Resurrection of Growth Measure Sought

Lorraine Brouillette says she feels a sense of paradise lost when she looks at all the construction and traffic in her beloved San Clemente.

“People came to this city because it was wonderful,” Brouillette said. “People wanted to get away from smog, traffic and congestion, things they have in the north part of the county. But now, here in San Clemente, the environment also is getting spoiled.”

Brouillette and hundreds of others who share those sentiments have begun a legal crusade to resurrect Measure E, the slow-growth initiative passed in June, 1988 by a 63.5% vote. The measure would have required that service improvements such as more streets and parks accompany any new development. Orange County Superior Court Judge John C. Woolley ruled last fall that the measure was unconstitutional.

“People in this community want the measure back because it set standards for growth, and now there are no standards,” Brouillette said. “The elected officials (in San Clemente) do as they please.”

Brouillette is president of San Clementeans for Managed Growth, which is leading the battle to have Woolley’s decision overturned.

Legal briefs in the case are scheduled to be filed next month with the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana. A decision is not likely until next summer, however, because of the case backlog.

The Lusk Co., the development company that successfully challenged Measure E in Superior Court last year, will continue its fight against the measure, said Donald D. Steffensen, Lusk executive vice president.

“We’ll take this to the state Supreme Court--to as far as it needs to be taken--if necessary,” he said. Company officials, he said, think Measure E “was a poorly written document that wouldn’t really solve the problem.”

In ruling against the measure, Woolley said it “requires property owners to mitigate conditions not only caused by their development--a proper goal--but also to cure the inadequacies of those who developed their property before them.”

Voters countywide turned down a similar slow-growth proposal, Measure A, for the county last year. Voters in San Juan Capistrano and Costa Mesa, however, approved city slow-growth measures modeled after San Clemente’s, but those measures were likewise invalidated in Superior Court rulings.

The rulings against the San Juan Capistrano and Costa Mesa measures are not being appealed, and should the appellate court rule in favor of the San Clemente measure, the ones for San Juan Capistrano and Costa Mesa would not be affected. Slow-growth advocates said nonetheless that a court victory for the San Clemente measure would still be a great boost.

“It would be a victory for the initiative approach” for slow growth, said Tom Rogers of San Juan Capistrano, who is president of Citizens for Sensible Growth and Traffic Control. His group led the countywide effort last year to pass Measure A.

Mark I. Weinberger, a San Francisco lawyer whose firm is representing the slow-growth forces, said Measure E “does not excessively burden individual (development) projects.” He said the initiative “is concerned about existing conditions, not what happened in the past.” The thrust of Measure E, he said, is to make sure that a community “does not worsen” from a new development project.

He also said that Measure E supporters “believe the judge overreacted by throwing out the entire measure.” The initiative contains a clause designed to preserve the rest of a law should a judge find part of it to be defective, he said.

Arguments Against Measure

Measure E still has its detractors, to be sure.

A number of business people and developers mounted a vociferous argument against it last fall just before Woolley made his ruling, saying that the initiative would be unworkable and would deter new business from the city.

In addition, a majority of the City Council last summer said that the initiative was so complex that there would need to be a six-month moratorium on major building projects in order to give the planning staff time to implement the measure.

Mayor Brian J. Rice said in a recent interview that he supports “controlled growth” but that Measure E is flawed. He predicted that the city would face only endless litigation should it be revived.

“The City Council is doing their best to handle problems such as traffic,” he said. He added that the council has appointed a growth-management committee and that many of its members “are people who supported Measure E.”

Councilman Thomas Lorch strenuously objected last year when his colleagues voiced their criticisms of Measure E after voters approved it. Lorch said he still firmly believes that Measure E is workable and fair.

‘Sets Standards’

“San Clemente is the fastest growing city in Orange County,” he said. “Measure E gave us standards for growth, and now we have nothing in its place while we continue to process development.”

Brouillette charged that the city is sliding into chaotic development and that inadequate attention is being paid to water needs, flood control and other basic services.

“Measure E does not set limits; it simply sets standards,” she said. “Most of the politicians don’t want it, and the developers don’t want it, but the people do want it. They voted overwhelmingly for it. Therefore we see the defense of Measure E to be a landmark case.”