O.C. Growth Reawakens--and So Do Foes

In the 1980s, the “slow growth” movement fired an alphabet soup barrage at marauding development.

There was the countywide slow-growth Measure A. There was Measure E in San Clemente. Measure G in Costa Mesa and Measure J in Huntington Beach. Measure K in Newport Beach and Measure X in San Juan Capistrano.

The blood feud between developers and environmentalists, particularly in South County, cooled during the recession, but as the earthmovers crawl back into the flattened arroyos and onto terraced hillsides, voices from the El Toro Y to San Clemente have begun rising in protest.

It looks like the development fight of the 1990s and beyond is beginning, but it will be considerably different than it was 10 years ago. Environmentalists were weakened after losing many of the skirmishes, and South County is a vastly different place, having undergone the addition of thousands of new houses, office suites and stores, and a jump in traffic demand.

“They’ve succeeded in destroying not only our physical assets but our ability to move around freely due to congestion,” said Thomas C. Rogers, a San Juan Capistrano cattle rancher who helped lead the slow-growth movement of the 1980s. “They’ve never stopped--never even reflected on what they’ve done.”

Scott Bollens, a UC Irvine urban expert, predicted that within five years, a full-blown slow-growth movement will reemerge as residents protest what they see as greater traffic congestion and an erosion of their quality of life.

And the fight over a possible El Toro airport, which has galvanized disparate interests around South County, could help shape the effort.

“Congestion, traffic--these are the kinds of things that drive people crazy, real fast,” said Larry Agran, the former Irvine mayor who traded his slow-growth chevron to join the fight against an international airport at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

Early warning signs have begun to appear. A proposed blanket moratorium on large development projects in San Juan Capistrano could go to a vote this week as city officials and planners move to bring the 24-year-old general plan up to date. Rumored projects loom over a small town steeped in California history.

Large-scale projects in Aliso Viejo have frayed the nerves of residents. And more focused crackdowns have been bubbling up around the county over the past year or more as communities contend with growth.

As far north as Cypress, officials last year froze growth of auto-related businesses on one street to better plan the area. In Los Alamitos last spring, a moratorium was used to cool the proliferation of massage parlors.

The previous autumn, La Palma officials clamped down on warehouses. In Dana Point, the issue was antennas for pagers and cell phone sites.

Carwashes, condo conversions, time-share projects, fast-food joints--all have been on the receiving end of invitations to stay out of Orange County communities in the last 18 months as the economy heats up again.

“A moratorium usually means there’s a sense of urgency,” said Bollens, UC Irvine chairman of urban and regional planning. “ ‘Urgency’ can mean a loss of community character. A city like San Juan Capistrano can be affected significantly by large-scale development, particularly big-box retailing.”

Getting ‘Act Together’

Wyatt T. Hart, the San Juan Capistrano City Council member who suggested the moratorium, stressed that it isn’t a reaction to growth but to a need to bring the city’s 24-year-old General Plan in line with the times. Still, it reflects the urgency some officials and residents are beginning to feel over the steady increase in South County development.

“Why we’re hearing about moratoriums again is because development has revved up and the General Plan is not keeping up with the market,” said UCI’s Bollens. “Cities are trying to get their act together.”

As the backlash begins against resurgent growth, observers are watching with interest to see who responds to these early clarions, because the 1980s were not kind to the slow-growth pioneers.

“Citizen groups try to raise the sensible-growth theme, but it’s almost a hopeless task to swerve either city or county governments in Orange County,” said cattle rancher Rogers.

They lost on Measure A, the countywide slow-growth proposition in 1988. The several municipal versions either lost at the polls or were struck down in legal challenges by developers.

And at that, huge development agreements were signed by county officials and can’t now be overturned, meaning local residents and officials in the 1990s can raise questions of when, where and how fast, but not how much as builders dust off the old tract maps and erect the pre-approved projects.

Rogers described the process between developers and the county as a game of give and take: “The county would give as much as the developers would take.”

Rogers complained that such agreements preserve the right of developers to build thousands of units, even if the land is absorbed by a new city, or if local desires and plans change.

Ball in Activists’ Court

The development agreements allow for tens of thousands of new homes around South County, from Newport Coast down the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor to San Juan Capistrano and San Clemente. Some environmentalists contend the agreements at least placed some responsibility for roads and infrastructure on developers. Rogers disagrees.

“We didn’t just shoot ourselves in the foot with those agreements,” he said. “We blew off both legs at the knees.”

With that legacy--a string of losses at the polls and in the courts, along with approved development plans that await groundbreaking across the county--what’s a local activist to do this time around?

“It’s not going to be an easy time,” said Elisabeth Brown, executive director of the environmental preservation group Laguna Greenbelt. “In the next several years, we’ll see the planned shrinkage of the open space. There will be tense moments.”

Brown and former Irvine Mayor Agran count the acquisition and set-asides of large chunks of open space as major victories in the 1980s development wars. In some ways, knowing the development that’s planned and what areas are off-limits has a calming effect on residents.

“People are usually understanding of reasonable plans and timelines,” Agran said. “It’s when things get excessive that people tend to react in extreme ways.”

To be sure, what citizens now call Orange County’s “sensible growth” movement is nothing like the current push in Ventura County for an iron-fisted Urban Growth Boundary.

But the wide reach of the El Toro controversy here could have a significant effect. Some El Toro airport opponents, experts believe, will one day consider shifting their sights to South County development.

Said Bollens of UCI: “When you fight against a common enemy, you start to work together. This will create a South County identity that is quite different than in North County.”

In San Juan Capistrano, meanwhile, the vote on a citywide development moratorium could come as early as Tuesday.

For a town that mostly wants to be left alone with its cherished history, its Spanish mission and its swallows, the increase in fast-food restaurants and traffic has been unsettling.

Councilman Hart doesn’t consider himself anti-growth, but notes the city’s 1974 general plan was adopted when horse trails cut through the chaparral that covered many of the hills and valleys surrounding San Juan Capistrano. Now, the brown hills have turned red from the tile of the roofs in mammoth housing tracts.

Said Hart: “Our plan would be perfect if no one had developed around us.”

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Construction on the Horizon

Developers are ratcheting up building activity, which is starting to trigger protests around Orange County. Here’s how the value of building permits issued has fluctuated during the last decade. Values for January-April, in millions of dollars:

1988: $1,160

1994: $685

1998: $903

Note: 1994 increase due to a surge in permits prior to increase in fees.

Cities Differ

While the value of building permits edged up countywide during the first four months of the year, some cities had huge increases and others decreases. A sampling of both trends, dollar values in millions:

Permit Values Increased

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City 1997 1998 % Change Anaheim $68.0 $70.8 4 Irvine 103.5 151.9 47 Laguna Hills 2.7 7.7 185 Lake Forest 8.2 13.5 65 Newport Beach 46.0 77.0 67 San Clemente 13.4 21.6 61 Yorba Linda 20.9 28.2 35

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Permit Values Decreased

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City 1997 1998 % Change Costa Mesa 28.5 14.5 -49 Dana Point 6.2 2.5 -60 Huntington Beach 59.2 58.8 -1 Laguna Niguel 25.3 19.9 -21 San Juan Capistrano 44.1 25.9 -41 Tustin 61.5 31.9 -48

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Source: Construction Industry Research Board; Researched by ROBERT OURLIAN/Los Angeles Times