Growth Debate Is Healthy

For nearly 40 years, growth has been an issue in Orange County, where land development has been as much a part of the scene as Disneyland.

Some people might even hold Disneyland partly responsible for starting it all by attracting people and focusing attention on the county. But the real cause, apart from sun and surf and other natural attractions, is the Santa Ana Freeway. When that freeway was extended into Orange County in the early 1950s, the area ceased being a bedroom community and the county was on the road to urban status.

Ironically, it’s the same Interstate 5, now choked with traffic, and the many other clogged freeways and surface streets, that are taking the bloom out of the boom with their daily congestion.

The growing dissatisfaction with what some see as the eroding quality of life, fueled predominantly by the traffic congestion, has given rise to a new wave of anti-growth sentiment--and an equal reaction from other residents who see continued growth as something that must be encouraged.

The battle lines are being drawn. On one side are those people wondering how many more new freeways, automobiles, service stations and classrooms are going to be needed and how much more open space and commuting time and air quality is going to be lost to accommodate growth. Some want to stop it completely. Others think that growth must be limited to the area’s ability to handle it.

On the other side are those who support growth, and they include more than just builders and businesses. They see a moratorium as an economic disaster. They also think that the county should have a more positive “can-do” attitude than the doomsday approach that says, “We’ll never be able to solve the traffic and school problems, so growth should be shut down.” To them, that’s an admission that the planning process has failed.

Both would have to agree that growth thus far has produced a vibrant economy in which personal income is higher than the state and national average and unemployment is lower. In the last few years culture and the arts have caught up to the physical growth and made the county an even more desirable place to live. All of that is drawing not only national attention but also more people and business.

A new factor has been added to the current debate: the possibility of a countywide growth limitation initiative on the 1988 ballot. The proposed initiative would only affect unincorporated county areas under the control of the county Board of Supervisors, but it would be voted on by all county residents.

Such a measure would be significant because the vote would be an indication of public attitudes for the governing councils in all 26 cities and would help set the tone for future planning decisions. In a community as compact as Orange County, every development has a ripple effect and one city’s growth policy influences the others.

The choice is not really between stopping growth or allowing unlimited expansion. Those who want to stop growth must realize it’s too late to put the genie back into the bottle. Growth will come. Few people disagree on that. Where they do disagree, sometimes vehemently, is on the questions of how much growth, at what rate and where.

And the differing viewpoints don’t break down into convenient, easily identifiable camps like the builders against the homeowners, conservative Republicans against liberal Democrats, the rich against the poor. In any of those groups, you will find people disagreeing on the larger issues among themselves, driven by different views of what is best for the county’s economy, environment and quality of life.

The public disagreement is just fine. A full and open discussion on growth will do more good than harm. Growth is an issue every community and every resident ought to be thinking about. The county board and city councils should have development policies that work, preferably plans that complement rather than conflict with each other.

The public debate and initiative drive now emerging is a welcome and healthy process that must be encouraged if residents are to be the beneficiaries, not the victims, of Orange County’s continued growth.