Supervisors Receive Major Part of Citizen Growth-Control Plan

Orange County came a step closer Tuesday to having new growth controls--two weeks after voters rejected a controversial slow-growth ballot measure.

The Board of Supervisors formally received the major part of a growth management plan still being drafted by a citizens advisory committee, and scheduled a public hearing on the issue July 19 before the county Planning Commission.

The board scheduled its own public hearing on the plan for Aug. 3.

The committee is expected to finish drafting requirements for flood control and propose specific minimum response times for public safety agencies in two or three weeks.

Road improvements paid for by developers and specific traffic flow standards for intersections are the centerpieces of the plan, which borrows heavily from the Citizens Sensible Growth and Traffic Control Initiative (Measure A) that was defeated in countywide balloting on June 7.

The document also resembles an already approved foothill-area traffic plan that requires developers to improve the road network before they complete new housing projects.

Specifically, the plan proposed by the Ad-Hoc Citizens Committee on Growth Management and Public Facilities would require adequate roads other than freeways before major residential, commercial or industrial projects could be built.

The plan would require developers to help finance police, fire and paramedic services in areas where their projects cause increases in population. It also calls for buffer zones of open space between planned communities and would divide the county’s unincorporated areas into separate growth monitoring zones.

The document also recommends that:

- County and municipal governments require fees from developers to finance regional transportation improvements and correct deficient intersections.

- The county seek other ways to finance public facilities, such as freeways, that are needed when additional growth occurs. But it does not recommend a specific revenue measure.

- The county and the cities establish ways to coordinate land planning and transportation decisions.

The board on Tuesday scheduled a joint “study session” between the citizens committee and the Planning Commission for July 12, a week before the commission’s public hearing.

A similar session with the board will be held if the Planning Commission approves the committee’s growth management plan.

Robert Bennyhoff, a retired Orange Park Acres resident who is a member of the citizens committee, said the draft plan is “no magic bullet--Just a first step.”

“If it doesn’t have the cooperation of the cities, if it doesn’t get money, it won’t work,” Bennyhoff said.

The 11-member citizens committee includes slow-growth activists, development industry officials and representatives of business and homeowners’ groups. The board appointed the panel in March after 96,000 registered voters signed petitions qualifying the slow-growth initiative for the June 7 countywide ballot. The committee was charged with recommending a back-up growth management plan--a “safety net”--in case the slow-growth ballot measure failed at the polls or in court.

In related actions Tuesday, the supervisors:

- Voted to establish a committee of south county developers who would try to speed improvements that the developers are required to help finance in Supervisor Thomas F. Riley’s district.

- Authorized the county to sell bonds next month to raise $12.5 million as part of the $235-million Foothill Circulation Phasing Plan, in which developers have agreed to complete road improvements before new housing projects are finished in a wide area of Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez’s district. Under the foothill plan, developers are required to put up their land as collateral for the bonds.