Builders on the Wrong Road

The California Building Industry Assn. obviously has its own pecuniary priorities in mind in deciding to oppose a June ballot measure that would increase the state gasoline tax to finance an $18.5-million 10-year transportation program for the state. That is what special interests do. But the BIA seems intent on cutting down the trees before taking a good look at the forest.

The industry group is specifically opposed to the plan’s traffic management provision sponsored by Chairman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) of the Assembly Transportation Committee. The Katz measure would require developers to incorporate traffic and air-pollution mitigation measures into their projects. Local officials would determine acceptable levels of congestion and measure the impact of proposed development against that congestion index.

Transportation projects financed by the state would have to at least maintain or improve the locally adopted traffic levels on city and county streets and roads. If the local governments fail to comply, they will lose the transportation money they otherwise would get out of the program, which provides for a doubling of the 9-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax over a five-year period.

The Building Industry Assn. is upset that the Katz provision does not include statewide guidelines for determining acceptable levels of traffic. And the industry fears that some local governments may try to micro-manage traffic limits on an intersection-by-intersection basis. But the legislation supported by Gov. George Deukmejian and a bipartisan coalition in the Legislature was deliberately left vague to give local government the flexibility needed to meet varying local conditions. Those who already are studying ways of implementing the program say that no city or county is likely to set traffic limits--and therefore development limits--on the basis of congestion at a single intersection, but area by area.

There are several important points that the Building Industry Assn. failed to mention:

--The Katz plan is based on incentives rather than mandate. The local government doesn’t have to implement such strict controls if it doesn’t want to. But if it doesn’t, it won’t get the state money.

--Nothing prevents local governments from adopting such traffic-development-linked controls now. In fact, the Katz plan is quite similar to what local governments are going to be compelled to do anyway under the new South Coast Air Quality Management Plan. Some of that plan’s provisions are even more stringent.

--If implementation of the local traffic management controls becomes too cumbersome, the process can, and should, be simplified through follow-up legislation.

Absent some reasonable traffic-development standards now, the industry is likely to face tougher, mandatory controls later--and perhaps not that much later. If the June ballot measure is defeated, and developers join the campaign against it, that could precipitate a statewide growth-control campaign that builders would find much more onerous. So before the BIA chops down the nearby trees, it should consider some of the beasts that may be lurking out there in the forest.