Slow-Growth Goal Clogs Sewer Plan

Last December, Mayor Tom Bradley made headlines when he “ordered” a temporary ban on hosing of driveways and other wasteful uses of water to protect the outdated Los Angeles sewers from overflowing.

In the three months since then, new construction has nudged the city’s sewer system even closer to collapse, and still no water conservation controls have been imposed on Los Angeles residents.

It turned out that he lacked the authority to “order” any mandatory conservation at a time when the city faces no shortage of water. In addition, the more subtle process of persuading the City Council and other City Hall officials to go along has proven troublesome.

The hang-up has not been the water conservation measures, which would forbid watering of lawns at midday and require the installation of water-saving toilets and shower heads in homes and businesses. The mayor’s office considers those mild steps that environmental groups and some others have long called appropriate for people who live in a desert region 250 miles from the city’s main supply of water.

Larger Goal

But the mayor’s office has run into trouble trying to sell Bradley’s larger goal of imposing a temporary limit on growth in the city as a way to protect the sewers, which have not been expanded to keep pace with new development.

The pressure for slow growth--to be enforced through a limit on new connections to the sewers--arises because city engineers have calculated that the sewers are perilously close to capacity. The sewer system will be at risk of overflowing until crews finish expanding the city’s Tillman sewage treatment plant in Van Nuys.

Once the Tillman expansion is finished in 1991 or 1992, the limit on new construction would no longer be needed and would be lifted.

But despite its temporary nature, there has been no rush of enthusiasm for the slow-growth plan, which would clamp new controls on development independent of the existing City Hall channels for exacting cooperation from real estate developers.

Obtain Language

It took Bradley’s office until Feb. 2 to obtain the language for the two required ordinances from City Atty. James Hahn and then present the ordinances to the City Council. Since then, one City Council committee has given its blessing, another has met twice without taking a vote and another has decided to wait for a study of the plan.

The mayor’s office finally made some progress Tuesday when the council’s Planning and Environment Committee voted its tentative approval for the concept. But in a half-hour discussion with Bradley aides, committee Chairman Hal Bernson made it clear that the council could well balk at the details.

Rapid growth in the city has made the “bitter pill” of such controls necessary, but Bernson warned Deputy Mayor Mike Gage, who made an unusual appearance before the committee to plead Bradley’s case, that “this won’t be an easy ordinance to pass.”

Under Bradley’s proposal, city bureaucrats would stop issuing new building permits in any month when the city’s growth rises above a fixed quota. The quota would be set to ensure that the rate of flow through the sewers--about 400 million gallons a day now--does not increase by more than 7 million gallons a day each year. Although some kinds of development, such as office high-rises and apartments, place more demand on the sewers than department stores and houses, there would be no distinction between uses.

Bernson complained, however, that the proposal does not spread the allowable construction fairly throughout the city. If several huge office buildings planned downtown are allowed to be built, they could exhaust all the reserve sewer capacity and block plans for new homes and apartments in the San Fernando Valley and other areas of the city, Bernson said.

Another complaint was raised Tuesday by Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who proposed a similar temporary cap on sewer connections last year, a few weeks before Bradley.

Yaroslavsky charged that Bradley’s plan to give special consideration for some large projects was a loophole inserted to benefit big developers. However, the mayor’s office said the clause was requested by the Department of Building and Safety to protect the investment of developers who have been seeking approval for their projects for several years.

Although the cap on sewer connections would be temporary, Bradley aides said they hoped that the less-controversial water conservation measures would become permanent.

The plan, which is designed to reduce water use by 10% over five years, would require the owners of apartments and commercial buildings to install water-saving devices, or entire new fixtures if needed, within six months of the law’s passage.

Homeowners would only have to complete the work before selling their property or applying for a building permit to renovate.

“Water conservation is probably the cheapest way to increase sewer capacity,” said John Stodder, an adviser to Bradley on environmental issues.