Slow-Growth Leaders Are ‘Selfish,’ State Lawmakers Scold

Charged with finding solutions to problems caused by California’s rapid development, several state legislators used a special hearing Tuesday to scold slow-growth leaders for what one lawmaker called a “selfish” attitude that fails to recognize the virtues of growth.

The hearing’s sponsor, Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), said she is trying to build a coalition of environmental, business and government leaders to close political divisions opened by recent battles over growth-limiting measures on local ballots.

But there was no indication from the daylong session that lawmakers are ready or willing to join hands with slow-growth leaders to limit development in the state’s urban areas.

Movement Far From Dead

Bergeson said she believes the slow-growth drive, despite a series of recent setbacks, is far from dead. But her colleagues were unusually blunt in criticizing a movement that only a year ago had many elected officials fearing for their political futures.

Assemblyman Robert Frazee (R-Carlsbad) upbraided a Sierra Club activist who painted a gloomy verbal picture of commuters who, stuck in traffic on the freeways, watch helplessly as hillsides give way to housing subdivisions.

Frazee pointed out that most of those caught in rush-hour jams are driving alone in expensive cars from their comfortable suburban homes to good jobs in the cities. Growth limits would prevent more people from enjoying that same sort of affluence, Frazee argued.

“Things are not all that bad for those folks,” Frazee said. “I guess the ones we should be concerned about are the ones who don’t have that car to get on the highway and don’t have that nice house in the suburbs. I think what a lot of our (slow-growth) movement is heading toward is not elevating those people on the lower end of the scale.

“I have a sense of wanting to do something to provide for and accommodate the growth, but to deny people that right I have had, and 2 million other people have had, to deny other people for our own selfish interest, causes me great concern,” Frazee said.

When he built his Carlsbad home 30 years ago, Frazee said, it was not served by a local fire department. Today, two paramedic-equipped fire stations are within 1 1/2 miles, and a top library, huge regional shopping center and other services are also conveniently located.

Benefits of Growth

“As a result of growth, the people living there are some of the happiest people in the world,” Frazee said.

Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) said efforts to control the effects of growth--especially developer fees to pay for schools, parks, sewers and roads--have driven up the cost of housing. And he noted that a large part of the state’s population growth is now coming not from migrants but from births in the region.

“Do you have some suggestions for birth control or retroactive birth control?” Ferguson asked Linda Martin, co-chairwoman of Citizens for Limited Growth, a coalition of San Diego County growth-control groups.

Martin, a leader of the effort that put two unsuccessful growth control measures on the ballot in November, urged the Legislature to refrain from tinkering with local land-use laws until a comprehensive study of the state’s growth is completed. But Martin, a resident of San Diego for six years, was chided by Sen. William Craven (R-Oceanside) for promoting growth limits despite being “hardly what you would call one of the founding fathers” of the city.

Between the personal exchanges, the legislators heard suggestions for improving regional planning so that traffic congestion, air pollution and school crowding might be minimized.

Regional Planning

San Diego County Supervisor Brian Bilbray suggested that the Legislature watch closely as the county implements Proposition C, a Bilbray-sponsored ballot measure voters approved in November. The measure calls for a countywide growth-management plan that will address quality of life standards, growth rates and transportation, among other issues.

Without such regional planning, citizens will be even more likely to resort to the ballot box to control growth, warned Bill Havert, director of the Sierra Club’s Riverside-San Bernardino County chapter.

“The initiatives are an act of desperation,” Havert said. “ . . . If we had more effective regional planning, maybe some of the transportation problems and others that drive people to the initiative would not be so intense.”