Tim Steller's column: Neighbors get undue sway over controversial Pima County rezoning

When you have no dog in a fight, it's easier to pick a favorite if there’s an underdog.

But sometimes there is no underdog.

The big Quail Canyon rezoning fight facing the Pima County Board of Supervisors Tuesday is such a dilemma. It’s a struggle between a California-based developer with some Tucson roots, and neighbors in a wealthy part of the lower Catalina Foothills trying to keep things closer to the way they are.

The facts of the case also present a dilemma — it’s a 326-unit infill development on an old golf course that would add needed housing but raises serious questions, in my mind mostly about loss of open riparian space and traffic safety.

Still there’s one factor that sticks in my craw and helps incline me in favor of the project. It’s a built-in advantage granted to neighbors by state law that could scuttle the rezoning.

Under the law if a small minority of nearby property-holders protest, then the rezoning can only pass by a super-majority of 4-1 or 5-0. A 3-2 vote in favor of the project Tuesday will still kill it.

Specifically, the threshold to require a super-majority vote is protests from 20 percent of property owners within 300 feet, as well as property owners representing 20 percent of the area within 300 feet.

In this case, 16 out of 49 nearby property owners, or 33 percent, protested, and they represent about 24 acres, or 44 percent of the nearby property. So a super-majority vote is triggered.

The old golf course this conflict is over is near West Rudasill Road and North Oracle Road and closed about five years ago. It sits well below the houses to the east and the businesses to the west in a basin patched with trees and crossed by the Pima Wash.

The development plan calls for 210 apartment units in seven buildings on the northwest portion of the 58-acre property. On the south and east portion of the property, across the wash, 116 single-family homes would go up, situated tightly next to each other.

The existing neighbors especially don't like the density, and their opposition to the plan could make the difference in a close vote. It also puts added pressure on Rex Scott, the supervisor who represents the district where the project is located.

Vote could be campaign issue

Scott is a Democrat who won the traditionally Republican District 1 seat by just 730 votes in 2020. Like all the supervisors, he’s up for re-election next year, and this vote could make a difference.

Often, supervisors give some deference to the judgment of their colleague whose district a project is in, so his vote could sway enough other votes to determine the outcome.

Scott told me, as he has told anyone who asked, that he has not decided how he will vote. But he has met with neighbors and said he takes seriously their concerns about traffic on Rudasill and other roads, impacts on the Pima Wash riparian area, flooding and other factors.

When I asked him about this as an infill housing project, though, Scott sounded enthusiastic.

"The arguments about it being a good infill project are pretty strong," he said. "You’re adjacent to Oracle Road, and there are significant numbers of commercial developments and hotels nearby."

"I don’t think it’s a staggering change from what’s already existing."

This is pretty close to what project attorney Rory Juneman, representing Urbaneer Investment Partners, has been trying to argue as he guided the proposal through neighborhood meetings, redesigns and approval by the planning and zoning commission.

"Our core argument is that this project is a responsible and sustainable development for this area. Infill is a big plus," he told me. "This is a better alternative than building on the outskirts of the county where you’re scraping native desert vegetation."

Republican Steve Spain, who lost to Scott in 2020, is already planning a rematch, and sees this as a potential campaign issue.

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"I would have liked to have seen lower density, and a local developer's proposal instead of one from California," Spain said in an email. "But Scott has never seen a tax dollar he didn't want to spend, so he's likely gleefully salivating at the revenue this will bring him."

Fortunately for Scott, the precincts in the area of the development lean strongly Democratic. And anyway, he says he doesn’t consider the electoral impact in this sort of decision.

"Any time you’re going into any issue either worrying about the electoral consequences or trying to put your finger in the wind, you’re not doing right by your constituents,” he said. “What I try to do with every vote is, I want to be able to explain the reasons for the decisions I make.”

Safety not NIMBY concerns

Neighbor Leslie Paige’s backyard would overlook the southern part of the development, filled with single-family homes built closely together.

“I'll be able to see what they're having for dinner and watching on TV,” she said.

But she says the well-organized opposition to the project is not simply a NIMBY, or "Not In My Back Yard," position.

"It's not so much NIMBY, although we've been called that, but concerns about public safety," she added.

"We want it to be developed, but we want it to protect the riparian area and reduce the density," Paige said. "More density means putting more people at risk."

She’s particularly concerned about traffic on Rudasill Road, the entry to all 210 proposed apartments. As we toured the area together Friday morning, I could see the point. It doesn’t feel like a safe road to accept much more traffic. They're also worried about flooding at the new project and possibly at downstream properties if Quail Canyon is built.

But the county’s Transportation Department and the Regional Flood Control District have given their blessing to the project, with conditions on how it will be built to mitigate these issues.

Paige, who moved to the area from Kansas in 2020, said Scott and county staff have met with her and other neighbors and they felt they were heard.

When I asked Scott about the possible NIMBY issue, he had a surprising take given the high-stakes decision he has to make.

"I’ve read a lot of different articles on how zoning issues around the country are most likely to be influenced by people who are politically connected, older, more affluent, more likely to be white," he said.

In other words, people like those who have been protesting this project.

Those who would benefit more from housing developments like this are less likely to be heard from, or even to vote, Scott said.

The power of the minority

This, of course, is reflected in the state statute that gives so much weight to the opinions of a small minority of neighbors. Juneman, the attorney for the project, looked up background on the law for me and said it dates from 1973.

I'm not sure how I would vote if I were in Scott's position. I like the idea of this new housing and think the wash has been at least minimally protected in the current design, allowing for continued animal passage. But I do question the traffic plan for Rudasill, and I hate to see a 58-acre swath of open space reduced by almost half, crowding the passing critters into a narrower corridor. 

I'd probably vote for it given the current crisis in housing affordability. Although this wouldn’t be an affordable housing project, we need new homes at all income levels in order to stabilize the recent surge in housing prices around here.

And I would love to change the law that gives so much weight to a minority of nearby neighbors.