Second Slow-Growth Group Offers a ‘More Palatable’ Initiative

Hoping to avoid the appearance that San Diego’s environmental movement may be overreaching, a group of slow-growth advocates has proposed a second, more conservative citizens’ initiative for the ballot next year that would keep development out of environmentally sensitive lands such as canyons and flood plains.

50,500 Signatures Needed

The measure--sponsored by San Diegans for Managed Growth, the same group that pioneered the passage of Proposition A two years ago--can qualify for the November, 1988, ballot if the group collects at least 50,500 valid voter signatures on petitions by early April, City Clerk Chuck Abdelnour said in a memo released this week.

Under Proposition A, public approval is required for any new development in the city’s “future urbanizing zone,” a 25,000-acre area, largely in north San Diego, set aside for development after 1995.

Dave Kreitzer, SDMG president, said Tuesday the proposed initiative is modeled after the city’s Resource Protection Overlay Zone, a temporary measure that was enacted by the City Council this summer in a flurry of activity intended to retard the pace of development. The overlay zone, good for 18 months, is designed to stave off everything except minimal construction on canyons, wetlands and flood plains.

But in adopting the environmental protections, council members also allowed major exemptions for projects along the Interstate 15 corridor--a fact that angered many environmentalists and prompted them to seek relief through the initiative process.

The first measure that came as a response was one sponsored by Citizens for Limited Growth, which hopes to have enough signatures gathered by early 1988 to have its initiative on the June ballot.

Targets Residential Housing

That initiative would not only adopt many of the environmental goals aimed at forestalling development on canyons and wetlands, it would slow residential construction citywide by establishing a cap on the number of housing units that could be built each year, CLG co-chairman Linda Martin said.

The measure would establish a construction ceiling ranging from 4,000 to 6,000 new residential units a year--limits that could be lifted only after local governments meet several “quality of life” goals, such as building a secondary sewage treatment plant, ensuring an adequate supply of water and making sure traffic is no worse than 1985 levels, Martin said.

That kind of hard-line approach, however, has caused a split in the slow-growth ranks.

Kreitzer and Lynn Benn, an SDMG member who was recently appointed to the city Planning Commission, said they and other slow-growth advocates thought the CLG initiative was vulnerable because of the building cap. The building industry, rich in campaign funds, could defeat the measure by arguing it would take away jobs from San Diegans, they said.

“My personal feeling is that if this were to go down in defeat, it would hurt the environmental movement,” Kreitzer said Tuesday. “When you lose, you don’t have the power and influence that you once had.”

‘More Palatable’ Idea Sought

The SDMG, therefore, voted two months ago not to endorse the CLG initiative and went to work on a measure that would be more palatable to voters and local politicians, Kreitzer said.

The result is the SDMG measure, which incorporates much of the environmental protections afforded in the Resource Protection Overlay Zone. The SDMG initiative, however, would put those protections in place permanently and would knock out the exemptions that currently exist for developments along the Interstate 15 corridor, Kreitzer said.

Kreitzer said he believes the SDMG measure is so politically palatable that the group will eventually ask the City Council to vote to put it on the November, 1988, ballot, a move that would save the SDMG the time and expense of gathering signatures.

He said the SDMG will ask for the council vote in December, after four new council members have been inaugurated.

The CLG’s Martin said she doesn’t think the more conservative initiative will have an effect on her group’s effort to qualify for the ballot.

“We’re there first, we’re organizing our volunteers first,” she said. “I would not like to be in their shoes.”

Temporary Caps Discussed

Meanwhile, City Council members Tuesday heard lengthy reports from the city planning department on the effects of the Interim Development Ordinance, the temporary growth-control measure enacted by the council this summer. Council members adopted the IDO in June as a sort of holding action until a citizens’ committee can complete an update of the city’s 1979 Growth Management Plan.

The IDO limits the city to granting building permits for 8,000 housing units over the next year--or about half the number of units built in 1986.

Statistics released by the planning department Tuesday showed the IDO, even with its exemptions, has slowed the city’s pace of giving out building permits. In 1986, 19,180 permits were given out, but only 11,300 have been issued from Jan. 1 through Sept. 30, planners said.

Planners told council members that they expect the city to give out more than 12,000 building permits by December. The reason the number of building permits is over the 8,000 cap is because the IDO did not go into effect until the summer.

Other planning department statistics, however, indicate that the practical effect of the IDO cap may not be obvious when San Diego voters will be making up their minds between the two slow-growth initiatives next year.

A planning department housing forecast predicted that the number of residential housing units completed in 1987 would dip to 12,600 in 1987, down from the record 14,980 in 1986.

But housing completions are expected to surge again in 1988 to a new record of 16,180 units, the forecast said. The reason for the “surprising” surge, the forecast said, is because of exemptions in the IDO and a backlog of building permits that were obtained before the temporary growth-control measure was adopted in June.