Agencies Clash Over Air Plan : Smog: Local governments group rejects an AQMD proposal to delay enforcement of rules on growth and using fees in an effort to ease traffic.

A dispute over whether to delay two controversial portions of the region’s clean air plan--managing growth to reduce commuting and charging fees to discourage solo driving--is taking shape between the two agencies responsible for reducing smog.

The executive committee of the Southern California Assn. of Governments on Thursday unanimously approved its part of the plan, which deals with transportation and urban planning issues.

In doing so, SCAG rejected a proposal by the South Coast Air Quality Management District to postpone implementation dates for the two rules. A top AQMD official at the meeting said she will ask the AQMD board to roll back the schedule anyway when the district considers the entire plan July 12.

A disagreement would force the two agencies into a series of meetings, similar to a conference committee in the U.S. Congress, to resolve the conflict.

Under the plan adopted by SCAG on Thursday, local governments are to enact air quality programs by January to guarantee that car travel is reduced. For instance, a city could require new housing to be near jobs and new employment centers to be near housing. Or it could encourage development near mass transit stations.

A variety of pricing measures, from gradual elimination of employees’ free parking to a pilot project for highway congestion fees, also are included in hopes that more lone drivers will decide to car-pool or use mass transit. The first pricing ordinances are to be enacted by Jan. 1.

“This is breaking totally new ground,” said Anne Baker, SCAG’s director of environmental planning. “When I go to Washington for national conferences and talk about what we’re doing, people look at me like I have three heads.”

Patricia Leyden, who heads the AQMD’s office of planning and rules, said the district supports much of SCAG’s approach, but believes the rules are too vague.

Leyden said the AQMD staff wants SCAG to explain how and when local governments should meet the growth management requirements.

She said imposing commuting charges should be linked to the planning requirements and therefore effective dates should be postponed until at least 1994.

As for parking, she said, “the district has never agreed that pricing would work on a regionwide basis.”

SCAG’s executive committee, composed of elected city and county officials, reacted angrily to Leyden’s request.

“If we put this (back), this is going to be viewed as delaying,” said Robert Wagner, vice mayor of Lakewood. “We know there are problems. . . . The important thing is we need to move into it so people begin to think about it.”

In testimony , Terry Bills, representing the Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning, told SCAG that pushing the schedule back “sends the wrong message to local governments.”

And environmental activists said they were outraged by the AQMD tactic. “This would allow a whole new generation of projects to go through,” said Tim Little, executive director of the Coalition for Clean Air.

“They don’t have to do it this way,” said Veronica Kun, staff scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We’ve suggested many ways to make the (growth management) measure more workable now. If you’ve gone one-third of the way, you still need to go much farther, but you don’t have to turn around and go back to the starting gate.”