In under five minutes, the Benson City Council on Wednesday approved a 40-year development agreement with developer El Dorado Holdings, during a special meeting that didn’t allow for public comment.
The agreement lays out how the city and developer will work together to provide city services to the proposed 28,000-home Villages at Vigneto master planned community. That includes water, wastewater treatment, streets, fire and police.
The council has yet to approve a final community master plan for Vigneto, which could bring 70,000 more people to Benson. The project has generated opposition from those concerned about its impact on the fragile San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, while supporters say the development will transform the lagging Benson economy.
Benson Mayor Toney King said there was no “call to the public” at the meeting because the city had already held a six-hour public work session on the agreement and citizen comments had been taken into account.
“We’ve worked for a long time on this,” he said after the vote.
That didn’t sit well with Tricia Gerrodette, president of the Huachuca Audubon Society, who attended the meeting and planned to voice her concerns over the agreement, including its lengthy 40-year contract period. She attended last weekend’s work session and said the mayor mischaracterized it.
“It was open to the public to sit in and listen, but we were not invited to speak or submit comments,” she said. She submitted her concerns by letter and none were addressed in the final agreement, she said.
PREVIOUS AGREEMENTS DISSOLVED
The development agreement replaces a series of agreements established by an earlier developer, Whetstone Partners, which had planned a 20,000-home development on what is now El Dorado’s property. After the economic recession, Whetstone sold the property and transferred its development agreements to El Dorado.
The new agreement improves the terms for the city, Mike Reinbold, spokesman for El Dorado, said after the meeting. It saves the city between $30 million and $40 million in costs, compared to the earlier agreement, he said.
But Councilman Jeff Cook said the city had to fight hard for concessions from the developer. For example, the developer wanted sales tax revenues generated by the project’s construction to benefit the developer, not the city of Benson, by requiring the funds be spent on Vigneto’s internal infrastructure. The $30 million in savings only came after city officials insisted on removing that requirement, Cook said.
The current development agreement doesn’t force the city to use construction sales tax for any specific purpose, including the development’s infrastructure, Brad Hamilton, Benson public works director, said in an email.
But city officials will prioritize building infrastructure to connect Vigneto to Benson to ensure the development does not become “a new city on the hill,” he said.
Compared to the earlier development agreements with Whetstone, “it’s a much better deal for the city,” Hamilton said.
The agreement also leaves open the option for the city to form multiple improvement districts, which are mechanisms to sell tax-exempt bonds to help finance a development’s infrastructure.
The approval comes a week after six environmental groups filed a lawsuit against two federal agencies, which the plaintiffs say failed to consult about Vigento’s environmental impacts.
Reinbold said the city council will likely vote on a final community master plan within two months. If approved, construction on the project would begin in the first half of 2017, he said.
An all-day work session on the final community master plan, which will be open to the public, is scheduled for 9 a.m. on Saturday, July 9 at Cochise College's Benson campus at 1025 State Route 90.
