Council Faces Tall Order on Slow-Growth Measure

The debate on how to control growth in San Diego has come a long way in the past two years, and will reach yet another milestone this week.

Going before the City Council will be the draft of a growth-management plan that, after public hearings and much massaging, will be put on the November ballot opposite a more stringent citizen-sponsored growth initiative.

That citizens initiative--born of frustration and distrust of government officials--will set the agenda for the council’s debate, and every council decision will be measured against it. This is an issue on which the public is in the driver’s seat.

The citizens measure is tough, and some say it would cause formidable economic problems for the city. But a recent Times poll found that a solid majority of voters strongly favor growth controls, even at the expense of jobs and the local economy.

The task facing the council is nothing less than to find a way to slow growth; protect canyons, hillsides and other sensitive lands; assure that libraries, parks and fire stations are available as needed; address the problems of traffic, pollution, water supply, trash and sewage; and persuade the voters to trust their elected officials enough to leave land-use decisions in their hands.

That’s a tall order--and one that probably will require stronger measures than some of those called for in the plan drafted for the council by a citizens advisory committee.

For starters, there is the question of how much building should be allowed.

The citizens initiative would limit building permits to between 26,000 and 36,000 from 1989 to 1994, depending on whether certain pollution, traffic, solid-waste disposal, sewage and water standards are met. The city’s draft plan calls for a limit of 41,829, the number of homes the San Diego Assn. of Governments projects will be needed during the next five years.

That both measures even call for some sort of limit is a testament to how far the growth discussion has come. Both measures would greatly reduce the number of homes authorized in the peak year of 1986, when 18,285 permits were granted.

But, if Sandag’s projections are correct, the city’s draft plan would merely accommodate the growth that is expected, not seek to reduce it.

The housing caps proposed in the citizens initiative may be unrealistically low, however, and we question whether restricting housing alone will succeed in slowing the rate of growth. What is known is that the rate of growth is damaging neighborhoods and the landscape, outstripping the capacity of jails, schools, landfills and social services, and increasing traffic and pollution.

For any plan to succeed in addressing the problems of growth, it must tie approval to build to the capacity to serve. If there is no place to dispose of trash, then building should be restricted until there is.

The city’s draft plan correctly insists that plans and financing for such public facilities as parks, libraries and fire stations be secure before approval to build is granted. Increasingly, this means the developer pays for those facilities.

But the draft plan does not make the approval contingent on solutions to or progress on other problems such as water supply, pollution, transportation, trash disposal, sewage treatment, jails and social services, many of which are regional responsibilities. It should.

After answering the question of how many homes should be built, the next question is where they should go. Both measures address this question, and that, too, shows how much the public has shaped the debate.

Preserving neighborhood character and “sensitive” lands--the hillsides, canyons, wetlands and flood plains that make up about 25% of city land and give it much of its character--is crucial and is one of the most controversial parts of the debate. It would mean reducing how many homes a developer could build on his land.

This is an area where the council must tread carefully, but building restrictions on sensitive lands are a crucial element of the plan and should be clearly spelled out. The proposal to require a six-vote, rather than a five-vote, majority for variances is a step in the right direction.

Too many exemptions, which severely weakened the current temporary growth ordinance, can erode the public trust. They might quiet some of the developers, but they would only heighten the public outcry.

Seldom are initiatives the best way to make land-use decisions; the language is imprecise and they are likely to end up in court. But, for the City Council to take back the reins on the growth issue that it has surrendered for so long, it must adopt a strong and fair growth-management plan that clearly ties building approval to community facilities and regional services and protects the city’s character.