Showdown on Growth Arrives : Initiative: With opposition escalating, the City Council is scheduled to tackle the issue of a ballot measure today.

Amid sharply escalating opposition from the business and construction communities, the San Diego City Council is scheduled to decide today whether to place a controversial growth-management initiative on the June 2 ballot, an act that would touch off another bitter and costly campaign over the city’s development.

Though a postponement of the issue appears possible, the council is scheduled to decide whether to resurrect the Planned Growth and Taxpayer Relief Initiative, which a Superior Court judge tossed off the ballot Oct. 16 as a violation of state Constitution provisions limiting initiatives to single subjects.

The council is being asked to separate the offending clause, a section that mandates prevailing wages for construction workers, from the growth-control provisions of the initiative and place both on the ballot.

City Atty. John Witt’s office has ruled that the city has the authority to split the measure and that the growth portions of the plan are legally defensible. But Witt’s office believes that, because of a June court decision striking down the concept of a wage floor for workers, that portion of the measure is preempted by federal law.

That has left Prevent Los Angelization Now!, which gathered 82,000 signatures in favor of the growth-control measure, and business groups vehemently opposed to the initiative, sparring over the its ramifications and lobbying council members during the past week.

“It’s an ordinance now. It’s no longer PLAN!’s initiative,” said Chris Crotty, spokesman for the recently formed group San Diego Taxpayers Opposing PLAN! “We’re saying to the City Council, ‘Consider it like any other ordinance you would put on the ballot. Get a fiscal analysis. Get a (city) manager’s report.’ ”

“I think people are beginning to understand they’re making a mad dash to the gallows,” said Michael Abrams, an aide to Councilman Ron Roberts, who speculated that council members might be leaning toward taking more time to consider the initiative’s impact.

But PLAN!’s Chairman, Peter Navarro, said that the business community’s “real agenda is to try to make sure they can kill (the initiative) with their lobbying as the delay continues.” PLAN! deserves a decision on the measure’s fate Monday, Navarro contended, so it will have the time to recirculate its petitions if it loses.

“As a matter of fairness, we’ve got 82,000 people who signed it, and if the builders’ rhetoric has any substance, then the voters will reject it,” he said. “That’s what campaigns are for.”

The initiative seeks to force builders to pay their share of the public facilities and services required to accompany new development--something the construction industry says it already does.

The measure would prohibit new construction if that growth reduces the number of police officers per capita or increases the likelihood of water shortages, water rationing or increased water rates.

Business groups have called PLAN!’s measure a recipe for disaster in an already stagnant economy. Friday, after a week of news conferences by various groups, the San Diego Taxpayers Educational Foundation released a study warning that “higher taxes, flight of business, rampant unemployment and increased housing costs are all possible” if the initiative passes.

Navarro rejected the predictions of the two San Diego State University professors who put together the study, saying that “nobody has anything to fear from this initiative except a small handful of developers who are taking lots of money out of this community to Los Angeles or Seattle or wherever they’re based.”

Monday’s debate promises to be steeped in the mayoral politics that will be a part of the issue through at least the first half of next year. In addition to heading PLAN!, Navarro is an all-but-declared candidate for the office that Mayor Maureen O’Connor will vacate next year. Councilman Ron Roberts, who has argued strenuously against placing the measure on the ballot, is also an unannounced candidate for the post.

The mayoral primary would take place on the same day as a vote on the PLAN! initiative.

Both sides consider Councilman John Hartley the key vote in Monday’s decision. Strategists see O’Connor and council members George Stevens, Valerie Stallings and Abbe Wolfsheimer as likely supporters of a move to place the measure on the ballot.

Roberts and colleagues Tom Behr, Judy McCarty and Bob Filner are expected to oppose that action.

But with no deadline looming for placing measures on June’s ballot, there may be more votes Monday to postpone the issue and order a study, some believe.