County, Citizen Initiatives : Environmental Coalition Picks 2 Growth Measures

The environmental coalition San Diegans for Managed Growth announced Friday that it will support a slow-growth initiative written by a citizens organization over a rival measure written by the City Council.

But in the contest between two slow-growth measures that would apply to the county’s unincorporated lands, the coalition endorsed a measure written by the county Board of Supervisors over a competing initiative sponsored by the same citizens group.

The four plans will be on the ballot Nov. 8. Only city voters will be allowed to vote on the two city plans, but voters throughout the county will vote on the two county proposals.

“The City (Council) plan simply has too many loopholes,” said David Kreitzer, chairman of the environmental coalition, which started and later dropped an effort to place an initiative on the ballot restricting home building on the city’s hillsides, canyons, flood plains and wetlands.

Both the Quality of Life Initiative, sponsored by Citizens for Limited Growth, and the city’s Growth Management Element contain such environmental restrictions, along with caps on home building in coming years. The citizen plan is generally stricter.

Kreitzer said his coalition of about 15 environmental leaders could not support a clause in the city plan that removes the environmental restrictions on any development if six council members agree. The citizen-backed initiative contains no such clause.

In the county contest, the group believes that the supervisors’ growth-management plan is better drafted and less likely to prompt costly and time-consuming lawsuits from developers than the citizen-backed Rural Preservation and Traffic Control Initiative.

In a related development, the Building Industry Assn. of San Diego County announced Friday that it opposes all four measures, but endorsed an advisory measure on the ballot calling for regional planning.

“Under no circumstances can the BIA support legislation or citizens initiatives that include housing caps,” the organization’s president, Bill Davidson, said in a prepared statement.

The BIA’s tax status prevents it from campaigning in an election. The region’s construction and development industry has formed a committee called San Diegans for Regional Traffic Solutions to campaign on the slow-growth measures this fall.