Voters send strong Prop. A messages on housing

By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer | Wednesday, March 3, 2004 10:51 PM PST ∞

In rejecting Proposition A by a 2-1 margin, San Diego County voters were saying they don't like ballot-box planning, don't want high-rise condos across the street but do want something done about soaring housing costs, political observers said Wednesday.

Known also as the Rural Lands Initiative, Prop. A was defeated 64.4 percent to 35.6 percent, with 311,189 residents voting no and 172,153 voting yes in Tuesday's primary, according to the San Diego County registrar of voters.

For many, it was not surprising that the measure went down in flames.

"The truth is, we are not Ventura County," said Steve Erie, a UC San Diego political science professor.

Like recently adopted measures in Ventura, Prop. A would, in essence, have drawn an urban growth limit line around San Diego County's unincorporated towns. It would have placed minimum lot sizes of 40, 80 and 160 acres on 700,000 acres, or roughly one-third of the 2.3 million acres comprising the area outside the cities.

Those kinds of restrictions have proven popular in regions such as Oregon, Northern California and Ventura County. But San Diego County residents tend to be more protective of private property rights, which often clash against growth boundaries, analysts said.

"The county in general remains quite hostile to ballot-driven growth limit proposals," said Michael Bernstein, a UCSD economics history professor.

Not to mention, he said, that this particular initiative was introduced before the county was given the opportunity to try out its new growth guide, General Plan 2020, which has been in the works for five years and is expected to be finished in roughly a year.

"A lot of people are saying, 'Look, until we see what that brings us, why are we messing around?' " Bernstein said.

Paul Tryon, the chief executive officer for the Building Industry Association of San Diego County, which fought the measure, said it is clear people want to take the time to complete a "balanced, thoughtful approach" to planning the region's future.

Tryon said they also want something done about the housing shortage and increasingly high prices. The county's unfolding new general plan aims to find a way to fill the need for more housing, he said, but the initiative ignored that issue.

However, there was not much difference between the two, in terms of population targets, according to a county planning report. The general plan would allow the unincorporated area population to grow from 443,000 to 669,000; the initiative would set the ceiling at 650,000.

Still, the lack of housing affordability is an emotional issue for many in San Diego County, said Roger Caves, professor of city planning at San Diego State University and author of a book on ballot-box planning.

"And people vote on their emotions," Caves said. "The people are saying they want affordable housing."

At the same time, those who already have homes, particularly those in coastal communities, were worried that the initiative would spur construction of town houses and condominiums in their quiet neighborhoods, Erie said. He said the opposition campaign did an effective job of stirring up not-in-my-backyard fears.

But what worried those in rural areas such as Valley Center was the notion that coastal and other urban communities could decide what happens in the backcountry, said county Supervisor Bill Horn, an ardent opponent of the measure.

Under the measure, no landowner could have built housing tracts on the targeted 700,000 acres at any time during the next 20 years unless he or she appealed, successfully, to voters in a countywide election.

"We who live out in the unincorporated areas want a say in what our communities look like," Horn said.

But Erie, of UCSD, suggests that the election result does a lot more than give unincorporated communities a say in their future.

"We will get what we voted for: More development and more sprawl," Erie said. "We have blessed sprawl at the ballot box."

Worse, he said, voters have given builders the green light to fill with rooftops the very backcountry areas that were devastated by October's firestorm.

Tryon begged to differ. He said the defeat will not open the floodgates to urban sprawl, and the lesson of how and where to build in the fire-prone backcountry has not been lost.

Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 740-3529 or ddowney@nctimes.com.

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