Growth Management Techniques in California: What They Are, Where They’re Used, What They Do! - Presentation Outline

Growth Management Techniques in California: What They Are, Where They’re Used, What They Do!

William Fulton
Local Government Commission Workshops
June - July, 2002

What Is Growth Management?

• Techniques to manage timing and sequencing of new development.
• In California, these are local tools, adopted by cities and counties
• In some other states, Oregon and Florida among others, these are state and regional tools

What Tools and Techniques Are Typically Used?

• Housing/population caps
• Commercial/industrial caps
• Urban growth boundaries
• Infrastructure adequacy requirements
• Zoning (Up OR down!)
• General Growth Management
• Voter Requirements

Trends

• Most local governments use something
• Numerical caps on housing and population were popular in the ‘80s
• Urban Growth Boundaries and voter requirements are popular today
• "Layered" approach
• Bay Area: UGBs and "caps"; SoCal: downzoning and vote requirements

Growth Management Ballot Measures

• More than 600 growth management ballot measures since 1986.
• A "small minority" of growth management techniques are adopted at the ballot.
• Trend toward UGBs and subsequent vote requirements.

Ballot Measures: How Many

Ballot Measures: Where

What Goes On The Ballot:?

What Passes, What Doesn’t?

Impacts and Implementation Issues: Do These Tools Work?

It Depends on What You Mean By "Work"

Impacts: Housing And Commercial Caps

• They probably increase prices IF they suppress the overall amount of growth, but …
• In most cases they are imposed in a hot market and don’t really suppress the overall amount of growth in the long run

Urban Growth Boundaries

• Same thing:
• They constrain growth and raise prices IF they suppress growth …
• But if the boundary contains enough land to accommodate growth [one way or another] … this likely won’t happen.
• Nothing in California law REQUIRES this.

Infrastructure Adequacy

• Are you seeking to DIRECT growth geographically … or just pay for it?
• Or are you simply finding a different way to suppress growth?
• What happens if the project doesn’t meet the infrastructure requirement … do you mitigate the heck out of it or just turn it down?

Zoning: Up or Down?

• Does downzoning reduce the overall amount of growth in a community and therefore encourage displacement or sprawl?
• Are zoning techniques -- whether upzoning or downzoning -- adopted in the context of an overall plan for growth management?

Subsequent Voter Approval

• How can you do comprehensive planning when individual projects get voted on?
• What is the relationship between the proposed development and the actual action being taken by the voters
• And … What is relationship between the vote requirement and the regular planning process?

Bottom Line

• Are you suppressing growth, directing it, or paying for it?
• If you’re suppressing it, what’s the larger [regional or subregional] impact?
• What’s the point of voter approval -- democracy or obstruction?

For more …

• http://www.solimar.org (Research Reports)
• http://www.cp-dr.com (Books and Articles)
• http://www.lgc.org