L.A. Moves to Curb Growth in Nearby Cities

The city of Los Angeles, which has already started to curb its own growth because of inadequate sewers, acted Tuesday to impose the same controls on surrounding cities in an unusual display of the giant city’s impact over the metropolitan area.

Using the police powers available to all cities, the Los Angeles City Council passed an ordinance that rations the amount of new construction allowed in any of the independent cities connected to the immense sewer system maintained by the city of Los Angeles.

The limits on new construction also apply to areas that do not fall within any city limits but where the sewers are piped into the Los Angeles system, which funnels almost 440 million gallons a day of raw sewage to the Hyperion treatment plant on the coastal bluffs south of Los Angeles International Airport.

The controls voted Tuesday are nearly identical to those passed for the city of Los Angeles last week and signed into law by Mayor Tom Bradley on Monday. They are designed to remain in effect until Los Angeles completes a major expansion of its capacity to treat sewage, perhaps by the middle of 1991.

In Los Angeles, the new controls will limit the number of building permits to ensure that growth adds no more than 5 million gallons a year to the daily amount of sewage treated. City officials have said that, in effect, the law could reduce overall construction in the city by up to 30%, a figure that assumes the robust economy continues.

In other cities, the degree to which growth is reduced will vary widely and will also be subject to actions taken by local city councils to divvy up the available building permits. But the 27 separate cities and agencies will only be allowed to add a combined total of 1 million gallons a year to the daily average.

Independent cities covered by the new law include Glendale, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Burbank, El Segundo and San Fernando, all of which have contracts that require Los Angeles to treat their sewage.

A number of smaller cities, including West Hollywood, and other areas of the county are included because their sewage is handled by Los Angeles under an inter-agency agreement with various sanitation districts.

The temporary limits on construction were proposed last December as part of a 10-point plan by Bradley to save the Los Angeles sewer system from reaching its capacity. Rapid growth in Los Angeles and some of the neighboring areas had caused engineers to predict that the system would run out of capacity in 1991 or sooner, leading to increased pollution of Santa Monica Bay.

In the last two weeks, Los Angeles has passed the growth controls as well as a mandatory water conservation measure that requires every building in the city to be fitted with shower heads and toilet tank devices that reduce water consumption. Most of the flow through sewers is waste water from shower drains and toilets, so any reduction in water use relieves pressure on the sewers.

Los Angeles officials argue that they have the right to regulate growth in surrounding cities by using the city’s so-called police powers, which give local authorities the right to impose zoning controls on property and pass a variety of laws. The growth controls must, however, be temporary and be reasonably connected to the sewer problem.

As the landlord, in effect, of the sewer system, Los Angeles officials also contend that they have the power to control how the other agencies use the sewers--even though Los Angeles is bound by contracts and state law to act as a regional service and provide sewage treatment.

Most cities that fall under the new law have voiced only mild to token disagreements during the month or more that the issue has been under discussion by the Los Angeles City Council. Santa Monica, for example, had complained originally that the growth controls penalized the city for its own measures to reduce the creation of new sewage, but a lawyer hired by Santa Monica said negotiations with Los Angeles resolved the problems.

“We are faced with a reality that the system is not going to be able to take any increases,” said Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, the former Los Angeles County supervisor and the attorney who represented Santa Monica. “At some point you have to face the reality.”

However, the Burbank City Council has instructed its attorneys to “affirmatively challenge” the power of Los Angeles to impose any sort of growth controls on other municipalities.

“It is an attempt to encroach upon the sovereignty of a separate city,” said Julie Scott, senior assistant city attorney for Burbank. “Besides being illegal and unconstitutional, what they are doing is trying to shift the burden from where it properly lies.”

Burbank and Los Angeles are already vying in a lawsuit over the amount of Burbank sewage that Los Angeles is required to handle. That suit, which was filed more than a year ago, is still pending.

Under the Los Angeles ordinance, independent cities and agencies that issue permits for more than the allowable amount of sewage could be fined by the city of Los Angeles. For instance, a city or agency that went over its sewage allowance by 50,000 gallons would face a fine of $250,000.

The Los Angeles law also calls on the independent cities and agencies to provide a quarterly report on growth to Los Angeles officials and requires them to pay a $20,000 penalty for failing to complete the report.