Proposal Unveiled to Revive Economy, Manage Growth

Tired of waiting for Gov. Pete Wilson to produce a growth management plan, a coalition of environmental, housing and minority groups, with some business representation as well, has made sweeping proposals that they believe would revive the California economy while providing growth management.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside) and Assemblyman Sam Farr (D-Carmel) are expected to announce the ambitious package of legislation and ballot measures at news conferences today.

The package, called the Economic and Environmental Recovery Act of 1992, includes:

- Legislation, authored by Presley, to establish a state “infrastructure bank” and to set state and regional policies that are intended to provide cleaner air, better land use and protection of open space, among other goals.

- A constitutional amendment to allow voters to approve local bond issues for infrastructure, housing and natural resources by majority vote, instead of the two-thirds now required.

- A state general obligation bond issue for development and conservation purposes.

Supporters hope to place the bond issue and constitutional amendment on the November ballot.

The package seeks to achieve many objectives long sought by environmentalists and conservationists, including compact development, controls over land use and protection of open space, forests and wetlands.

However, added to the conservation-environmental ideas are proposals to improve the California economy by eliminating red tape through regulatory reforms.

Some ideas, such as dropping the two-thirds requirement for approval of local bond issues, are also included in recent proposals by the Rebuild L.A. project headed by Peter V. Ueberroth.

Victor Weisser, president of the California Council on Environmental and Economic Balance, said sponsors of the plan waited until late in the legislative session in hopes that the Wilson Administration would produce its own growth management proposals.

“We’ve been waiting a long time, waiting for their plan,” Weisser said, “but since the State of the State message, I haven’t heard much of anything from the governor. The message we’re getting from our members is that California just can’t afford to wait on this.”

Weisser said “there is growing business support” for proposals such as these, especially among aerospace and high-tech firms.

Although the most prominent legislative supporters of the plan are Democrats, the ideas have at least some Republican backing.

“The long-term fiscal health of California depends on rebuilding our infrastructure, and this provides a possible scenario for doing it,” said Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), referring to the need for new and rebuilt schools, hospitals, roads, waterworks, sewer systems and other public works. “That should be said again and again and again.”

The infrastructure bank would provide matching state funds for local projects that would help achieve conservation and development goals to be set by the California Public Improvements Authority.

This new authority would decide whether to finance local projects based on a detailed set of economic, environmental and social policy objectives that are spelled out in the Presley legislation.

For start-up capital, the infrastructure bank would use proceeds from the proposed state bond issue.

Although the proposal does not name an amount, the bond issue would have to be for several billion dollars, said V. John White, legislative advocate for the Sierra Club and for several California air quality districts and one of the people who assembled the economic development and growth management package.

The Presley bill also calls for setting statewide and regional conservation and development goals and for incentives and penalties to implement them.

The criteria for infrastructure bank loans, and for the state and regional goals, would include:

* Transportation pricing reforms aimed at increasing use of public transportation and reducing use of automobiles.

* Preservation of economically and environmentally sustainable agricultural land.

* Measures to encourage multifamily housing and housing opportunities for people in all income groups.

* Rewards for communities whose general plans provide for mixed-income housing.

* Measures to encourage compact development and to discourage suburban sprawl.

The plan would exempt San Diego County, where voters have approved a regional planning and growth management process that is under way, and the San Francisco Bay Area if legislation providing for regional planning there is approved and signed into law by the governor.