Growth Control on Ballot

This is not a big election year in Orange County, but a review of the kinds of issues voters will be considering in local pockets suggests that managing growth is a common concern. It likely will remain that early in the next century.

All around the nation, suburban areas are reckoning with the consequences of development. It’s happening in suburban Washington, D.C., in suburban New York and here in Orange County. Crowded freeways, disappearing open space and a sense of sprawl fatigue have prompted grass-roots activists to take matters in hand. They seek to shape their own destiny through neighborhood organizations, the initiative process and participation in local politics.

The congestion arising from growth is hardly a new phenomenon in our region. Voters early in the decade overcame the county’s storied opposition to tax increases by passing a sales tax initiative for road improvements. The county is benefiting from the foresight its voters had back in 1990, when they embarked on the ambitious program. Those roads and freeways have come on line not a moment too soon to accommodate an explosion of post-recession development.

Near the end of the 1980s, a slow-growth initiative was turned down in the county, but its appearance indicated that concern with growth had been percolating for some time. In the mid-1990s, the county emerged from the twin setbacks of recession and bankruptcy to burst forward with a dynamic period of economic activity. New housing sprung up to meet pent-up demand, and roads and infrastructure were needed. The strong regional economy and low interest rates led last year to an increase in housing values that led every other metropolitan area in the nation.

While these forces have resulted in economic benefit, they have been accompanied by a grass-roots political uneasiness with the forces of development. The most visible battle has been over airports, both the opposition of residents in south Orange County to a new commercial airport at El Toro, and the more established community opposition in the environs of Newport Beach to an expanded John Wayne Airport. The year ahead offers a prelude to the larger vote slated for next year on the so-called Safe And Healthy Communities Act, which would require two-thirds approval of voters for airports, landfills and jails. While arising specifically out of the anti-El Toro sentiment, it is an attempt to resonate with voters concerned about big projects that might affect them.

In the meantime, the thread of concern with growth runs through various local issues in the current year. Through the 1970s and 1980s, and earlier this decade, the move toward incorporation and cityhood represented an attempt by localities to have a stronger say in their destiny. Last week, the 35-year-old Leisure World community in South County voted to become Laguna Woods. The appeal of local control of police, fire, street maintenance and planning are obvious. But the fallout of growth and development was central to the question. The El Toro proposal stirs strong anti-airport sentiment in Leisure World, and sprawl in once-unpopulated areas surrounding the gated community raised safety concerns.

Elsewhere, local communities will be dealing with other aspects of the challenge of growth. In recent years, Mello-Roos tax districts have been used to shift the costs of infrastructure construction from developers to new homeowners. In Baker Ranch on March 30, voters will consider amending the rate and apportionment of such a tax, and actually consider eliminating an exemption for a church.

On April 27, voters in Laguna Beach will decide on two ballot measures dealing with a proposal for a hotel plan at a trailer park north of Aliso Beach.

In one of the measures, voters will review the city’s general plan in addition to a question on the site. In June, Brea-Olinda schools will decide on a bond issue for new school construction. There are other possible bond measures in other school districts under consideration. Last week’s vote in Coto de Caza on an elementary school, while focusing on public school facilities behind gates, had as its origin the pressure of growth on public school facilities.

All of these community-specific questions are tied together by concern about managing growth. How the county handles those questions, and how it balances community and individual priorities, will be vital to the future.