Audio By Carbonatix
It’s so peaceful and dark in Barbara Hughes’ neighborhood just south of Carefree Highway that three owls live there, and other wild critters regularly scamper through.
But it’s peaceful only on the surface. A battle–so far a polite one–is being waged over whether bulldozers will move in.
Hughes lives across the road from one of the last remaining patches of lush Sonoran desert inside the Phoenix city limits. Like many of her neighbors, she lives on more than an acre and rides horses in the area.
Citibank, which owns the 80 acres of desert foothills and washes at 52nd Street and Lone Mountain Road, wants the land rezoned so it can sell the parcel to a developer. That developer then would be able to build up to 150 homes. Hughes and her neighbors, practically all of whom live on ranchettes larger than an acre, are conducting an intensive lobbying effort to stop it.
The parcel in far-northeast Phoenix is a key test of the city’s General Plan for development of the area, according to planning staff. It’s the first big rezoning application since development guidelines for that area were adopted in 1987.
Phoenix staff planners wouldn’t say by press time what their formal recommendation will be, but it was considered unlikely that they would go along with the density of development proposed by the bank.
In written evaluations, the staff has labeled the proposed rezoning “not consistent with the overall goals of the General Plan” for the sparsely populated area ten miles north of Bell Road, and has said it would set a “negative precedent.” (Michael Curley, the bank’s attorney in this case, has argued otherwise. Curley couldn’t be reached for comment by press time.)
The planning staff’s formal recommendation was scheduled to be announced this week, and the Planning Commission will hear the case on November 13. But residents are focusing on the City Council, which is slated to get the case in early December.
Some residents of the area still bitterly recall the last big zoning fuss there. In the mid-Eighties, they, city planners and planning commissioners all opposed the huge Tatum Ranch development a mile southwest along Cave Creek Road, but the City Council granted rezoning for the project anyway. (Tatum Ranch once was part of busted financier Charles Keating’s empire.)
“We were treated as a nuisance,” recalls Rick Corton, who has lived in the same home for 17 years. He says the city is treating the neighborhood with much more respect this time around. And this time, Corton says, the residents are better prepared.
They’ve palavered with the bank’s attorney, city planners and others. They also say they’ve gathered enough signatures in opposition so that they need only three council votes to stop the rezoning.
“We realize there’s going to be development,” says Corton. “We just want to keep the density down so it’s compatible with what we already have.”
Councilmember Skip Rimsza, who represents the area, says he’s waiting to see what city planners and the Planning Commission recommend. Rimsza says it’s unlikely that the council would go against those recommendations, as it did in the Tatum Ranch case. “This is not the same council and this project is not on the same scale,” Rimsza says. “My personal philosophy is that we need to maintain the rural character of the area.”
People in the area have the sympathy of city planners. Bob Cafarella of the city’s long-range planning staff calls the 80-acre parcel a “very, very attractive area with little disturbance by man.”
The residents had heard that before, says Barbara Hughes, recalling their initial reaction to the Citibank case.
“At first,” she recalls, “90 percent of the residents I spoke to said, `What’s the use? The city staff opposed Tatum Ranch, and the council did it anyway.'” –
Citibank wants the 80 acres of desert foothills rezoned so it can sell the parcel to a developer.
“My personal philosophy,” says Councilmember Skip Rimsza, “is that we need to maintain the rural character of the area.
