Development Foes Taking the Initiative

There was a time when Steve Raganold couldn’t name Garden Grove’s five City Council members. But after spending his summer vacation fighting City Hall, the paramedic and father of two knows not only who they are but how to change their way of thinking.

Raganold and scores of volunteers gathered thousands of petition signatures to force a citywide referendum on a housing project in Raganold’s neighborhood.

The City Council, which had approved the 14-home development despite opposition from local residents, decided to rescind approval rather than pay to hold an election. “They had disregarded the public will,” said Raganold, 50. “That is where the anger came from. That’s where the energy came from.”

Others are angry too.

Across the state, citizens are using an increasingly popular tool in California politics, the voter initiative, to stop development projects.

In Orange, the City Council recently rescinded its approval of a 177-home project after citizens qualified the issue for a referendum. The Redondo Beach City Council took similar action last year after opponents gathered enough signatures to put a massive beachfront redevelopment project to voters. And in San Diego County, San Marcos residents will vote in March whether to allow a Wal-Mart store in their city.

Proponents say the initiative process is the only recourse left to them when local officials ignore their concerns about developments that they believe threaten their communities.

But city planners and others fear “ballot-box planning” will lead to haphazard growth when projects are decided by political contests rather than a sober analysis of a region’s needs.

“We can’t just pull up the drawbridge and say, ‘Sorry, it’s full,’ ” said Steve Emslie, director of planning for Palo Alto, where voters last month narrowly approved a downtown condominium-and-retail project after a heated political campaign between the developer and project opponents.

Development experts say the community friction that produces ballot measures is increasing as builders run out of open space and pursue more infill projects on smaller parcels in existing neighborhoods.

Many urban planners and environmentalists welcome such developments as a way to contain sprawl. But neighbors often complain about increased traffic, noise and pollution.

“The environmentally sensitive areas are locked up, and we can’t build on hillsides,” Emslie said. “But infill is more controversial.”

A national survey of the November 2000 elections by the Brookings Institution found that almost half of all growth-related ballot measures, 44 of 89, were in California. Of those, 21 were citizen initiatives.

“People are concerned about what growth will do to the biggest investments in their lives,” their homes, said Robert Puentes, a senior researcher at Brookings.

These local initiatives are part of California’s long tradition of ballot-box decision-making that has been used for everything from capping property taxes to recalling the governor. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has expressed enthusiasm for the initiative movement, and even used it as a club to win concessions from legislators, threatening to ask voters directly to approve some of his budget proposals.

At the local level, ballot measures have been used to regulate development more than anything else. In Ventura County, voters passed a series of measures in 1998 that require elections on any major changes to zoning laws.

In Orange County last year, voters amended the General Plan to prevent a commercial airport at the closed El Toro Marine base.

Frequently, the mere threat of a referendum is enough to derail a project.

In Orange, a developer proposed 177 luxury homes on a 110-acre site that had been a sand and gravel field for decades. The city’s land-use plans designated most of the lot as open space, so the City Council changed its General Plan to allow the project.

The decision triggered an uprising among project opponents, who accused the council of selling out to a developer rather than protecting some of Orange’s last remaining open space.

Backers of the project argued that keeping the land designation without any funds to buy it and turn it into public space meant nobody could use it. The developer proposed keeping about 50 acres of open space. Critics countered that granting the rights to build sealed the site’s fate.

“Once you pave it, it’s gone,” said Stefanie Holcomb, one of about 200 volunteers who gathered almost 9,000 signatures to force a ballot measure.

The council reversed itself in November.

Some city officials say that ballot-box planning clouds traffic patterns, housing needs and other complex issues with political rhetoric.

“People think that if you are approving exceptions you must be on the take,” said Matt Fertal, an assistant city manager in Garden Grove. “But you must think about what is the intention of all these standards. At the end of the day, you are going to approve what you think is a good project.”

In most cases, voter intervention does not kill a project, but rather redefines it. The developer of the 14-home project in Garden Grove, for example, submitted another plan for 12 homes. It did not require a zoning change or a council vote, and the Planning Commission approved it in November.

Raganold, who led the campaign against the original project, agreed that there was not much difference between 12 and 14 homes, but said his main concern was that the city not grant any zone change for the area.

“At least [city officials] are making an effort,” he said. “I don’t know if they would have done that if not for the referendum.”

Redondo Beach city officials say they are trying to find a compromise after they were forced to rescind Heart of the City, a massive redevelopment of the beachfront and an aging power plant.

Chris Cagle, who led the referendum campaign, says the job of compromise is a lot tougher from his new position as city councilman.

“When I was doing the referendum, we [activists] were all united under one concept: We didn’t like what was being proposed,” he said. “Now everyone is divided. Some want a big park, others want balanced development ....It is all over the place.”

Cagle said that he is confident a compromise can be reached.

If not?

“Well, it may come down to a [referendum] vote,” , he said. “I could live with that.”