Local Elections : Encinitas Struggles to Sort Out Growth Issues : Residents in Newly Formed City Scratching Their Heads Over 3 Propositions

The AA, BB, CCs of growth control are no simple matter in Encinitas.

Two growth-control initiatives are competing on the Nov. 8 ballot. The two measures have left 40% of Encinitas’ nearly 40,000 voters “undecided,” according to one poll, and have spawned two groups opposed to both initiatives and a ballot measure--Proposition C--designed to kill off the less-popular of the two.

What two years ago appeared to be an overwhelming mandate for the four unincorporated North County coastal villages to unite to control growth now appears to have splintered into minority factions supporting similar goals but different methods of achieving them--and leaving voters scratching their heads over all the choices.

Marjorie Gaines and Rick Shea, the only two to ever serve as mayors of the new city, stand behind Proposition AA, a lengthy and complex growth-management measure designed to strengthen the city’s General Plan, which has yet to be adopted.

City Council candidate Ray Jenkins, a college political science teacher and part-time real estate broker, proposed the simple (and to its opponents, simplistic) Proposition BB, a one-page growth control measure that places caps on residential construction and limits commercial growth. Proposition BB, Jenkins boasts, carries the largest number of petition signers--4,319--of any measure ever submitted to the city and has gained an 80% acceptance rate among voters, according to his telephone polls.

Opposing both growth-control initiatives are two Encinitas groups: Voters for Responsible Government, led by attorney Saundra Jones, and Encinitas First, organized by Cardiff activist Bob Bonde.

Bonde, one of the most vocal advocates of incorporation in 1986, calls his newly formed group “the first organized crack” in the political power base that has taken control of Encinitas. He names the leaders of the “in” group he has targeted as Councilwoman Gaines, Mayor Shea and Councilman Gerald Steel. Steel is moving out of the state, and his seat on the council is one of three being sought by 13 candidates.

Bonde blasts the two growth-control initiatives as attempts to take power away from Encinitas voters and City Council members for years to come. Proposition AA, with a 25-year life, severely restricts any changes in the city’s nearly complete General Plan during that period, he said. Proposition BB, he said, would restrict residential and commercial development in the community for the next 10 years before voters have a chance to modify the measure or vote it out.

Backers of both AA and BB contend that Bonde’s recently organized opposition movement is made up of a small group of dissatisfied flower growers and property owners, and its chief purpose is to promote the campaign of Bonde-backed candidate and fellow Cardiff resident John Davis.

Cart Before the Horse?

Voters for Responsible Government spokeswoman Jones claims that both initiative measures are flawed and ill-timed.

“Now is not the proper time for a growth-control initiative,” Jones said. “They’ve got the cart before the horse.”

She explained that the long-delayed Encinitas General Plan is still undergoing changes and public hearings. Until it is completed and adopted, no growth-control measure tied to the plan can be voted on intelligently, she said.

Proposition AA, Jones said, would give the City Council the power to dictate which builders may build and which may not, based on a subjective set of guidelines and not on a priority basis. BB, she said, locks the city into a 10-year building straitjacket without concern for the changing needs of the residents.

Proposition CC, placed on the ballot by a majority of the City Council, has a “killer clause” stating that whichever growth-control measure receives the most votes will prevail. It is regarded as a cleanup measure that will ensure that the city will not have to deal with competing provisions of the two proposals if both receive majority voter approval.

Gaines acknowledges that her group would not have placed Proposition AA on the ballot if BB had not qualified for the Nov. 8 ballot.

“People need the choice,” Gaines said. She feels that AA offers voters a way to strengthen the General Plan by preventing its erosion through amendments--a practice that occurred routinely when the county Board of Supervisors governed the San Dieguito area. Under AA, any request to amend the city’s General Plan to increase density or to change zoning would require citywide voter approval.

Building Cap

Kevin Johnson, the principal author of AA, said the initiative is a building cap based on the city’s existing and capacity population. Population now stands at about 51,000, and capacity population is set at 65,000. That leaves room for 14,000 more residents in the villages of Olivenhain, Leucadia, Encinitas and Cardiff. At an estimated 2.5 residents per household, 5,600 more homes can be built, at a rate of 224 annually, over the next 25 years, he said.

Without the “hundreds of exclusions by votes of the City Council,” the growth rate would be “steady, slow and predictable” over the next quarter-century, and would not allow the 600-unit surge experienced over the past 12 months, Johnson said.

Jenkins attacks Proposition AA by promoting Proposition BB which, he predicts on the basis of his telephone sampling, will garner 80% of the votes.

Proposition BB sets a 400-unit residential building cap in 1989, 350 units in 1990, and 300 units a year from 1991 through 1998. It also requires voter approval of all commercial structures larger than 48,000 square feet and prohibits any new commercial buildings along El Camino Real, Olivenhain Road or Encinitas Boulevard until traffic problems are resolved at cross streets.

Jenkins criticizes Proposition AA for its failure to address commercial construction and its lack of a binding requirement on city officials to defend it against any legal challenge.