Wolfsheimer Backs Rival Growth Plan, Calls City’s Porous

San Diego City Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer, saying that a city-backed growth-management plan is “riddled with loopholes,” Wednesday endorsed a rival slow-growth measure placed on the Nov. 8 ballot by a citizens organization.

Wolfsheimer, the only council member to vote against the city plan last week when the council put it on the ballot, broadened that split with her colleagues by announcing that she will actively campaign for the competing Quality of Life initiative and sign a ballot argument in favor of it.

‘Unlimited Exemptions’

“As adopted, the council’s growth-management ballot measure is so full of loopholes that it can permit unlimited exemptions for special-interest groups and individual projects,” Wolfsheimer said at a news conference outside City Hall. “Worse, its objective of preserving (environmentally) sensitive lands and providing infrastructure and services has been forgotten.”

The District 1 councilwoman’s stance was described by an aide and other council members as a safe political move that will be welcomed by her core constituency of environmentalists and slow-growth advocates. And it probably will be well-received by residents of her district in La Jolla, Rancho Bernardo and Penasquitos, who are tired of the traffic congestion and crowding caused by rapid growth.

Wolfsheimer’s support will provide some lift for the community group, Citizens for Limited Growth, which has a limited budget for its battle against opposition being mounted by the city’s powerful building industry and a well-financed coalition of city leaders.

But the endorsement was not popular with the eight other council members, who will stump this fall for the Growth Management Element that the entire council spent months crafting.

Disappointment Noted

“I am disappointed,” said District 7 Councilwoman Judy McCarty, who conceded that Wolfsheimer’s support will win votes for the rival plan. “I believe we have a balanced approach in ours. It had the support of a diverse City Council.”

District 8 Councilman Bob Filner, who consistently supported Wolfsheimer during votes on the city plan’s environmental provisions, took exception to Wolfsheimer’s criticism of it.

“We didn’t win every vote, but we won the vast majority of them, and I think it’s a very tough program and a complete program,” Filner said.

The two growth-control plans will compete head to head on the November ballot. The one receiving the most votes will govern the city’s residential development for years.

Both contain numerical limits on home building and restrictions on residential construction on the city’s hillsides, wetlands, canyons and flood plains.

But Wolfsheimer, one of the council’s most consistent slow-growth advocates, said Wednesday that she favors the citizens initiative because it is free of exemption mechanisms and specially crafted loopholes for certain developers.

Laxness Labeled Problem

Specifically, Wolfsheimer objected to a provision that allows the council to remove the environmental restrictions on a development project if six council members vote to do so. The Quality of Life Initiative contains no such clause.

Wolfsheimer also objected to a built-in exemption from the environmental restrictions for developer Newland California that will allow it to build an industrial park when it trades 291 acres in Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve for 166 acres of city-owned land in Sorrento Valley. The swap was approved by city voters in 1986.

In fact, Wolfsheimer claimed, “If you want to compare the two (plans), all the goodies came out in the citizens initiative and then the city parroted it . . . and, unfortunately, watered it down.”

Filner, however, claimed that the Quality of Life Initiative is irresponsible because it lacks an exemption clause that can be used if special circumstances crop up. He also claimed that it is not as tough in some areas as the city plan and is much more vulnerable to developer lawsuits because it is not as specific as the city plan.