Slow-Growth Measures Crowd Ballots

In 1997, Mike Evans ran for the Gilbert Town Council to curb growth in this once sleepy farming community on the outskirts of Phoenix. Three years later, the town is still drowning in a flood of new residents, new construction and new headaches.

As many as 9,000 people move in each year; almost 3,000 housing permits are issued; at least a dozen new subdivisions are going up. “I feel like the little Dutch boy standing there with his finger in the dike,” says Evans, “and the water’s still rising around me.”

He isn’t alone in trying to plug the problem. In big cities and small throughout the nation on Nov. 7, voters will decide a raft of measures aimed at limiting growth or easing its effects. At least 33 sprawl-related questions are on ballots in 17 states, according to the Sprawl Watch Clearinghouse in Washington, which tracks land-use policies. Most are local measures, affecting counties and towns.

“Years and years of suburban growth are finally taking their toll” in traffic snarls, pollution and the loss of open spaces, says Jonathan Weiss, head of George Washington University’s Center on Sustainability and Regional Growth. “It’s making citizens demand that action be taken.”

The most sweeping proposal is Arizona’s Proposition 202. It would require cities and counties of more than 2,500 residents to adopt 10-year growth limits and force developers to pay for roads, schools and other services to new subdivisions.

Evans is an avid supporter. His town’s population jumped from 29,000 in 1990 to more than 100,000 today. Reminders of the recent rural past, such as cotton gins, are apt to be idle.

“There’s not any cotton left to gin,” Evans laments, “because the farmers are all growing houses.”

Rivaling the scope of the Arizona proposal is Colorado Amendment 24. That measure would require counties and cities to map future growth and submit development proposals to voters. Worried builders are rushing to file housing applications before the November election.

Polls indicate the electorate is divided. An Arizona Republic survey last month found 62% of voters supported Proposition 202, with 23% opposed and 15% undecided. But that support may be slipping. A new poll in the paper Oct. 15 found support at 46% and opposition at 34%, with 20% undecided.

A poll this month in Denver’s Rocky Mountain News found 54% supported the Colorado measure, while 35% opposed it.

Other proposals:

* In northern Arizona, Coconino County residents vote whether to uphold a rezoning decision allowing commercial and housing development south of the Grand Canyon. Opponents say the project would create a carnival atmosphere and harm the environment.

* In Florida, Salt Lake City and Austin, Texas, voters decide whether to provide money for public transportation to ease traffic congestion.

* In Missouri, a ballot measure would ban billboard construction on interstate highways and ban the removal of trees except for environmental purposes or to eliminate hazards.

* In San Francisco, bursting with new dot-com companies, voters decide two measures on limiting office development.

* In Ohio, a bond issue would provide $25 million to help farmers keep land in production rather than sell it to developers.

Colorado and Arizona were among the five fastest-growing states this past decade. Colorado’s population climbed 23% to 4.1 million, while Arizona’s swelled more than 30% to 4.9 million people.

Arizona’s Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and suburbs like Gilbert, gained 740,000 residents in the ‘90s--more than any other county in the nation. Deserts have become developments, highways are clogged and dust cloaks mountaintops, making the region one of the nation’s smoggiest.

“Without doing something to change the way we’re planning for growth, we’re destined to be a city like Los Angeles, or worse,” says Sandy Bahr, conservation director for the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon Chapter, which is pushing Proposition 202 and gave about one-third of the more than $306,000 proponents raised.

Opponents, including Arizona Republican Gov. Jane Hull, also paint an ugly scenario. They argue limiting growth would cost jobs, drive up home prices and increase congestion by forcing condominiums and multifamily housing into established neighborhoods.

The opposition instead touts Proposition 100, to preserve 270,000 acres of state land as open space. Developers gave most of the $1.9 million raised to fight Proposition 202.

“This is a very serious issue for all of Arizona, and a very serious issue for all of the United States,” says Charles Wallace, president of two building-materials businesses. “If this passes here, it’ll just mushroom around the country.”