Activists Weigh Campaign for Slow-Growth Initiative

Rebuffed in their court challenge to the largest development ever planned for downtown Long Beach, leaders of a citywide political group are considering a drive to place a slow-growth initiative on the local ballot.

“There’s very strong sentiment that it needs to be done, if it’s not too late already,” said Marc Coleman of Long Beach Area Citizens Involved.

Coleman said the organization’s executive board voted Monday night to study the possibility of campaigning for a slow-growth initiative that would be primarily aimed at controlling commercial development. “It would shape commercial growth to what Long Beach is capable of handling and not the other way around,” Coleman said.

The board also voted to appeal a briefly worded Superior Court decision that upheld the city’s approval of zoning changes allowing construction of a mini shore-side city on the site of the former Pike amusement park, south of Ocean Boulevard between Pine Avenue and Queensway Drive. The activist group argued in a lawsuit filed against the city and Pike Properties Associates that city officials had not paid enough attention to the increased traffic that would be created by the $1-billion Pike project and other large developments planned for the downtown area.

The lawsuit was combined with another filed by a housing advocacy group, the Long Beach Housing Action Assn., which challenged the project on the traffic issue and also claimed that the city’s housing policies and programs did not adequately deal with local low-cost housing needs.

In a decision released Monday, Superior Court Judge Kurt J. Lewin ruled in favor of the city in both lawsuits, as well as in an earlier suit in which the housing group had also challenged the city’s housing policies. Without elaborating, Lewin said that the housing element of the Long Beach General Plan, the city’s master planning document, “satisfies all statutory requirements.” He also found that in writing the environmental impact report for the Pike project, the city had adequately considered traffic matters.

“It’s very reassuring to have an objective, third party in the form of a judge agree that you’ve done the right thing in the right way,” said Paul Stern of the Ratkovich Co., a co-developer of the Pike project.

City Planning Director Robert Paternoster, who had not seen the court decision, said he had told the developers all along that he did not believe the court suits presented much of a threat to their plans.

Although the developers have obtained increases in density and height limits allowing them to build a sprawling complex of office buildings, residences and shops on the largely vacant Pike site, they must still obtain a number of planning and building permits before starting construction. Stern predicted that ground breaking is at least a year away.

“It’s a pretty total victory for them in terms of what Judge Lewin did,” Coleman conceded. “We’ll just take it up (to a higher court). That’s what appeals courts are for.”

Legal setbacks notwithstanding, Coleman anticipated widespread popular support for a local ballot item that would place some restraints on commercial growth.

To get the initiative on the ballot for a citywide vote, supporters would have to gather 18,000 signatures, or 10% of the city’s 180,000 registered voters.

“We think we can get the votes to get (a slow-growth initiative) on the ballot and we think people would vote for it,” said Coleman, whose organization contends that the city is approving massive new downtown developments without knowing how it is going to cope with the resulting traffic congestion.

City officials, pointing to a recently completed traffic study, insist they are investigating ways of handling traffic growth.

Dennis Rockway, a Long Beach Legal Aid Foundation attorney who represented the housing action association, said he was surprised and disappointed by the brevity of the court decision. “The opinion failed to address many of the issues raised,” said Rockway, adding that the foundation may appeal the ruling.

“It’s hard to imagine a major city doing less for low-income housing than Long Beach does,” Rockway said.