Decisions on Growth Come to the Ballot Box

Will the day come when permission to build a new house requires a public vote?

Dozens of California communities are voting today on how--or whether--to grow. But in a bellwether trio of measures that developers and environmentalists say have state and national implications, three Northern California communities will cast ballots on initiatives requiring voter approval for housing developments as small as 10 units.

In two decades of slow-growth initiatives in communities across California--including last year’s Save Open Space movement in Ventura County--none has involved citizens at such a micro level as the measures in the affluent Bay Area bedroom cities of Livermore, Pleasanton and San Ramon.

The three initiatives, all sponsored by the local Citizens Alliance for Public Planning, represent what planners say is a new threshold in “ballot box planning” aimed at bypassing local elected governments where such growth and development decisions have traditionally been made.

According to Phyllis Myers, an urban planner who recently conducted a study of 240 growth-related measures in 31 states for the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., the Livermore-Pleasanton-San Ramon initiatives are the first in the nation to require an “automatic referendum” each time a development reaches a certain size.

As a result, Myers said, “the conservation community, planning community and legislators across the country are all watching these votes very carefully.”

“Up to now, these initiatives have been at a much larger scale,” said California Treasurer Phil Angelides, a former Sacramento developer who is one of the few state officials to regularly address issues of growth and planning.

Angelides argued in a recent report that the trend toward extremely localized planning and citizen initiatives works against the state’s long-term economic interests. To deal with the estimated million new residents who are expected to come to California in the next two decades, Angelides contends, the state needs “stronger regional planning and state infrastructure investment” or it faces economic and environmental degradation.

At the local level, state and regional concerns are less obvious.

Don Miller, a former Livermore mayor who supports the initiative in his city, says the measure is necessary to protect his community from “runaway growth” caused by the booming Silicon Valley economy.

“All of this growth is driven by job creation in the Silicon Valley but which pushes all its housing problems on us,” Miller said.

According to Angelides, the Bay Area is creating nine jobs for every new housing unit constructed, a situation unparalleled in recent state history. He said the statewide ratio of 5.4 jobs per new housing unit is alarmingly high compared to the 1.6 jobs per housing unit during the early 1980s, another economic boom period in California.

The three cities in the Livermore, San Ramon and Amador valleys east of Oakland, in what is called the Tri-Valley area, boast some of the highest living standards in the country. The median single-family home in Pleasanton, for example, sells for $355,000. The projected year 2000 median income for Livermore is $75,800. Together, the three cities have more than 175,000 residents.

But as jobs continue to be created at a record rate in the Silicon Valley surrounding San Jose, housing has become a critical issue, forcing some high-tech job holders to go as far as the San Joaquin Valley to find affordable homes. The pressure for housing and the daily flood of commuters have angered and frustrated residents of the once-bucolic San Ramon corridor.

Developers fear that such measures will block residential growth of any kind in richer suburbs. Phil Serna, who represents the Homebuilders Assn. of Northern California and is the son of Sacramento’s mayor, said he spent the past several weeks working full time to defeat the initiatives. A recent poll in the Contra Costa Times showed the anti-growth initiative winning easily in San Ramon, very close in Pleasanton, and losing in Livermore.

Developers have poured money into citizens groups formed in opposition to the the measures, including the Caring About Livermore organization founded by former Alameda County Supervisor Valerie Raymond.

“The sponsors of these initiatives,” said Raymond, who considers herself a fervent environmentalist, “are just trying to choke off housing. If they succeed in stopping growth in these communities, they are just going to divert growth to the Central Valley and make problems worse. The commuters will still come filing through.”

At the same time, elected local officials are alarmed that the initiatives will take them out of the planning process and complicate governance immensely.

Opponents of the initiative in San Ramon describe the measure in formal statements as a “well meaning but misguided effort to preserve San Ramon’s quality of life. Asking 24,000 voters [in San Ramon] to act as the city’s Planning Commission is simply unworkable. Are the thousands going to tour the site, review detailed development plans, read environmental impact reports?”

Even environmental groups are divided on the three initiatives. The Bay Area Sierra Club supports them. But Greenbelt Alliance, the influential Bay Area group that pioneered the state’s anti-sprawl movement, has taken a neutral position, contending that the initiatives will only exacerbate rapid growth in more distant San Joaquin Valley cities.

“Local land use initiatives need to not only limit irresponsible development,” said Tom Mooers, field director for the Greenbelt Alliance. “They must also encourage smart growth.” The key to new growth planning, Mooers said, is developing “in-fill” housing in already developed areas of cities that is close to public transit.

“Unfortunately,” Mooers said, “the proposed initiatives don’t really strike the balance between limiting sprawl and encouraging in-fill.”

Held on the same day as a controversial vote in Santa Barbara, where former actor Fess Parker has authored a citizens’ initiative that would circumvent local authorities to allow a luxury waterfront hotel, the Livermore-San Ramon-Pleasanton initiatives mark another step in California’s continuing trend toward direct democracy, in which even the smallest issues require voter approval.

The tiny northern coastal community of Half Moon Bay is voting today on a contentious proposal that would limit residential growth there to about 40 homes a year.

“The fact is,” said Angelides, “we are going to see more and more of these [types of] initiatives, manifestations of a deep public frustration with the way things are.”

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To Grow or Not to Grow

Among the California communities voting on growth issues today are three that will decide on ballot initiatives requiring voter approval for housing developments as small as 10 units. In the affluent Bay Area cities of Livermore, Pleasanton and San Ramon, the three initiatives, all sponsored by the Bay Area Citizens Alliance for Public Planning, represent what experts say is a new threshold in “ballot box planning” aimed at bypassing local governments where growth and development decisions are traditionally made.

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Source: https://www.officialcitysites.org

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