Slow-Growth Advocates Seek Yearly Housing Cap : Santa Clarita: The initiative would limit residential building to 475 units annually. Opponents say the current General Plan is adequate.

Santa Clarita slow-growth proponents, complaining that a growth-management plan the city adopted last month is too lenient, have set their sights on the April ballot for an initiative that would impose stricter controls.

Unlike the city’s plan, which sets no numerical cap on growth, the initiative would allow only 475 new housing units in the city each year.

The proposed 10-year growth-control ordinance is in the final stages of being drafted, advocates said Tuesday at a meeting at City Hall in a rented room. The measure’s sponsor--Citizens Assn. for a Responsible Residential Initiative on Growth, known as CARRING--must file the proposed ordinance by Aug. 6 to qualify it for the April ballot, City Clerk Donna Grindey said.

The initiative is necessary because “this place could explode” under the city’s new General Plan, said CARRING spokesman Bob Lathrop.

But opponents of the initiative said the General Plan, which requires developers to pay for schools and roads before building and also limits development to the midpoint density allowed under zoning codes, is sufficient. A cap on the number of units would only force developers to build on the outskirts of the city, creating a “doughnut effect” that would overwhelm local schools and roads, they said.

“It would be different if we controlled the whole valley, but we don’t,” said Councilman Buck McKeon, who opposes the initiative. “Developers will build out in the county.”

The ordinance is also opposed by a rival citizens group, Santa Clarita Residents for Responsible Growth, which has proposed that the council form a study committee of residents and developers. The group has received $32,903 in contributions, including about $30,000 from developers, said Chairman Scott Voltz.

The initiative could become an issue in the April race for two City Council seats if its backers succeed in collecting the 5,589 signatures necessary to put it on the ballot.

Under the current version of the initiative, the city Planning Commission would evaluate proposed residential developments on a point system, granting building permits only to projects that got high marks for preserving the environment or providing public services. The cap of 475 units is based on the county’s average annual growth rate of 1.2% during the past decade.

The sponsors of the initiative are still debating whether to include a provision that would prohibit the allocation of building approvals when domestic water use is restricted. The city is currently asking residents to voluntarily cut back water usage by 25% because of the drought.

Since the city was incorporated 3 1/2 years ago, the council has approved about 571 units a year, but issued only 120 building permits in 1990, primarily because of the recession.