Slow-Growth Initiative’s Curbs Eased by Sponsors

After a series of closed-door meetings with builders and government officials, sponsors of the proposed countywide slow-growth ballot initiative have agreed to drop provisions that could have barred development at most of the county’s major intersections.

That means slow-growth proponents will have to begin anew the process of qualifying the initiative for the June, 1988, ballot.

The proposed initiative is being rewritten to allow development near a major intersection if the builder agrees to take steps to improve nearby traffic flow within three years, Tom Rogers said Thursday. Rogers is chairman of Orange County Tomorrow and its pro-initiative offshoot, Citizens for Sensible Growth and Traffic Control.

The steps taken would have to accommodate a greater traffic level than that generated by the new development at an intersection. For example, Rogers said, a project that generates 2,000 new car trips a day might be required to upgrade nearby intersections to handle 2,200 new daily trips.

“We have come up with a better document,” said Rogers, a San Juan Capistrano rancher and shopping center developer. “They (building industry officials) argued that what we had would shut down the county, and that was never our intent.”

Rogers said initiative sponsors may publish the rewritten measure this weekend. Under state law, that would prompt a mandatory 21-day period for public comment, after which about 66,000 signatures will have to be gathered to qualify the reworded measure for the June, 1988, ballot.

The initiative’s sponsors published the original version of the measure June 13. The period for public comment was to end July 4. But the comment period was extended indefinitely, first at the request of county officials and then through mutual agreement with the builders.

According to Rogers and other participants, those attending some or all the recent closed-door meetings included:

John Erskine, executive director of the Building Industry Assn. of Orange County and a Huntington Beach councilman; Santa Ana Mayor and developer Dan Young; Bob Balgenorth, executive secretary of the 30,000-member Orange County Building and Construction Trades Council; Tony Moiso and Tom Blum, executives of the Santa Margarita Company, and Monica Florian, an Irvine Co. vice president.

Also at some or all of the meetings were Irvine builder Michael Ray, Irvine Mayor Larry Agran, Irvine Councilman Ray Catalano, Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, Laguna Beach lawyer Belinda Blacketer, Huntington Beach engineer Norm Grossman, Santa Ana lawyer Greg Hile, San Juan Capistrano activist Russ Burkett and Rogers.

The meetings have been held at Ray’s J. Ray Construction Co. office in Irvine.

The building industry representatives insisted that the initial meetings be held in closed session, according to participants, for fear that news coverage would preclude a frank exchange of views.

‘Open to Input’

“I would just as soon not comment on this thing until it is further along,” Balgenorth said Thursday. “Any growth initiative would impact our (building trades council) members. . . . I attended the meetings from that perspective.”

Vasquez, who attended only Wednesday night’s meeting, said he went to facilitate future meetings with county staff members, who have their own views on the initiative. He said talks with slow-growth advocates would “not be a proper course” for him.

Young said: “I think that the proponents of the initiative are very open to receiving input from people as to how they might better look at their initiative. I’ve tried to present my own ideas . . . (but) I don’t want to get into the substance of that because there are plenty of meetings yet to occur.”

A major benefit of the discussion, according to both sides, is that the rewritten initiative should have a better chance of withstanding a legal challenge if it is approved. But builders and their representatives at the closed meetings have not agreed to refrain from court action to block the measure.

Some slow-growth advocates who attended the sessions said building industry officials have suggested a trade: support for some kind of traffic control initiative in exchange for slow-growth advocates’ support of a sales tax initiative to pay for highway improvements.

Rogers said he finds such a trade-off “preposterous.”

In 1984, Rogers and Burkett helped lead the successful campaign against the county and developer-sponsored Proposition A, which would have established a 1% sales tax that would have been earmarked for transit and highway projects.

When first unveiled in June, the language of the proposed slow-growth initiative effectively barred major construction projects countywide, except where average vehicle speeds are at least 30-35 m.p.h. during commute hours and where vehicles can get through an intersection without waiting longer than one red light.

Rogers said the rewritten version will still contain such restrictions for all new highway links and intersections but not for those already built.

Rogers said other changes in the initiative include:

- Cutting in half the requirement that developers contribute 10 acres of park land for every 1,000 people housed in a new development.

- Modifications in flood-control requirements.

- New statements of policy encouraging use of traffic management techniques such as car-pooling and flexible work hours.

- Using the amount of time it takes to go through an intersection as the measurement of congestion rather than the number of red lights or the average speed of traffic.