Slow-Growth Backers Draft New Controls for Building

Claiming that San Diegans want limits on growth despite the results of last November’s bruising election battle, a coalition of slow-growth advocates has drafted a new growth-management plan that ties building permits to traffic congestion and the availability of public needs such as parks, water, jails and a sewage-treatment system.

The new plan, written by some of the slow-growth leaders who led the unsuccessful citywide campaign for the Quality of Life Initiative last year, does not include the controversial building cap that was part of the 1988 initiative and makes no mention of protection for environmentally sensitive lands.

Instead, it would force developers to provide public facilities at the time they are needed by residents of new projects and pay the full cost of the neighborhood, citywide and regional burdens caused by new building.

Analysis of Effects

In addition, each new project’s effect on traffic congestion would be analyzed, and building permits would be denied unless a developer “mitigated” the impact on overcrowded roads through payment of fees or contributions to street improvements or public transportation. The city also could reduce the size of a building project.

The plan allows the city to consider new growth’s impact on the water supply and air and water quality, and demand remedies.

“We are going to fight (the building industry) as many times as we have to to win,” said Peter Navarro, chairman of Prevent Los Angelization Now!, a recently formed successor to Citizens for Limited Growth.

“People know that things are worse now because of what happened at the election. They know what lies were told them. I don’t think you can fool San Diegans twice,” Navarro said.

Rejected at Polls

Voters overwhelmingly rejected the Quality of Life Initiative, and a rival growth-management plan sponsored by the San Diego City Council in the Nov. 8 election amid an unprecedented campaign against both measures by the building industry, which spent nearly $3 million. Two similar measures governing home-building in the county’s unincorporated areas also lost by large margins.

The council in January adopted a growth-control plan that requires builders to provide schools, parks, fire stations and other public facilities “concurrent with need,” but the city has yet to determine how it will force developers to do that or how it will pay for $1 billion in facilities that are needed.

PLAN!’s leadership includes some of the same slow-growth advocates who ran Citizens for Limited Growth, including Navarro, who was an economic adviser to CLG, and Tom Mullaney, who was CLG’s co-chairman. Navarro said that UC San Diego faculty member Richard Carson, who helped write the Quality of Life Initiative, also helped draft the new document.

Against Struiksma

The new organization also has resolved to work for the defeat of District 5 Councilman Ed Struiksma in the Sept. 19 council election, and may endorse one of his opponents at a meeting this month. A likely choice would be Linda Bernhardt, who coordinated CLG’s campaign last year.

Approved by PLAN!’s membership at a June 28 meeting, the new growth-management document was characterized as a “discussion draft.” The organization will take comments on the plan for the next 30 days, and has already asked that the council discuss and adopt it, Navarro said. Because that scenario is unlikely, PLAN! already is laying plans to place the initiative on next year’s June or November ballots.

Navarro said that environmental protections were not included in the plan because San Diegans for Managed Growth is considering an initiative campaign aimed at tightening environmental protections. However, he said that PLAN! is open to merging the two initiatives.

Building industry and government representatives said that they had not seen the new plan and could not comment on it. Mayor Maureen O’Connor said she would not automatically oppose the initiative just because the city has its own plan in place.

“For this plan to go through, they’d have to do a lot of convincing to a lot of people that this plan is the answer,” O’Connor said.

Councilman Bob Filner, one of the authors of the city’s current growth-management plan, said: “We’d be happy to look at any suggestions for bettering our plan.”

Enforcement Criteria

Navarro claimed that the new plan, which bears similarity to some of the “quality of life standards” that were at the core of last year’s initiative, significantly strengthens the city’s current growth-management objectives by providing enforcement criteria.

“We clearly tie the issuance of building permits to meeting these criteria,” he said. “Which means that if you don’t meet them, you don’t build.”

The new plan, which covers commercial and industrial development as well as home building, exempts remodeling or additions to single family homes, the construction of small developments of four units or fewer and construction of housing for the poor.

It allows the council to exempt any new building project from its provisions only by a unanimous vote.