New Ballot Initiative Is Planned by S.D. Slow Growth Group

The “managed growth” organization Prevent Los Angelization Now, kicking off what could become another bitter and expensive battle with the building industry, formally began its campaign Thursday to place another growth limitation ordinance covering San Diego on next June’s ballot.

PLAN, the successor organization to vanquished Citizens for Limited Growth, published its new “Planned Growth Initiative” in a San Diego newspaper Thursday, starting the 180-day period during which it must gather 51,000 signatures to qualify its initiative for the ballot.

The measure, which ties issuance of building permits to traffic congestion and the availability of public needs such as drinking water and a sewage treatment system, lacks the numerical housing cap that made its 1988 predecessor, the Quality of Life Initiative, so controversial. Neither does it include protections for the city’s topography that were part of the 1988 measure.

In addition to limiting growth through establishing standards for traffic congestion, the new initiative would require that public facilities such as schools, fire stations and parks be available at the time that residents move into new developments. It also would force new developments to pay for all of the costs of the growth they create.

“If new development pays for itself and doesn’t force inner-city budget dollars to flow out to the suburbs and doesn’t force us to pay new taxes and fees, then there’s no reason for a cap,” said Peter Navarro, PLAN’s chairman.

Nevertheless, it appears likely that builders will attempt to defeat the measure if it qualifies for the ballot. Navarro also predicted that builders will circulate a competing initiative to confuse voters and pay higher fees to signature-gathering firms in an attempt to derail PLAN’s initiative.

A member of the Construction Industry Federation said he knew nothing of plans for a building industry growth measure.

In 1988, builders spent nearly $3 million to defeat four slow-growth ballot measures in an election contest noteworthy for personal attacks and angry rhetoric. Two Citizens for Limited Growth measures plus a measure written by the San Diego City Council and a measure written by the Board of Supervisors were defeated by large margins.

Bret Vedder, acting legislative director for the Construction Industry Federation, called the PLAN initiative “a whole bunch of regulations that doesn’t build one more mile of freeway and doesn’t provide one more mile of trolley line.”

Vedder also said the traffic congestion standard in the initiative does not take into consideration that different city roads were built to handle differing traffic capacities.

PLAN, which estimates that it may have to spend more than $100,000 to qualify the initiative for the ballot and win an ensuing campaign, would prefer that the City Council adopt its measure and preclude the need for another election. Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer, who supported the Quality of Life Initiative last year, helped write the new measure, and incoming Councilman John Hartley suggested the addition of language on parking standards, Navarro said.