City Council Backs Plan for Growth in Carlsbad

CARLSBAD —  The City Council on Wednesday hammered out a growth management plan designed to keep public services in line with future development, but stopped short of adopting the proposal.

After hours of public testimony and discussion spanning two evenings, the council members voted unanimously to direct the city attorney to prepare the complex plan for their possible endorsement in two weeks.

Despite stiff opposition from developers who said the plan went too far, the council appears posed to go forward with it after more than six months of work.

The plan is the council’s response to mounting public concern over the pace of growth in Carlsbad, which has seen rapid residential and industrial development, doubling the city’s population in the past decade.

Under the growth management plan, developers will be required to build or pay fees for public facilities such as roads, parks and libraries as well as water and sewer lines or treatment plants. By doing that, Carlsbad officials hope city amenities will keep pace with the increased demand caused by growth.

While the city hammers out the details of the growth management plan, a moratorium on the processing of all development permits has been imposed.

The ban has put plans for 8,500 homes on hold, raising the ire of developers, who complain that costly delays could jeopardize the economic viability of their projects. The moratorium will be lifted when the growth management plan is implemented, which is expected this fall. But developers are eager to deploy the bulldozers before a slow-growth initiative goes before voters in November.

The initiative, backed by two citizens’ groups, proposes a cap on residential construction that would limit the number of homes built in Carlsbad to 1,000 in 1987, 750 the next year and 500 annually for each of the following eight years. In recent years, the city had been approving about 2,000 new homes annually.

Some slow-growth advocates contend the growth management plan is little more than a prescription for avalanche growth. As many see it, the plan would simply help developers put into place the needed facilities while doing nothing to control the pace of growth.

As part of the growth management plan, Carlsbad officials in the coming months would draw up a citywide plan outlining what public facilities will be needed, as well as how developers will finance the projects. Time schedules for building the facilities will be established based on population increases.

Once that overall scheme is drafted, planners will divide the city into more than two dozen smaller sections and draw up more detailed plans for those areas. The plans must be approved by both the Planning Commission and City Council.

Builders will not be given development or construction permits unless their plans are found to be consistent with the growth management plan and all fees are paid to finance the public facilities needed to accommodate the growth.

On Tuesday, the City Council listened to more than three hours of public testimony on the growth management plan before a crowd of about 200 people which spilled out of City Hall. More than three dozen residents and developers spoke. Shortly after 10 p.m., the council decided to delay a decision until the following evening.

Several developers argued Tuesday that the council should take even more time to study all the implications of the growth management plan, while others pleaded for a system to screen out projects that deserve to be exempted from the moratorium.

“It can’t be like ‘Let’s Make a Deal,’ ” said Oceanside attorney Nick Banche, who represents several Carlsbad developers. “You have to establish a criteria for the projects that are exempted. You can’t pick and choose. The game must be made fair for everyone.”

While the moratorium will delay planning for a majority of the development projects proposed for Carlsbad, about 3,500 dwelling units already under construction or eligible for building permits will be unaffected.

In addition, the council agreed Wednesday to exempt two projects planned for the shores of Batiquitos Lagoon--a graduate university proposed by Sammis Properties and the 1,700-acre Pacific Rim Resort and Country Club, a sprawling residential and hotel development being built by the billionaire Hunt brothers of Dallas.

While those projects are not as far along as some developments snared by the moratorium, council members gave the go-ahead after officials from the two firms agreed not to block plans to dredge and do other work in the lagoon as part of a long-awaited, $15-million restoration project.

The restoration work is being financed by the Port of Los Angeles and Pacific Texas Pipeline Co. as part of a deal to compensate for wetlands in Los Angeles that will be damaged to make way for an oil pipeline terminal at the port. Restoration of the lagoon will require the cooperation of Sammis and the Hunts because the two firms own major sections of Batiquitos.