Vigneto needs 'green' facelift, Game and Fish says

A proposed 28,000-home development in Benson would benefit from more native plants, wildlife crossings and improved public access, the Arizona Game and Fish Department says.

In a letter to the city of Benson, the department raised several concerns about the proposed Villages at Vigneto:

• It would have far too many non-native plants, even if they’re not big water-guzzlers.
• It would trigger “a substantial loss of wildlife habitat.”
• It would dramatically increase the likelihood of vehicle-wildlife collisions, unless adequate wildlife crossings are built over or under Arizona Highway 90, which straddles the project site.
• Its planned vineyards, orchards and effluent ponds could attract animals and lead to potentially dangerous encounters with humans.

But if the project would encourage planting of native cacti, shrubs and trees, the city and developer El Dorado Benson LLC have “a tremendous opportunity to create a truly standout master planned community showcasing the unique ecosystem” in the surrounding natural landscape, said the Game and Fish letter, send to Michelle Johnson of Benson’s planning department.

Neither the developer, Johnson nor Benson City Manager Bill Stephens responded to questions from the Arizona Daily Star about the letter, which the newspaper obtained last week. Kristin Terpening, a Game and Fish habitat specialist in Tucson, wrote the letter Oct. 30.

Water concerns

The development has been marked by controversy since the Tucson Audubon Society and other conservation groups got wind of it last spring. Concerned that the project’s groundwater pumping could dry up the Lower San Pedro River, Audubon asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to reconsider a federal Clean Water Act permit the agency granted in 2006 to Vigneto’s predecessor, Whetstone Ranch.

El Dorado bought the project’s 12,167 acres in 2014 after Whetstone went belly-up during the 2007-08 real estate bust and subsequent recession.

The developer’s final master plan plays heavily on the project’s natural surroundings, touting the site as “the perfect place to live ... nestled in the Whetstone Mountains and perched above the San Pedro River Valley.”

The plan calls the project “a celebration of relaxed, indoor-outdoor living and individual vitality — a beautiful example of nature, community and lifestyle blending in unexpected ways.

“As is good wine, Vigneto is inspired and influenced by its surroundings,” the plan says.

The developer has agreed to set aside more than 1,600 acres as open space and to leave at least 90 percent of washes in their natural state. The site “has a beautiful natural landscape,” with the property rising and falling with ridgelines flanking canyons and numerous rolling hillsides and gentle hills and valleys, the development plan says.

On Thursday, Dec. 17, the Benson Planning and Zoning Commission was to hold a public hearing and possibly vote on that master plan.

But after Huachuca Audubon Society president Tricia Gerrodette requested a delay, Benson manager Stephens canceled Thursday’s hearing out of concern that commissioners hadn’t had time to review a third revision of the plan, sent to the city on Dec. 11, said Paul Loucks, a law partner of Benson City Attorney Gary Cohen. The hearing probably won’t occur until at least Jan. 10, Loucks said.

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Earlier concerns

Game and Fish is the third agency to raise concerns about the Vigneto project and its predecessor. In 2006, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency tried unsuccessfully to persuade the Army Corps not to grant the Clean Water Act permit.

In June, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wrote the Army Corps, asking it to review the project’s impacts on endangered and threatened species. The Corps hasn’t decided whether to grant that request.

In a separate report from its letter, Game and Fish listed 19 “special status species” that live or have federally designated prime habitat within three miles of the project site. These include the jaguar, the Southwestern willow flycatcher, the Mexican spotted owl, the Western yellow-billed cuckoo and the northern Mexican garter snake.

Because wildlife are drawn to food and water resources such as vineyards, orchards and ponds, “They could therefore be in conflict with grape and other fruit growing initiatives” if ways to exclude them aren’t included in the new community’s plans, Game and Fish’s Terpening wrote in her letter. It’s also not uncommon for the public to put non-native fish and turtles in publicly accessible ponds, which could allow them to disperse to other water sources critical for native species, causing conflicts, the report said.

Terpening also warned that if the developer uses existing box culverts for hikers and mountain bikers to cross Arizona 90, that would diminish their suitability for wildlife use. “We request involvement” in discussions with El Dorado, Benson and ADOT regarding pedestrian and wildlife crossings for the highway, Terpening wrote.

Terpening also proposed that Game and Fish buy land through the project to create a permanent public easement for hikers, motor vehicles and equestrians to reach 15,000 acres of national forest in the northern Whetstones.

Since 1986, private landowners have blocked all vehicle routes into them, despite efforts by Game and Fish and the U.S. Forest Service to secure public access, she wrote.

El Dorado officials have said they’re willing to grant public access once the project is finished in 20 years — an idea Game and Fish said was “not entirely without merit.” But if the developer will sell a public easement, Game and Fish promises to protect El Dorado’s interests along the roadway, Terpening wrote.

She took the project to task because more than 70 percent of plants on the development’s recommended plant list are non-native, including invasives such as Russian olive and fountain grass, and Afghan, Aleppo and Italian stone pines, which “are clearly not evocative of native Arizona landscapes,” Terpening wrote.

That would put the project in direct conflict with its stated goal of being “inspired and influenced by its surroundings,” and creating “a lifestyle made possible only by the unique characteristics of the local natural environment,” she wrote.

Vigneto’s development plan already offers a water-conservation program that would discourage private swimming pools and encourage low-flow plumbing fixtures and low-water-use plants.

Game and Fish wrote that the developer also should consider a gray-water system that could deliver wastewater from sinks and washing machines onto outdoor landscaping, saving the subdivision more than 1,000 acre-feet of water per year, Terpening wrote. Water-harvesting methods such as curb cuts to divert rainwater from streets into basins for landscaping should also be tried, she wrote.