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Home Resource Center In the News Home Greenbelt Alliance in the News |
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Greenbelt Alliance In the News
October 31, 2002 Growth decisions ebb on ballots Subheading By Tracey KaplanThe Bay Area, long a breeding ground and state leader for growth-related ballot measures, will decide only eight at polling places next week, compared with 18 two years ago. The region is still expected to grow by 642,900 people in the next nine years -- the equivalent of adding the current populations of Santa Ana and Miami. But there are fewer than half as many measures on Tuesday's ballot as there were in 2000, largely because economic worries have replaced growth as a top priority, as well as the fact that it's an off-year election. "When the economy is sour -- and the downturn has been worse in the Bay Area than in the rest of California -- people have other things to worry about," said Paul Shigley, managing editor of the California Development & Planning Report. But the results of the measures, including a controversial Fremont initiative that would restrict hillside development and a Berkeley referendum that would limit building heights to three stories on University Avenue and other major streets outside downtown, could affect the supply, cost and location of housing in the region for years to come. Measures also will appear on local ballots in San Francisco, Pleasanton, Tiburon, Solano County and the Sonoma County city of Windsor. Builders say stricter limits drive up housing prices, while environmentalists generally favor them for the sake of preserving open space. The San Francisco-based Greenbelt Alliance, as well as national environmental groups such as the Trust for Public Land, say support for open-space preservation remains strong despite the economic downturn. Voters have supported 61 percent of the 81 measures that have appeared on ballots around the nation so far this year, agreeing to tax themselves or approve bonds to pay for open-space acquisition. But a recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that support for ballot-box zoning among Bay Area residents has dropped to 49 percent from 65 percent at the peak of the economic boom in 2000. Ballot-box planning has been popular in the Bay Area since the 1970s when population growth began to be perceived as a threat to property values and the environment. Statewide, support has also slipped, though less sharply, from 58 percent to 44 percent. The number of measures on local ballots statewide also has dropped. There are 25 on next week's ballot, compared with 70 in November 2000 and 52 in November 1998. One of the most far-reaching measures in the Bay Area is a $1.6 billion San Francisco measure that would upgrade the century-old Hetch Hetchy water system. Businesses and civic organizations say it's essential to ensure the system's safety in a major earthquake. The average water bill would rise from about $14 to about $40 by 2015 to pay for the improvements. But a coalition of neighborhood groups, property owners and environmentalists,
including the Sierra Club, opposes the measure, saying it would encourage
sprawl by expanding water capacity in outlying suburban areas, including
the South Bay. Contact Tracey Kaplan at tkaplan@sjmercury.com or (408) 278-3482. ### |
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