ON ARNOLD, 'SMART GROWTH' DEVELOPERS, ENVIRONMENTALISTS ADOPT 'WAIT-AND-SEE' VIEW OF PLANS.

Byline: Nicholas Grudin Staff Writer

The growth and development plan introduced by Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger Monday has recharged the ongoing local debate over smart growth and urban sprawl.

Schwarzenegger seeks to encourage many of the principles of smart growth - such as urban redevelopment and infill projects - but local environmentalists fear that his plan does too little to curb suburban growth encroaching on the county's last open space.

Schwarzenegger has promised incentives for infill development in urban areas and removing barriers that slow redevelopment inside of cities.

These ideas have found broad support from developers and environmentalists alike.

However, the governor-elect refuses to regulate outward growth, a point supported by home builders but denounced among local environmentalists.

Lynne Plambeck, president of the Santa Clarita Organization for Planning and the Environment, said that regulating urban sprawl is the only way to accomplish Schwarzenegger's goals.

``If you don't have the carrot and the stick, it's impossible to pull this off,'' she said.

``It's all wonderful rhetoric, and he's got the carrots in there, but he needs the stick.''

Tim Coyle, senior vice president for the California Building Industry Association, said the new governor's agenda was a good compromise because, while it encourages urban infill development, it does not discourage outward growth.

In a state where there are nearly 600,000 new residents per year, outward growth is essential to maintain housing for the population, Coyle said.

``The good news is that he's not advocating more regulations toward smart growth,'' Coyle said.

According to Rick Winsman, a planning commissioner for the city of Santa Clarita, this debate is central to development concerns throughout the state and nation, where smart growth advocates have called for infill projects to supplant and replace urban sprawl.

``As a planner for the past four years, and having attended the planning conferences put on by the League of California Cities, the theme of smart growth has been prevalent,'' Winsman said.

It is a particularly sensitive discussion in the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys, Winsman said, where two of the largest subdivisions in the history of the state - Newhall Ranch and Centennial - are planned to start construction in coming years.

Newhall Ranch, a 21,000-home development southwest of the Golden State Freeway-Highway 126 interchange, was approved by the county after a decade of political battles.

Centennial, a 23,000-home plan another 30 miles north on the Golden State Freeway, has not yet been formally proposed to county planners and could be the subject of an equally contentious debate.