Coming to Terms With Growth : Builders Group Officials Hope for Accord

Officials of an Orange County home builders group and the county’s largest landholder said Friday they believe that a compromise can be reached that will put an end to the slow-growth initiative effort.

“Our next move is obviously to meet with our own members to see if we can develop a consensus among ourselves,”said Gordon Tippell, president of the Building Industry Assn. of Orange County. “But I think it can be done.”

Talk of alternatives to the proposed countywide initiative was widespread Friday after it was disclosed that slow-growth leader Tom Rogers had met behind closed doors the day before with each of the county’s five supervisors. Those meetings, at which former Supervisor Bruce Nestande also was present, were held to discuss the plausibility of a plan drafted by Nestande that would halt efforts to put the proposed initiative on the countywide ballot in June.

Nestande’s plan calls for creation of a powerful new county agency to coordinate transportation and development decisions. The former supervisor, now vice president of Arnel Development Co., said several unidentified developers had reviewed his plan and approved it in concept.

Tippell said he had been at a meeting Wednesday at which slow-growth leaders had surprised representatives of the building industry by discussing the possibility of calling off the petition drive in return for more stringent controls on future development.

Irvine Co. Support

The Irvine Co., the county’s largest private landholder, lent its support to a possible compromise Friday through Vice Chairman Thomas H. Nielsen.

“It will take a lot of discussion to make it work, but I think it can work,” Nielsen said in an interview.

For its part, the Building Industry Assn. of Orange County, while expressing a belief that developers are in a position of strength on the slow-growth issue, has urged members not to grow overconfident and reject the offer of a compromise out of hand.

Slow-growth proponents are nearing a Feb. 9 deadline and do not yet have the nearly 66,000 registered voters’ signatures needed to get the initiative on the ballot.

John Erskine, executive director of the Building Industry Assn. of Orange County, wrote in a letter to members Thursday that “there is an inclination to say, ‘We have them on the ropes; end of discussion.’ ”

But, Erskine wrote, leaders of the movement also said they might “prepare a new and tougher initiative” in the future, and builders therefore should seek a compromise now.

With three other trade groups, the Building Industry Assn. recently mounted a $210,000 public relations campaign, designed primarily to reach the industry’s employees, against the initiative.

But opposing the initiative presents some tactical problems for the building industry, including the risk of alienating voters if it assumes too prominent a profile in such a campaign.

For that reason, a compromise is likely to appeal to some in the industry as the best solution.

Thus, the building association will now find itself trying to persuade members to agree to a reasonable compromise, Tippell said. He will meet with members next week after many return from a National Assn. of Home Builders convention in Dallas.

Few Orange County builders were available for comment Friday.

Invited to Meeting

Tippell and Erskine were invited to meet Wednesday with three leaders of the slow-growth movement, Irvine lawyer Gregory A. Hile, Laguna Beach lawyer Belinda N. Blacketer and Huntington Beach engineer Norm Grossman.

“The outcome of the discussion was: What would it take for them to back off the initiative if it was legally possible to do so?” said Tippell.

Nielsen said he thinks most builders and developers will see the advantages of a compromise.

He said he had been unaware of the latest round of meetings between builders and slow-growth leaders, although he said Hile had mentioned the possibility of a compromise at a meeting last week.

Supporters of the slow-growth movement expressed dismay at the talk of a possible compromise with the county and developers. Part I, Page 1. BRUCE NESTANDE’S ALTERNATIVE Former Orange County Supervisor Bruce Nestande’s proposed alternative to the slow-growth initiative would:

Extend the Foothill Circulation Phasing Plan throughout the unincorporated areas of the county. That plan requires developers to pay for a road network in a certain area before completing construction projects there.

Amend the Foothill Circulation Phasing Plan to require specific levels of service at intersections.

Create a citizens’ commission to study formation of a new county transportation agency with the power to coordinate traffic and development decisions. The commission also would look into a half-cent sales tax for transportation projects and possible adoption by the county and all of its 27 cities of a model transportation-growth management ordinance.