4 Growth Proposals Unfair, Unworkable

Last June voters rejected Measure A, the so-called countywide slow-growth initiative. On Tuesday virtually the same measure will be back on the ballot as city initiatives in Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach and San Juan Capistrano; a variation will be before Newport Beach voters.

The proposals should be rejected in all four communities.

Measure A was a confusing, poorly drawn and unworkable document in June. It would be no better or more acceptable now. In fact, for a number of reasons it would be even more ill-advised. It was designed to control expansion in growing neighborhoods in the unincorporated county area. It would not do that effectively and certainly is even less suited and more unworkable for mostly developed cities.

An example of that was seen in San Clemente, the one city in the county where a separate slow-growth initiative passed in June. The City Council found the new law so difficult to administer that it imposed a 6-month moratorium on new development to give it time to figure out how to make the measure work. In the meantime, attorneys for a developer filed the expected lawsuit challenging the legality of the initiative.

San Clemente’s implementation problems became moot last month when Superior Court Judge John C. Woolley ruled that the initiative, which ties development approval to traffic improvements, unconstitutional. He said that it illegally forced developers to solve traffic problems that their projects did not cause.

The proposed Measure K in Newport Beach, which seeks to replace the city’s 10-year-old traffic phasing ordinance, fails to pass muster for the same reason. The existing ordinance requires developers to make local road improvements that will prevent traffic from becoming any worse because of their projects. The proposed initiative would go further, requiring builders to reduce traffic to a level determined by a highly technical and controversial formula, even if doing so would mean reducing traffic lower than current levels.

That clearly would force builders to solve problems created long before their projects. That unfair, and now unlawful, approach is also a feature of the ballot measures in Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach and San Juan Capistrano. If passed, they too probably would be rejected in court. But even if they were not, the initiatives would fail to solve most traffic problems because they would apply only to local roads. They could not apply to freeways or heavily traveled state highways.

There is no question that growth and land-use must be carefully planned. The initiative process, however, is a poor way to try to accomplish that. It is too inflexible, costly and time consuming to transfer land-use planning to the voters and to have to hold an election every time changes are needed.

The heavy congestion on many city streets--sometimes as much as 80%--is caused not so much by local motorists as by traffic passing through the city. Municipal regulations on local development will not relieve that congestion. That is why a regional approach is needed, along with local measures designed specifically for the growth problems each community faces.

Huntington Beach is trying to do that with a broad-based city Growth Management Committee working to address the city’s specific needs. Other cities should do the same. According to land-use experts, no other California city uses a growth control approach like the one in San Clemente that tried to place an unfair burden on individual property owners. No other city should. That is why we urge a No vote on Measure G in Costa Mesa, Measure J in Huntington Beach, Measure K in Newport Beach and Measure X in San Juan Capistrano.