Unpopular Development

One day, rugged sierra, the next, tamed suburbia.

One season, beach shantytown, the next, four-star resort.

Whether in the lemon groves of Oxnard Plain, under the black oak stands of the San Bernardino National Forest or across the wallowing sprawl of Los Angeles and Orange counties, the latest transformation of Southern California has begun.

More than before, all this growth is troubling to Orange County dwellers, who said they have grown intolerant of an increasingly urban life, even while they enjoy some of the economic rewards, according to a Times Orange County poll.

In fact, the percentage of Orange County residents who said they would vote today to approve laws to limit development in their communities was 66%, an overwhelming majority that grew to more than 70% in the fast-growing South County areas.

“There’s more opposition now to growth,” said Cheryl Katz of Baldassare Associates, which conducted the poll for The Times. “More people now simply want no growth.”

The antigrowth sentiment has grown 11 percentage points since 1988, when voters rejected the “sensible-growth” Measure A following a campaign in which developers outspent the initiative’s proponents 40 to 1.

“There’s been a hardening in the attitudes,” said Scott Bollens, chairman of the department of urban and regional planning at UC Irvine. “We’re back where we were in the late 1980s in terms of people being concerned about and opposed to growth.”

But the opposition to growth sets up a dilemma that has bedeviled policymakers across Southern California for half a century: How to limit growth and still provide jobs? How to have a vibrant region and yet at the same time have a stand-still, no-growth community?

The poll shows that 80% of people ages 18 to 34 expected to see the robust economy, and their fortunes, continue to improve.

“It’s a bit of a contradiction,” said Mark Baldassare, a professor of urban and regional planning at UC Irvine. “And it presents quite a challenge for policymakers to meet these impossible wishes of people.”

Yet planning experts say there may be a way to balance these seemingly contradictory goals.

“Is there a way to get business to invest in communities that need it and want it?” asked Joel Kotkin, a senior fellow at the Pepperdine Institute for Public Policy. “Can we strike a potential accommodation between the wishes of more affluent communities who don’t want so much growth and less-affluent communities who do?”

In the next 20 years, if the economy remains healthy, Orange County’s population will grow by 25%, the number of houses by 27%, and the number of jobs by 67%, according to the Southern California Assn. of Governments (SCAG), a regional planning agency.

But the best way to measure what will be happening in Orange County may be by the hands of a clock:

* Three new residents arrive each hour, two of them Latino and the third of Asian descent. That’s about 70 people a day, every day, for 20 years.

* One new housing unit will be built at least each hour--as many as 9,000 a year into the 2000s--to handle them.

* And nearly a million new jobs are on the way, or 90 new hires every day. With somebody new clocking in every 15 minutes, it will add commuter congestion, because there won’t be enough housing for them all.

There is a lava flow of humanity and economy coming toward Orange County, and even if they wanted to, there isn’t much anyone can do to stem it.

“You can quibble with the numbers, but the fact is that an awful lot of people are going to come here in 15 to 20 years,” said Michael Dear, director of USC’s Southern California Studies Center. “Where are they going to go?”

‘There’s Going to Be Nothing Left’

Not to Mission Viejo, hopes Peggy Kapuzky, who has lived in Orange County for more than 30 years.

“We were up near Oso Parkway, and the traffic is so terrible because they keep building and building,” she said. “They’re moving so far inland, pretty soon, there’s going to be nothing left.

“I wonder what it’s going to be like in a few years. Will it be worse?”

Like many of the 600 Orange County residents surveyed in The Times’ poll, conducted July 23 to 26, the Kapuzkys worry that things are becoming more dense and urban. And, yes, worse.

A majority still believes Orange County will remain suburban in its feel a decade from now, but four in 10 do fear the county will become too much like Los Angeles.

“Look at the houses they’re building now--they build them so close together, you don’t have a decent backyard,” said Stephanie Williams, a Costa Mesa mother of two. “We can’t afford what they’re building now, anyway.”

The Williams see themselves moving away in a few years--maybe out of state--to raise their year-old son and 4-year-old daughter in a little more peace and quiet than they find these days in Southern California.

“If they don’t do something in the next couple of years, it will be too late,” she said. Most people in the survey plan to be in Orange County 10 years from now. But 42% of the 18- to 34-year-olds think that, like the Williams, they’ll be moving out. Older residents overwhelmingly see themselves living out their lives in the sea breezes of the Southern California coast.

Facing retirement, the Kapuzkys once considered moving out of Orange County, but they changed their minds. Still, they worry about what’s happening to the north--not L.A., but only a few miles away.

“If that El Toro airport comes in, I don’t think there’ll be any stopping the development,” she said. “There’ll be more businesses, more people, more congestion.”

How Will the County’s New Communities Age?

For now, there’s at least a slight consolation for people who quiver at the rumbling of earthmovers and the incessant pecking of framers hammering together new houses.

“We’re slowing down,” said Mark Pisano, executive director of SCAG, the regional planning agency covering six counties. “The growth is beginning to decline.”

That doesn’t mean growth will stop. The next 20 years could see nearly 7 million new people in Southern California.

However, the growth won’t be as fast or as sudden as it was during the rolling boil of past decades, Pisano said. The rate at which population is growing will be cut in half. In the last 15 years, Orange County’s population jumped by about 40%; in the next 15 years, it will climb by about 17%.

New jobs, though, are another story completely. Orange County is generating new jobs as fast as ever. Jobs increased by 37% in the last 15 years and will grow by 35% in the next 15 years, Pisano said.

Because Orange County is smaller and is becoming more uniformly developed, the county’s population density already has surpassed Los Angeles County and every other county in the state except San Francisco, which is both a city and county.

In 1950, rural Orange County had about 275 residents in every square mile, about the density of west Texas. In 2020, it will have 15 times as much density, or about 4,100 people per square mile, more on the order of northern New Jersey.

Orange County surpassed Los Angeles in population density per square mile during the late 1960s, according to state Department of Finance figures, and now ranks among the most populous counties in the nation. With about 3,450 people per square mile in 1998, Orange County is ahead of counties that are home to places such as Denver and New Orleans, and just behind Detroit, Milwaukee and Bergen County, N.J.

“Larger and larger portions of the county are dense, more urban, socially diverse,” Baldassare said. “I don’t think it’s quite urban yet, but we’re moving in that direction.”

The suburban style of planned communities in Orange County, however, could make a difference. More of a mold than a mosaic, they will age differently than do more traditional urban areas.

“The big question, and it’s still an open question, is: How will this stuff age?” UC Irvine’s Bollens said. “Is the homogeneity we see now locked in over time? And is that for better or worse?”

Some experts don’t believe Orange County’s older communities, which were among California’s early suburbs, were designed with longevity in mind.

“Old can mean vintage and elegant: old houses, old-fashioned neighborhoods, vintage shopping areas,” Pepperdine’s Kotkin said. “But age doesn’t really pay off in the tract houses of the ‘50s. The communities of the ‘50s are in danger of becoming the slums of the ‘90s.”

Not Everyone Wants to Stop Development

An urbanizing setting is not necessarily bad for everybody. Many people in The Times survey said they believed they stand to benefit from a strong economy and from growth and development.

The Times poll found that residents in the northern part of the county still favor growth controls, but not as stridently as people in South County.

“Parts of northern Orange County, which is more Asian and Latino, have been in a sense abandoned as businesses move from north to south, from Santa Ana to Irvine,” Kotkin said. “People who are afraid their communities may be deteriorating into lower-income communities may want economic stimulation.”

Still, residents of fast-growing communities frequently are enraged by the swift changes taking place.

In the dizzying 1980s, opposition crystallized into a series of initiatives that challenged local development policies in Orange County. Angry citizens brandished petitions and posters in an ultimately unsuccessful fight against developers. While veterans of that movement are skeptical of a rekindling, experts believe it’s inevitable.

“Even if you defeat the Staples mini-mall around the corner, you’ll continue to see your quality of life deteriorate,” said Steve Sanders, director of the California Futures Network, an urban planning advocacy group in Oakland.

Purely local attempts to staunch development are frequently the only means available to frustrated residents, but they are not the best ways to control development, a process Sanders said requires a broader, even statewide, policy.

Without that, citizens may force local officials to adopt one-community solutions, such as housing caps, height restrictions or growth boundaries, such as Ventura’s Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources (SOAR) campaign.

“If the only tools we give people are local ones, we’ll see a prairie fire of ballot box planning across the state,” Sanders said.

Today’s Decisions Will Be Crucial

Many experts believe that such voter-imposed growth control initiatives are possible.

But where some, such as Pisano of SCAG, see local officials trying to address growth concerns, others see citizen protests going dangerously neglected.

“The numbers of people willing to vote for growth controls are enormous,” Sanders of the Futures Network said, referring to The Times poll. “Yet I don’t see candidates for public office raising the same issues.

“There’s a political issue here that’s not being picked up. There are opportunities here for political leaders.”

The decisions made near the outset of this 25-year growth period for Orange County will be crucial, many of the experts believe. If the growth in people and jobs can’t be stopped, at least it should be better steered and directed, they said.

Said Sanders: “We have a choice of what kind of future we will have. The choices we make now will define that future.”

* EDUCATION PAGE

Study Southern California’s development with The Times’ Launch Point Web site. B2

* EXTENSIVE POLL DATA

More data from The Times Poll available online at https:// www.latimes.com/timespoll

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

About the Poll

The Times Orange County Poll was conducted by Baldassare Associates. The random telephone survey of 600 adult Orange County residents was conducted July 23-26. The sample reflects the demographic characteristics of adult Orange County residents. The margin of error for the total sample is plus or minus 4% at the 95% confidence level. That means the results are within 4 percentage points of what they would be if all adults in Orange County were interviewed. For subgroups, such as regions, the margin of error would be larger. For registered voters, the margin of error is plus or minus 5%.

About the Series

This is the second in the Beyond 2000 series in which articles explore how our lives will change in the next millennium. The series will continue every Monday through the end of 1998 as The Times Orange County examines what’s in store for the county in such areas as transportation, education, growth and technology.

ON THE INTERNET

The Beyond 2000 series and an interactive discussion are available on The Times Orange County Edition Web site at https://www.timesoc.com/HOME/NEWS/ORANGE/beyond.htm

Slowing the Growing

Two-thirds of county residents want to slow development in their communities, most notably in South County:

If a vote were held today, would you vote yes or no on an initiative that would slow down the pace of growth and development in your city or community?

*--*

North South Total County County Yes 66% 62% 71% No 27% 30% 24% Don’t know 7% 8% 5%

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Source: Times Orange County Poll

More Crowds Coming

Orange County’s population will increase by more than half a million by 2020, sending the total to well in excess of 3 million. The current strong economic growth is viewed positively, but residents prefer moderate growth and development, or none at all.

County Growth, 1994-2020

Riverside: 105%

San Bernardino: 82%

Los Angeles: 33%

Ventura: 31%

Orange: 25%

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Orange County Population Growth

1900-1910: 75%

1910-1920: 78%

1920-1930: 93%

1930-1940: 10% (Economic depression, restricted immigration)

1940-1950: 65%

1950-1960: 226% (Growth of suburbs)

1960-1970: 103%

1970-1980: 35%

1980-1990: 25%

1990-2000: 19%*

2000-2010: 9%*

2010-2020: 4%*

* Projection

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Population Densities

Orange County, already the most crowded in Southern California, will increase its population density nearly 20% between now and 2020. Residents per square mile:

Orange County Trend

1970: Approximately 1 person per 15,369 square feet

1990: Approximately 1 person per 9,125 square feet

2020 (projected): Approximately 1 person per 6,780 square feet

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1998 by County

Residents per square mile:

Orange: 3,447

Los Angeles: 2,365

San Diego: 665

Ventura: 396

Riverside: 200

San Bernardino: 81

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1994-2020 Growth

*--*

% 1994 increase population Unincorporated areas 113 258,084 San Juan Capistrano 44 28,304 Anaheim 37 290,710 Irvine 30 121,170 Stanton 28 32,230 Westminster 25 81,599 Laguna Beach 21 23,942 Dana Point 19 34,918 Laguna Niguel 19 54,075 Placentia 19 44,081 Tustin 15 59,734 Fullerton 14 121,439 San Clemente 13 45,049 Newport Beach 11 69,301 Santa Ana 11 309,183 Buena Park 10 72,897 Cypress 10 45,991 La Palma 10 15,683 Huntington Beach 9 189,159 Villa Park 9 6,429 Fountain Valley 8 54,971 Garden Grove 8 151,801 Brea 7 34,586 Costa Mesa 7 102,362 Yorba Linda 7 57,368 Orange 5 117,355 La Habra 4 54,121 Mission Viejo 4 80,389 Los Alamitos 2 12,151 Seal Beach 1 26,065

*--*

Data for Lake Forest and Laguna Hills not available

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What We Think

Do you expect your own financial situation to become better or worse as a result of the economic growth underway in Orange County, or do you think there will be no change?

Better: 63%

Worse: 7%

No change: 28%

Don’t know: 2%

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Do you expect local amenities such as shopping or entertainment facilities to become better or worse as a result of the economic growth underway in Orange County, or do you think there will be no change?

Better: 68%

Worse: 9%

No change: 20%

Don’t know: 3%

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Do you want the county’s current strong economy to continue even if it means more population growth and traffic congestion in the future?

Yes: 50%

No: 45%

Don’t know: 5%

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What is your preference for population growth and development in:

*--*

Orange Your County city Grow quickly 12% 11% Grow slowly 42% 33% Stay about same 45% 55% Don’t know 1% 1%

*--*

Source: Southern California Assn. of Governments, Times Orange County Poll, U.S. Census