A group of Tucson Mountains-area residents has agreed to support the controversial Lazy K Bar rezoning in Marana in return for help getting town water service and other concessions, a written agreement shows.
But a neighbor of those residents who opposes the development faces what he calls a “big legal mess” in getting urban water service because of his location and his aversion to being annexed by Marana. Resident Greg Mitchell seeks to connect his two homes to a Tucson Water line that’s much closer to him than Marana’s nearest water line. A Tucson Water review board delayed acting on his request Thursday for 60 days, due to uncertainties about how many homes might ultimately be served on Mitchell’s 46-acre parcel.
Mitchell and his Lazy K-area neighbors face the same water predicament. They draw from steadily declining private wells on their lands that also contain palatial stands of saguaros and other cacti along rustic Scenic Drive in the Tucson Mountains foothills, in a remote slice of unincorporated Pima County.
They’re concerned that their wells will dry up very soon or at least in the next few years. That would make them like many other Tucson-area residents whose homes abut remote mountain ranges and whose wells have been dried up by drought and neighboring groundwater pumping.
For the Lazy K Bar neighbors, the path to a secure water system was compromise. A group of residents representing eight lots along Scenic Drive agreed in September with Lazy K Bar developers to not oppose the rezoning in return for having a water line extended through the proposed 178-home project to near their homes, the agreement shows. The Star obtained the document this week from Marana officials through a public-records request.
The neighbors also won concessions on building heights, construction hours, fencing, speed limits and improvements to the road. While the agreement shows five of six residents involved signed it, the developers say they got signatures from all six.
In return for developer concessions, the agreement says, “No neighbor will oppose, in any manner, the proposed site plan, specific plan and development agreement” for the project. Neighbors will “acknowledge the good faith efforts of the developer to address neighbor concerns” by contacting Marana town officials by phone, direct mail or email, the agreement says.
On Dec. 16, the zoning change goes for a second time before the Town Council, which rejected it in October. The proposal has drawn opposition from other Scenic Drive residents, environmentalists and officials of the neighboring Saguaro National Park-West Unit, who fear its impact on traffic, wildlife corridors and the Sonoran Desert in general.
“I don’t think I’m going to stop the zoning change in the town of Marana by myself or with ... neighbors. I have other neighbors that would probably shoot me or be upset with me, but I’m done. We’ve gone through enough already,” said Vincent Iacono, one of the neighbors who signed the agreement with developer Mattamy Tucson LLC.
“There’s a time in life where you’re just tired of beating your head against the wall,” said Iacono, who said he believes that Mattamy’s proposal is the best so far.
But Mitchell, who lives several thousand feet west of the Lazy K Bar project, said it doesn’t make financial sense for him to connect to a Marana water line because of the very high cost — potentially in the hundreds of thousands of dollars — of extending that line to his property. Instead, Mitchell, who says his well is starting to “silt up,” asked Tucson Water to connect him to one of its lines no more than a few hundred feet from him.
A decade ago, three other neighbors of Mitchell’s whose wells dried up got Tucson Water lines connected to their homes. But since then, Tucson has reined in its water service policies, in part to limit the sprawl that had been encouraged by its previous willingness to serve most landowners who requested water.
As a result, Tucson Water said “no” to Mitchell, on the grounds that his house doesn’t meet a new city requirement to be surrounded on three sides by properties that also get city water service. Disagreeing, Mitchell took his case Thursday to the Tucson Water Service Review Board, which hears appeals of the utility’s decisions. The final say in such matters rests with the Tucson City Council.
“My water well is on the verge of going dry, and I have to have my water tank full at all times to protect that residence,” said Mitchell, with his 11-year daughter, Brooke, seated next to him. “Once the water table drops a bit more, we’re not going to have (fire) protection or domestic water due to the design of that system.”
He noted that because of the large size of his 4,000-square-foot house, the Northwest Fire District required him to install a sprinkler system that must have water available at all times. While the district says he could install a separate tank that would draw upon water he hauled to his home, Mitchell told the board he doesn’t believe that solution is practical for him.
Board member Nicole Ewing-Gavin said the ideal solution would be for Tucson and Marana to finish negotiations for a system in which both utilities could use the other’s water lines to deliver their supplies, and for Mitchell to then annex into Marana. Then, he could get Marana-owned water through the neighboring Tucson water line.
Mitchell, who despises what he calls Marana’s pro-growth policies, said that’s the last thing he would do.
The board members said they could still agree to serve Mitchell if he would agree, and it could be made legally binding, to never have more than two homes on his property.
Mitchell said he’s reluctant to do that because that would make it hard for him to sell off part of his property, which he may someday want to do because his property taxes are so high.
“This sounds like a big legal mess to me,” Mitchell said after the meeting.
