Oceanside Voters Approve Proposition A

Despite a heavily financed battle waged by developers, Oceanside voters Tuesday convincingly approved a landmark slow-growth initiative that sets a strict cap on the number of homes built each year.

Proposition A, the growth-controlling measure sponsored by a grass-roots citizens group, garnered 56.6% of the vote, easily defeating Proposition B, a rival, council-backed measure favored by 47% of the electorate.

Supporters of Proposition A heralded the victory as proof that big developer dollars could not sway residents irked by a landslide of development in the fast-growing city.

“We’re just elated we won,” said Don Rodee, a leader of the slow-growth coalition. “But we thoroughly expected this. If the developers had spent $500,000 they still wouldn’t have won. They can’t buy elections any more.”

Backers of Proposition B, among them all five members of the City Council, expressed dismay at the outcome, predicting that the most immediate result will be a spate of lawsuits by builders angered by the growth curbs.

“It’s going to mean a series of lawsuits, no question about it,” said Mayor Larry Bagley, a staunch Proposition B supporter. “We tried to tell people that in the campaign, but the opposition said it was a scare tactic. Now they’ll find out it’s a fact.”

With a light, 35.6% turnout, 7,885 residents voted ‘yes’ on Proposition A, while 6,057 voted ‘no.’ The measure got its biggest support from mobile home parks and the Oceana retirement community, traditional strongholds for former Councilwoman Melba Bishop, who helped lead the slow-growth campaign. Proposition B got 6,509 yes votes and 7,222 no votes.

The Oceanside election marked the second ballot test on growth in booming North County in the last six months. In a high-stakes battle last November, Carlsbad voters favored a council-backed growth-management plan over a slow-growth initiative pushed by two citizens’ groups. A growth-control election is slated next Tuesday in Vista, and grass-roots groups in other cities in the fast-developing region are gearing up for similar efforts.

Developers plowed more than $100,000 into the Oceanside growth campaign, primarily to fight the slow-growth measure sponsored by Oceanside Taxpayers for Orderly Growth, a grass-roots group.

Proposition A is modeled after similar slow-growth initiatives passed in almost 60 cities nationwide. It will limit construction of new homes to 1,000 in 1987 and 800 in each subsequent year through 1999. At that point, the City Council will review the ordinance.

The measure also calls for creation of a “Residential Development Evaluation Board” to rate project applications and determine which will be allowed to proceed under the annual quota. The city Planning Commission will serve as the board to evaluate each development in terms of public facilities provided, architectural strengths and the inclusion of parks or open space.

Among the projects that would be exempted from the annual cap would be remodeling work on existing homes, construction of single-family homes on a single lot, projects in the city’s redevelopment area, and housing for senior citizens or low-income residents.

The rival ballot measure, Proposition B, was drafted by Oceanside officials late last year in the face of the citizens’ slow-growth initiative. Although the City Council approved this managed-growth program as an ordinance earlier this year, officials decided to put it on the ballot as an alternative to Proposition A.

As city leaders saw it, the measure’s key provision was a requirement for a public vote to increase densities above those outlined in the city’s existing land-use plans, which call for a maximum population of 225,000. That requirement would have virtually handcuffed land speculators, who typically purchase a piece of property and then appeal to the council to raise the density on the land, thereby raising its development potential.

In addition, Proposition B would have forbid development without provisions for adequate public services and require the city to adopt a plan setting standards for what facilities will be needed with each new project.