Chacon Bill Would Delay Laws That Curb Growth

Local governments might be able to thwart the impact of voter-approved growth-control initiatives if a bill introduced by Assemblyman Pete Chacon becomes law, lobbyists for environmental groups say.

But Chacon, a San Diego Democrat who is carrying the bill at the behest of the California Building Industry Assn., says the legislation would only “close a loophole” that now allows voter-approved measures to escape scrutiny of their potential impacts on communities.

Chacon’s bill would delay the implementation of certain initiatives until after the city or county affected by them completed a study of how the ballot measures would affect the environment.

Such an inquiry could take a few weeks or drag on for months, depending on the agency affected by the initiative and the complexity of the measure being studied. Conceivably, a local agency could delay the environmental impact study indefinitely and thus render the initiative useless.

At the least, the bill, if approved by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. George Deukmejian, would appear to provide a period during which builders affected by an initiative to limit growth might be able to win approval for their projects before the new rules took effect.

If the bill is approved, it will become law Jan. 1, too late to affect a pair of growth-management initiatives that may appear on the City of San Diego ballot this November. But any measures approved by the voters after that might be subject to the review.

“What they are doing is delaying the effective date of the initiative so they can get a lot of projects approved before it becomes effective, a lot of projects that would not otherwise make it,” said Paula Carrell, the Sierra Club’s lobbyist in Sacramento.

Carrell called the bill a “cynical use” of the state’s environmental protection laws. She said there should be no need to study a growth-control initiative after it has been subjected to an election campaign.

“The whole purpose of the (review) process is to get information to the public so that they can decide and communicate to their elected officials whether they find those impacts acceptable or not,” she said. “I would think that that goal is achieved when you run a campaign on an initiative and you have people vote on it.”

Gerald Meral, a lobbyist for the Planning and Conservation League, took an even bleaker view of Chacon’s bill.

“If a city council is stubborn enough not to pass a needed measure, why give them the chance of making it ineffective by refusing to do an environmental impact report?” Meral asked. “It just utterly destroys the initiative process.”

Chacon and Donald Collin, a lobbyist for the building industry, denied that the intent of the bill was to help builders skirt the restrictions of voter-approved initiatives.

“I would hope that would not be the result,” Chacon said. “I would hope that the result would be a positive one. Of course, the temptation would be there for cities to push through development that may be held back by the voters. But I think the political pressures on cities doing that would be very great. That’s a natural check.”

Collin said a local agency faced with doing an environmental impact study on an initiative could suspend the granting of building permits while the study was under way.

“They would probably adopt a moratorium between the time the thing passed and the environmental review was completed,” Collin said. “Once the people have spoken, even though the politicians might be on the other side, they might find it difficult to accomplish what is being alleged.”

Same Standard Called Goal

Chacon said he seeks only to apply the same standard to voter-approved measures as is now applied to ordinances approved by local government.

“If cities pass an ordinance, on any development, the ordinance is subject to an environmental impact report before it takes effect,” Chacon said. “At the same time, if citizens gather together and put together an initiative, and it passes, stopping some development, the impact of their action is not scrutinized. We’re just closing that loophole.”

Chacon said he believes that an initiative slowing or stopping growth can affect the environment, even though it does not change any existing use of the land.

“It could result in a lack of roads, a lack of housing, a lack of facilities for families that have children going to school,” he said. “The report would not just deal with the impact on vegetation and animal life, but on the whole ecology, including the various activities that affect us humans.”

Collin added: “The failure to have public facilities is an environmental effect. The environment means an awful lot more than just flora and fauna.”

Though Chacon’s bill is meant to apply to all growth-control measures, it is not clear from the wording whether it would do so. The measure states that it would apply to any initiative whose subject is “a project” as defined by the California Environmental Quality Act.