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♦ DESIGN from D-1 BofA joins battle on suburban sprawl the report by its environmental di- vision. Or if the language in the paper is not all that dramatic or bold. What matters is the word has come down from the mountain top. Moses has spoken. Environmen- talists, growth management advo- cates and affordable -housing pro- ponents now have a powerful new ally they didn't have just a few months ago. The report unfortunately steers clear of advocating such controver- sial remediea as urban limit lines, those definite development bound- aries that seem to work so well in less avaricious states, such as Ore- gon, where quality of life is more than just a slogan. It advocates such apple pie sug- gestions as making housing afford- able to as wide a range of the public as possible, encouraging more effi- cient use of existing resources, streamlining the permit process to encourage development in urban and older suburban areas. But just the fact that BofA has joined forces with other advocates of controlled and managed growth is a big step for those in the trenches who've been shouting this message alone for years. The bank is not the only new voice, however. The report's co- sponsors are the California Re- sources Agency, the Greenbelt Alli- ance environmental group in San Francisco and the Low Income Housing Fund. A more disparate group would be hard to find And while it may be surprising to some to see a department of Gov. Wilson's come out against sprawl, remember that Wilson un- derstands well, from his days as mayor of San Diego, the impor- tance of a strong center city and the insidious effects of Los Ange- les -type development patterns. Wilson's campaign promise Wilson has disappointed growth management advocates by failing to follow through on the pledge in his first campaign to be Califor- nia's growth management gover- nor. Budget woes and Capitol poli- tics forced him to forgo a strong program.i But the governor's own office o1 policy research said a few yeara;agq..; that California could no longer 'df-' ford to develop as if the supply of land, clean air, energy and money' for roads, schools and other ser- vices would go on forever.. "What may have been possible with 10 or even 20 million people is simply not sustainable for a popu- lation of twice that much in the same space," the research office' said. This new report is an important follow-up to that earlier efforC cause adding the state and Bank'of' America to the environmentalist- housing coalition gives it a poten- . tial clout it could only dream of in.. the past. "We can no longer afford the luxury of sprawl," the BofA-co-:a sponsored report said. "Our demo- graphics are shifting in dramatic ways. Our economy is restructur ing. Our environment is under'in ' creasing stress. We cannot shape California's future successfully up-,,,' less we move beyond sprawl." What next, then? The report was presented to the' Little Hoover Commission, which studies government waste and' could make recommendations for legislation. But any really mean- ingful growth management mea-s� . sures will continue to be an ex j tremely tough sell in the Capitol Sri; until they are seen as a hot eHn , with the public. Giving up is out of the question' and the broader, more potent de- bate the report augurs can only help. ,,The fact that such a diverse. group has reached consensus on the ideas in this report reflects how important the issue of growth is to all Californians," Richard Morri- son, BofA's senior vice president for environmental policies and pro- grams, said of "Beyond Sprawl." "We hope it will make a mean ingful contribution to the public dialogue about the quality and di- rection of California'a growth in: the 21st century." It already has. J