a year, and the economy would let you build 8,000 units one year and only 2,000 for the next couple of years? A cap is too arbitrary, and what you would end up is a community of elitists, where only the rich folks can live.”

Harmon said the ordinance “is a quarter-step in the right direction but doesn’t go anywhere far enough because in reality it won’t slow down the number of building permits that can be issued and pulled tomorrow.

“All it will do is manage the requests for zone and general plan changes, but even if we don’t have any more changes, we still couldn’t meet the demands of growth that already exist,” Harmon said.