Sound Growth Policies Casualty of Special Interests

The proverbial story of the blind man and the elephant tells us a great deal about the politics of growth in Southern California.

The blind man tries valiantly to identify the strange beast before him by touching different parts of the elephant. But an accurate picture of the whole animal eludes him.

Likewise in growth management in our region. During the last decade, we have seen an unprecedented trend in urban planning emerge: the proliferation of special-interest community organizations and special-purpose government agencies.

A decade ago, citizen activists opposed to commercial and residential development were typically fragmented groups. Today they exercise enormous and sometimes crippling power in decisions ranging from density to architectural design.

At the same time, we have seen the creation of numerous special-purpose government agencies such as the South Coast Air Quality Management District. These agencies bring outstanding technical skills to combating problems, but typically only in a single area of expertise.

What we lack is a vision of the whole “animal”--a rational process of making decisions that balances the costs and benefits of growth and resolves issues of diverse special interests.

Consider the emergence of single-purpose government agencies, clearly one of the most significant trends in governance in recent years.

Just a decade ago, a developer planning to build homes or a commercial project typically applied to just one entity--the city or country--and one agency--a planning or building department--to obtain the right to build.

These agencies juggled many competing values: environmental, the economic well-being of the community and political realities facing elected officials.

The decade of the 1990s begins in a much different milieu.

Runaway growth has sparked widespread concerns about diminishing “quality of life” that has typified California living. There is increased recognition that many of these problems go far beyond local capabilities, calling for federal, state and regional initiatives.

The result: the debut of numerous single-purpose entities created to regulate a specific type of resource or pollutant.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District, for instance, has jurisdiction over air quality. Meeting federal air quality guidelines administered by this regional gency in the next 20 years will touch virtually every business and household in Southern California.

In another area, the state Water Quality Board has jurisdiction over water quality issues. Developers in areas such as Ventura County must now meet regulations involved in formal water quality plans.

The Department of Fish and Game and Department of Wildlife oversee a separate regulatory mission in relation to animals and plants. The Coastal Commission controls development along the coastline and the Army Corps of Engineers has authority over any building involving wetlands.

Business must thread its way through a web of regulations governed by each of these agencies, whose sole mission generally involves one resource or pollutant. While the purview of each agency represents a very important piece of the overall puzzle, too often it does not take into account the full scope of community needs.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District, for instance, has no mandate to consider the economic consequences of its rule-making and policies.

We see the same tendency in the growth of special-interest community organizations and the initiative process.

Public dissatisfaction with actions taken to control growth and improve the quality of life has given rise to a flourishing populism. Decision makers struggling with complex choices and problems with no easy solutions are “punished” by impatient voters for refusing to take simplistic stands.

Officials lose elections or find their hands tied by initiatives or legislation that give even more power to single-purpose government agencies.

Proposition 13, for instance, put a stranglehold on local governments’ ability to raise revenue for public services ranging from new sewer construction to road improvements.

With tax revenue for public services depleted, local governments throughout California turned to user fees. Fees levied on developers, however, ultimately are passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices and spiraling home costs.

Rent control in Santa Monica has preserved lower rents for a select group of renters but at a high price to landlords, the business community and potential residents who cannot rent an apartment because of extremely low-vacancy rates.

Meanwhile, voters have coalesced into special-interest groups to exert influence on decision makers and wield power in the rule-making process of single-purpose agencies.

The Friends of Westwood, for instance, participates in nearly every land-use decision of any magnitude in Westwood. One of the most successful citizen groups of its type, it is a powerful force on the side of improving the quality of life in Westwood, a stance which generally translates into fighting for a lower intensity of development.

Elsewhere, we see citizen groups at work. The Sierra Club, for instance, once focused primarily on preserving wilderness areas. It now actively fights subdivisions and growth in undeveloped areas of the San Fernando Valley.

Unfortunately, the rise in importance of special-interest groups and single-purpose agencies has not been accompanied by a method of balancing decisions made from a narrow frame of reference.

Each organization fights its battles in one arena. What is lost is a rational approach that weighs the costs and benefits of decisions across the full range of community needs--the economic as well as the environmental.

One casualty was the defeat of the transportation bond initiative. While most Californians agree that transportation systems are critically overloaded, the initiative failed by a decisive margin, in part due to fears relating to new growth.

Likewise in Orange County, Proposition M, which proposed a half-cent transportation sales tax, was defeated last November, despite the urgent need to relieve traffic congestion.

The proposition, designed to raise $3.1 billion over the 20 years, would have financed widened freeways, new lanes reserved for car pools and buses, streamlined “super” streets and rail transit. And, it included growth management rules intended to pace development with traffic improvements.

Ill-informed votes spring from a desire to find simple answers to complex questions. We cannot simply say “no” to economic developments as a way of mitigating environmental concerns. Nor do wholesale growth-control ordinances solve the problem.

When one jurisdiction puts a moratorium on or restricts new housing construction, neighboring cities are then forced to provide housing for the work force.

As the buildable area diminishes and political pressure grows, the responsibility to provide a housing solution is passed from one jurisdiction to the next.

Ultimately, we find businesses being forced to relocate to outlying areas where adequate supplies of housing at more affordable prices may still be found.

Companies are flocking to Riverside County where the median home price is about $50,000 less than a home of equivalent size in Orange County. Meanwhile, the economies of other communities adopting growth controls cool because of well-intended but short-sighted actions.

The politics of growth in Southern California also disenfranchise some groups. Among these are lower- and middle-income families who cannot afford to own a home, as well as future residents of the region.

The core of the conflict may be easily summed up. While no one wants to pay for growth, most residents want the economic vitality and standard of living that comes with it. Managing growth offers our only viable solution.

Special-purpose government agencies can make a critical contribution by using their considerable technical expertise to undertake cost-benefit analyses that address economic issues before adopting rules that will have impact on virtually every business and household in the region.

At the same time, voters and community organizations must participate in making responsible decisions--rather than simply supporting Draconian growth-control initiatives that harm the region. That means being better informed and more willing to understand the economic implications of votes cast on propositions and initiatives relating to urban growth.

Sound growth management requires that diverse and often conflicting special interests be balanced within the context of the greatest possible good of the community.