Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout01/15/1997 Study Session MinutesMINUTES OF STUDY SESSION MARANA TOWN COUNCIL JANUARY 15, t997 PLACE AND DATE Marana Town Hall January 15, 1997 By Mayor Honea at 6:24 p.m. II. PLEDG O ALLE IA C Led by Mayor Honea III. ROLL CALL COUNCIL Ed Honea Sharon Price Tom Clark Ora Mae Harn Herb Kal Sherry Millner Bobby Sutton Jr. Mayor Vice-Mayor, excused Council Member Council Member Council Member Council Member Council Member, excused S_TAFF Hurvie Davis Sandra Groseclose Jerry Flann~ry Dave After Doug Maples Roy Cuaron Kelly Schwab Cindy DeLeon Joel Shapiro Town Manager Town Clerk Planning Administrator Town Engineer Chief Building Official Finance Director 9 Members of the Public IV. APPROVAL OF AGENDA A motion was made by Ora Harn, seconded by Tom Clark and carried unanimously to approve the Agenda as written. V. GENERAL ORDER OF BUSINESS A. Discussion bv Council. Staff and Consultants CSCICounts of the prooosed Town of Marana General Plan. Hurvie Davis: Mr. Davis thanked and commended the Council for having the Study Session for the General Plan due to this being a very significant document and the action that will be taken, although you're not being asked to take action on it tonight. It is hoped that you will learn all you want to know about Marana's General Plan. If you have any comments or direction or anything that you want to give to staff or the consultants, we will take that information and go back and bring the issue back to you with a response to your comments, concerns and questions. Jerry Flannery: We have printed up the most recent copies of the General Plan for your review. I have received several phone calls and letters from some Town members with concerns and comments relating to commercial interest of private properties and individuals, specifically wanting specific type category or MINUTES OF STUDY SESSION MARANA TOWN COUNCIL JANUARY t5, 1997 land use categories on their properties and I have letters from the State Land. State Land has called out some specific uses that they would like to see on their properties of interest, and they indicated that they would prefer to have commercial property located along the front portion of Tangerine Road from St. Patrick Road to Torto~ita Road. I also received a letter from Mr. Winters, asking me some questions on adding details typical to the legend might address some 90% of his concerns. I'll let Mr. Counts address that in more detail later. I have a specific letter written to us from Tom Levitt, and basically he raised a couple of issues on the Economic Development map. He wanted to shift one of the boundaries and call his area Hartman Hills area rather than Tortolita or Red Hawk. He wanted to draw the distinction between the North of Tangerine and the South of Tangerine; that's not a real problem in my opinion. I also met with Bob Stubbs. He had good comments about the read alignments. Mr. Stubbs made some comments about this future route coming down to more road alignment, maybe following along the wash and tying in to this location rather than crossing the wash. That's a good comment, because that would be an expensive road. Mr. Flannery commented on having some commemial preperty being in conjunction with residential property. He spoke with reference to the prevision that indicates that if there is a zoning change in relation to residential and commercial, it wouldn't constitute a General Plan Amendment. However, the Council can make changes to that, it can make changes to anything here tonight. These are the comments ~ have heard back on, maybe the Council has heard others. I can turn it to Rick, and he can give more specifics. Rick Counts, CSClCounts: Mr. Counts gave a brief run down of some items: first being that all of the addenda listed in the December 16 Memorandum has been incorporated in the versions of the plan which you have now received. There are additional explanation of charts, also more information about amheological and historic data, revised right of way measurements and other specifications provided by your Town Engineer. We had intended to have a small chart indicating some examples of space needs that the Town might have in the future, however, it came to our understanding that the Town has an upcoming recommended Capitol Improvement Program and we felt that some of those more precise measurements would be better developed in that forum, and, of course they could be added to the General Plan at a later date or part of the appendices. I wanted to stress that there had been a couple of additions: the Glossary and the Land Use Keys, which most General Plans in this state do not have. Mr. Counts briefly responded to comments received about the General Plan, comments received from state agencies, and adjacent communities as well as private property owners and consultants. He feels the comments have been very salutary about what this community is doing. Mr. Counts does not believe that Marana wants its General Plan to be considered a zoning map but rather a flexible document that invites development. Mr. Counts commented on why he feels it is not a good idea to have a stretch of Tangerine Road to be strictly commercial, although that may happen. He wanted to point out why it is not a good idea to put it in the General Plan. Tangerine Road is going to be a major transportation improvement for this community and others in years to come. He merely wanted to state that premature indication of other than the current general opportunity land uses that have been depicted would be a burden on agencies needing to acquire rights of way. Put simply, an acre of unspecified undeveloped land, can be acquired for right of way improvement purposes a great deal less expensively than if, either in General Plan or hard zoning, premature designation for commercial frontage was indicated. We are sure there will be significant retail employment and services developed along the Tangerine corridor, but to do so today inflates the price of your future transportation improvement. Last week, Carl Winters spoke about giving opportunities for development appropriately located sites, and we couldn't agree more. Since last week, Mr. Winters and we have come to the acknowledgment that one of his clients is actually being advantaged by reference to the General Plan. That is a pending case, actually is being given more of an opportunity or support in the General Plan because of its flexible approach. We have included, as he suggests, a schematic in the neighborhood cluster plan approach - we think it is a good idea. Perhaps he and others in the private development community could work with staff and ourselves and suggest a number of variations on those themes that could be included in appendices of the General Plan. I've seen that done; it's an excellent suggestion. Mr. Counts talked briefly about the State Land Department and how the State Land requires open space and right of way to be paid for dollar for dollar. For this reason it has been learned that when the State Land Department has a specific use or user with a development lease for the preperty, it can be an excellent addition to a community's economic development, but to prejudge state land holdings with a speculative land use is something that is disadvantageous, not only to the community, but also to the prospective pumhaser of those state lands. Mr. Counts concluded by saying that he will categorically state that this community has asked for and has received in this draft version, a very aggressive economic development General Plan. The plan contains statements that expect a higher proportion of commercial, retail service and employment uses than is generally found in communities anywhere in the United States or in the State of Arizona. There's a reason for that. Your situation with the transportation corridors suggests that you will be the center for more than just your own population or the developing regional 2 MINUTES OF STUDY SESSION MARANA TOWN COUNCIL JANUARY 15, 1997 population, but also, tourist, seasonal visitors and so forth. We have not recommended pinning this Council or future Councils into a corner by indicating specific corners as other communities do, but rather saying what is your highest and best use that you would propose, a mix of uses where there is residents to support commercial devetopment; where there are jobs to attract quality housing. For this reason we believe that it is not simply the graphic but the totality of your General Plan that is very wetcoming to outside investment particularly supportive of expansion of existing local business. With that said, Mr. Counts introduced Mr. Steve Tomita. Steve Tomita: The General Plan was not just arbitrarily generated by CSC/Counts, it was established with the impact of a lot of public information and comments, accomplished through public workshops that we held. We also held individual interviews with private rand owners with development as welt as agricultural interests. Overall, the general emphasis received was, everyone was looking for a wetl ptanned community, with the flexibility to meet market trends and different interests. The concerns were not with the General Plan itself, but with some of the existing and proposed ordinances; such as the Landscape Ordinance, the Hillside Ordinance and even discussions of design review. They wanted to work with the General Plan, not against it. As we have been discussing here, as you start coming in with specific zonings as the market changes, as interests or needs change, you don't want to have to come in and ask for a General Plan Amendment and then come back for a different zoning. We feel that what is incorporated here allows that flexibility and allows the Council to consider those market trends to consider changes in development before something is specifically zoned and some ptace specifically incorporated there. That pretty much covers what our meetings were in that aspect there. Carl Winters, 270 N. Church, Tucson, AZ: Talked briefly about the need to be able to answer any questions brought up by land owners of smalt parcels who may be thinking of annexing with the Town of Marana, wanting to know what can they do with their property, such as a question posed by Ms Betty Phillips (page 65 in your document). Also having the need to be abte to consistently deal with that issue. It doesn't matter what you adopt, people are going to come in and change it the day after you change it. The other comment that I have, and I thought was really an interesting one is that, and I understand why it was done this way, let's assume that the levee's in. Then, that would open virtually everything on the north side of the Santa Cruz River to possibte development except there is no sewer treatment plant and a few other things that make development really occur. But if you can encourage it, on the west side of the freeway, you aren't going to have the "Save the Desert" wars quite as much you are on the east side of the freeway, and it may, and I'm not suggesting that you change at this point necessarily either, but you may want to cons[der thinking about encouraging more development on the west side of the freeway, making a littte more yellow I guess, or whatever so that it keeps them out of the vegetation area; that's about it. Bill Schisler, 12561 N. White Ave.: During all of our meetings, the consultants are right. It was driven by the community and the advisory committee and the technical advisory committee and they had a lot of imput and they had a lot of good ideas. There's a lot of debate and consensus to get to the point to get to where we are on this. Ftexibility is great. I don't think as a Council you should worry too much about those people out in the fringes whether they annex or don't. Of course, we would like to make sure the information is available for them if they do, but I don't think that is a reason to make blatant changes, t just want to say, this is an important document, a lot of work went into it and I hope you listen to the majority of the people who had the imput into it and, not just let a few mess you up. Thank you. Ora Ham: Mr. Mayor, t'd tike to ask Mr. Schisler a couple of questions. Mayor Honea: Sure. Ora Harm Just for my information. First of all, how well attended were the public meetings? Bill Schisler: The public meetings were attended with a good cross section of the community, however, I was disappointed with the numbers, but the cross section and the concerned peopte that was there had real good questions and real good imput. Ora Harn: About how many people would come to a public meeting? Bill Schisler: We had people stagger in and out of the meetings. Ore Harn: Okay, like, twenty? MINUTES OF STUDY SESSION MARANA TOWN COUNCIL JANUARY t5, 1997 Bill Schisler'. No we had more than that, about erie hundred. Ora Ham: One hundred? Bill Schisler: Well, the one down at Continental Ranch we had probably that much, in and out. Ora Harn: That's good. And most of the people that would come in, asked questions and had some understanding at what they were looking at and had comments, that you felt they really understood what we're trying to achieve with the General Plan? Bill Schialer: Yes, ma'am. As a matter of fact the consultants did a real good job of the way they handled that. They separated us in teams, and we went around to each different plans and they had consultants or somebody with them that could explain all the mapping and all the different aspects of it, and then all the people sat down and made comments, it was well explained to them, the people that did come were well informed and gave us good imput. I didn't agree with all of them, but they were good. Ora Hare: How well attended were your advisory committee meetings, did people attend the advisory committee meetings? Bill Schisler: I would have rather had more. I made them all except two and that's when I was out of state. We had a good cross section in every meeting. In other words, there was good debate, and I had to really do my share of making some changes that I didn't think would fit the community out of there, but it was a good healthy debate and the committee meetings were all well attended. Ora Harm You know what I'm trying to get at. I want to make sure that we really had a good attendance at the Public Meetings and the Advisory Committee had good attendance, so that I could feel comfortable that we had good imput into the Plan, in general. So that's the reasoning for my questioning, Mr. Mayor. I realty want to feel that whatever we've done here, that I can feet safe in saying we really got input from the community and that the Advisory Committee was well attended and this is put together by really concerned people of our community for the best interest for our community. Bill Schisler: Yes, ma'am, I agree. I think t made a point the other night that, as soon as we sat down in the committee, we informed the consultants this is a community driven plan and it's not consultant driven. It is committee and community driven General Plan and not something that is wrote up and canned. This is a unique plan that fits Marana, and I had to commend them on that. At first t worried, but they took all of our suggestions and they came up with a real good plan, and we had chances several times to make corrections and ask questions and to get something to you that we were proud o[ Jerry Flannery: Mr. Mayor, just to touch base, within the front first two pages of your document, there's a list of the Council and the Commission and the staff and there's a list of the General Plan Advisory Committee members and then the TAC members. I would say the TAC was very well attended throughout the last year. There were times around the middle of summer that there were about the least amount of people, we had was probably ten people and that's sfill a good turn out, and the ones that came were very informative and had a lot of contact with the consultants. I think the least that we had at a General Plan Advisory Committee was probably about ten. We tried to get an agricultural imput, but at times there was agricutturel farming that had to go on so they did not make all the meetings, however, they did get with staff when they couldn't make those meetings. I have worked on a General Plan and Growth Management Plan in another jurisdiction where I worked, and the toughest thing to do is the Public Hearings, in getting the word out and getting people to attend them. I haven't been through any of them in the Marana, Pima County area before. I went to the first one at Continental Ranch and was just blown away at the amount of peopte that showed up. We tagged it up with the Homeowners meeting so it worked out really well. The next meetings we had about twenty-five people, but they knew exactly what they wanted, they knew what they were there for. They had a lot of good imput. The last one wasn't very well attended at all, but we also, in between that time, had a tent out at the Founders' Day and we had about a hundred fifty to a hundred seventy five stop out there. By and large I think we did a lot of good public imput. We brought it to the public, to the property owners that we identified that we felt had a large interest in the town. Bill Schisler:. Mr. Mayor, members of the Council, I'd just like to add on that, early on we at the Advisory Committee had given names of the people of the community that we thought they ought to talk with MINUTES OF STUDY SESSION MARANA TOWN COUNCil. JANUARY 15, 1997 because we knew that they would have something to say, pro or con. The TAC Committee, the Technical Advisory Committee, all the jurisdictions around here, even the Indian Tribes were invited to come and ) think some of them showed up. We tried to get everybody who might be impacted or might have something to say about their neighboring Marana. They did go out into the community and interview a lot of these people and I felt real good about that. Joe Parsons, '13580 W. Kirby Hughes Rd,, Marana, Az: The one thing that I think that really needs to be stressed over in the Northwest part of town. Mr. Parsons main concern is getting the zoning straightened out. He feels the real problem is there's hard zoning on some land and floating zoning on other areas. Mr. Parsons advised he spoke with Jcet at the Planning Center and was told that Joe) felt the town was probably looking at maybe rezoning some of it itself, and getting it out of that. Mr. Parsons commented on the World War Il home sight that was learned about the other night. He posed an example as to how he could put in Iow income housing right next to it, which could be a house on every quarter acre, and that would be compatible with that area. Right across the street there would be $200 thousand homes, then it wouldn't be compatible with that area. He feels in that area, the zoning needs to be straightened out, to where it's all somewhat the same. Mr. Parsons feels that flexibility is key to his area, due to the fact that surrounding land owners may want to develop. And to sell their property for high dollars when the time comes, leaving his property not compatible. He pointed out that Producers Gin has left and now there is Anderson Clayton, and as some of the land is developed, it won't be economically feasible to have the cotton gin here and maybe one more cotton gin will be lost. Then you won't be able to compete with cotton if everything has to be shipped to Eloy. Mr. Parsons feels flexibility is very key and the Council needs to give the flexibility and net take away the ability to se~l the land if the time comes. Mr. Parsons stated he'd love to see it stay just like it is, for myself, for as long as I'm here, but he feels that things are going to change and you can't devalue the property just because of a print that was done, saying that the only thing that can be done on this is five acres. Mayor Honea: Advised the General Plan is just a guideline and the zoning issues would be a separate issue and about the only way the zoning would be able to be changed is maybe with the individual landowners would make the application changing over. Steve Tomica: Explained that the town has an A B C zoning and we want to go to a more conventional type zoning. He gave and example that on a piece of property is a Circle K, and it's zoned A B C D or E and basically if we look at that, what we really have is a commercial zone so when we do our zoning map for this area, that property will be zoned neighborhood commercial. Say that someone wants to sell the property and they advedise you can have Commemial Industrial on the property, and as the buyer, if I look at the code i'd say, yeah but you can't guarantee me that because that zoning is precipitated on me going oat and buying half a mile or a mile or quarter mile and if the people don't like the use that I want on there, theoretically it could be shut down. Mr. Tomica advised that in changing the zoning it is neither an easy nor a quick process because they have to identify what the properties are and then they have to let everybody know what is being done and how it's being zoned. Mayor Honea: Spoke about when changing the zoning of property, you have to get permission from every person that owns a piece of that sec[ion, and you know people that have that flexible zoning and thinking that they have a large range of use are not going to be real eager just to change it to hard zoning that might take away some of their flexibility. It's a difficult change as welt, but not everyone is going to jump at the chance to do it. We have talked about trying to do that to the whole town, but it can cost us a few million dollars by the time we research and talk to each individual person. Tom Clark: Well, and one of our major concerns is the land that is outside the town, because if they cannot annex that property into development the way that's most financially good for them then they'll stay out of the town and we could end up with like parts from the GilbertJChandler area where they will just start to sell just forty and then they'll split it five times and then again they'll sell another forty and split it five times and you end up with just five little acres deal with no drainage or no, anything like that. They do that out in the County, and people are paying $25 to $30 thousand an acre for that land in Chandler and Gilbert right now. So, if it doesn't give those, our neighbors some flexibility they'll never come into town, t think. Mayor Honea: Anyone else want to talk to the General plan? Cindy De Leon, Planner Il, Town of Marana: Mayor Honea and other Council members, I wanted to kind of repeat on an issue that Bill Schisler says, in addition to the TAC and the G-PAC making an effort to get 5 MINUTES OF STUDY SESSION ~ MARANA TOWN COUNCIL JANUARY 15, 1997 the community involved and imput with the General Plan, as in-house staff as well as a member for G-PAC, I wanted to mention that as part of our processing's over the past year, with rezones and so forth, that we have communicated and encouraged participation from the citizens from Marena, especially, not only areas within the town of Marana, but areas that have made past inquiries about future annexation into Marena and Pima County residents etc. We have informed them of when the G-PAC and TAC meetings have been conducted and staff has sat down with these individuals to go over their concerns as they relate to the General Plan and we have basically, tried to outreach for their impute whether it's good impac~ or not, they have communicated that during the Advisory Committee meetings. I'm not sure if Jerry was aware of how office staff had done that, but I figured it was something for me to mention, as part of staff. Mayor Honea: Anyone else wish to address this? Council members have any imput? Ora Harm Jerry, I would like to ask you, say I own a farm out in the area that you have marked for open space agriculture, and t want to sell that farm to somebody who is going to build houses on it. Tell me, if I was going to get a good price for that land, what would I have to do if it's marked for open agriculture? Jerry Flannery: Mr. Mayor, there are a number of things that go into a development question such as that, mainly where the infrastructure is going to come from. If you want to develop in this part of town right now, with subdivided lots, there are a number of things that need to be taken care of. Ora Harn: What would I have to take care of first, would I need to, go before the Planning and Zoning Council first and try to get the property rezoned? Jerry Flannery: That's correct, if you would. Ora Ham: Before I could really put it on the market and say it has hard zoning, right? Jerry Flannery: Yes. Ora Ham: Okay, see my concern is, and I guess my fears may be unfounded, but they come from past experience on our other General Plan, when we have these kind of colored maps and things, where people said, you can't do that, you can see on the General Plan that that's in agriculture and, so you know you can't do that. So t'm real concerned that if we specifically mark something with color, that we're kind of in a way saying that's what we're going to put there, whether that's what we're really saying or not, if you know what I mean. To begin with, I decided to put this document with my Bible and read so many pages a day so I could get through it in this year, you know, it's a pretty awesome amount of reading, if we were to give this to somebody in the public and ask them to read it, what people will do is, well, they won't look through this document, they'll open up to this nice colored map where all of a sudden they can see right at a glance what you can do on their property, so, I have some real concerns about that. Mayor Honea: Ora, may I add a comment to your concern? I think I have the same concerns you have, if you go to a book and it's colored or whatever, and someone says that you can't dc that because it's open space or whatever, well your developers, they're going to say well that's too hard, I don't want to do this, I'm going to go to some other area and normally it's going to be the desert whatever, and then we have a big fight on our hands with environmentalists on cutting up the desert. Wouldn't it be a lot easier if this Ag land would say that we're going to try and encourage development here, provided we get the sewer and the flood protection in. I think you just have to be flexible enough to where there wouldn't be a big fight to get this changed to what Ora was saying for a developer to come in on our Ag land. Jerry Flannery: Almost all of the Ag land on this map is currently not in the town, there is very little land actually inside the town, with the Agriculture, there are a couple parcels, but if you look at it, basically, you know from Sanders Road, or over heading out into the valley, most of that land is not currently in the town of Marana and also a large portion of that land is state leased land. If you take across from the lawn up here, a lot of that property out there is state leased. In fact almost up to where your Gin is, is state leased, coming up to Silver Bell West. From Silverbell west clear back to Sanders, that's the majority of this agriculture land is state lease land to begin with, so the chances that it would be developed are fairly slim unless if the state chooses to sell it or trade it to somebody. Hurvie Davis: Mr. Mayor, if I may along the lines of those comments, and I'm not sure if Jerry answered Council Member Ham's questions completely. The area shown on the map in green as agriculture, open MINUTES OF STUDY SESSION MARANA TOWN COUNCIL JANUARY 15, 1997 space agriculture, and that is what is zoned on it, hard zoning at this time. But if it's sold off and a developer wants to develop on it, and Mr. Flannery says he has to come in for rezoning, now can he come in for rezoning, with residential or whatever he wants to develop, and be consistent with the General Plan with that green? [30 you have to amend the General Plan? Jerr~ Flannery: Mr. Davis, maybe I would like to defer that to our consultant, because he wrote it and he put all the information together for it and I think he can probably address it more in detail Rick Counts: Answered that, yes, a General Plan Amendment would be necessary for the so-called outer crescent and beyond the town. However, that does not mean that the answer is "no". You may not develop and, no, we would not grant the General Plan Amendment. An orderly development of this community, its growth and an economical manner extending its utilities services both those provided by the municipality and those the municipality wishes to provide and those that will continue to be private investor provided, obviously will be more economical and you will get better value development if you exercise some type of growth management that is the related concept of an urbanization boundary. Mr. Counts stated he did do some of the writing on the shaping of the Agricultural Land concept. It was tried out on the TAC, County and State people thought it was a good idea, but most important it was tried out on the General Plan Advisory Committee and your citizens thought the ideas from other citizens were excellent because it did not stretch the communities lines of supply too far at too great a price. However, as Council Member Ham implies, no buyer of land, agriculture or otherwise, should be told, hey, you're too far out of town, or you too far beyond the urban boundary, for us to contemplate rezoning. Not at all, we should counsel them. Mr. Counts advised they want to make the development proposal work, but they need your help in order to support a General Plan Amendment for this eighty acre farm that's currently shown in agriculture and open space use. Your help is needed to make sure it will be no more costly to taxpayers and other residents of this community, than developing the lands you've already indicated for residential and commercial that have not yet been developed. We recommend never saying no to a land use change that would require a General Plan Amendment but rather counseling with the property owner and maybe they will realize as we think this plan suggests, that some lands are five or ten or fifteen years away from being right for development. And that's simply the question; you're entitled to apply for rezoning and a General Plan Amendment, but what is suggested here in generalized color is enough to develop and support a population in excess of a hundred thousand people. Ora Harn: A lot of the land is outside the town of Marana, but not all of the land is outside the town. Some of this borders right on the freeway that was marked Agriculture. if a person has land bordered right on the freeway, they'll have to go to the town for a General Plan Amendment to try and get taken out of Agriculture; this is an unfair disadvantage just because they are farmers. Some people have come in and talked about conserving the desert and so for[h and have said, why aren't you developing the farm lands that don't have vegetation and are so far gone. Hurvie Davis: Section eighteen is showing as Agriculture and the Council just recently had it rezoned for that entire area, and if we adopt the General Plan before these folks come back, they're going to be inconsistent with the General Plan. Jerry Flannery: Mr. Mayor and Hurvie, that is one change that is necessary and I picked up on that as well, that we need to make that change. Hurvie Davis: { thought the General Plan was a guide and so forth. Why did we have Agriculture in there at this point and time as Green on the map if we felt that it was best that it remain Agriculture. Why do we change it now to yellow? Rick Counts: For more than ten months we have had an existing land use map in front of us and we need to be guided at least in part by changes of circumstances that occur locally. As Jerry said, that is apparently a change he would recommend. We'll make sure it is taken care of now, that is why we have this kind of meeting. As your consultants, we are not the prognosticators of what each piece of land should be. There are some principals, however, that we apply. Many persons we have talked to believe the preservation of irrigated farm land ought to be far more of a concern to the community than preservin9 Iron Wood or Cholla. There are those who favor maintaining the food supply, the Agricultural productivity, just as strongly as those who are in favor of preserving the desert. What we've tried to do, and by we I mean all of us and the citizens to whom we've talked, is to strike a happy medium. To the persons who have farm land that is so situated that it can and should easity be developed, may do so. There is some farm land still MINUTES OF STUDY SESSION MARANA TOWN COUNCIL JANUARY 15, '1997 indicated along the freeway, that may or may not continue to be Agriculture, years down. However, because some of that farm land, although next to the freeway, may be miles from a nearby access point or services, it preserves both productive agribusiness which seems to be stilt a money maker in Marana and may become more so in the future as other productive agricultural land is converted to urban uses and it also preserves that view of openness as you come into Marana from the north, that is very worthwhile. And do not think that this disadvantages that farmer or that landowner because as the marketplace develops, it may five or ten or fifteen years from now that land can still at some future date in some future edition of the General Plan be changed to other uses. It can be done so tomorrow if that landowner has a developer who betieves that land can more reasonably be developed today than a land that is more closely situated to the existing utilities, the freeway interchanges and so forth. We're just simply suggesting that a General Plan is a phasing document. It is one that is meant to encourage property owners, developers, people that we haven't even met yet. Five, ten years from now, maybe we won't need to be talking about a hundred and fifty foot towers, as I know it has been a question here. I'm suggesting that the General Plan is a blueprint far the town's best guess of where the next phases of development might occur, if you all and a lot of the citizens have anything to say about it, Maraca is going to have an agricultural character, one way or another whether it's a steak house or museum or a living history museum, but Marana Js going to have that flavor twenty and fifty years from now, when other communities that started out agricultural in this state have given it up. We've heard that time and time again, we've heard save the desert, we've heard save the farm land and we think we've placed in this document~-because of what we've heard, not because of what we've dreamed up. We think we've placed in this document opportunities for everyone who owns land to come up with a better idea, but at least some targets for forks to shoot at that will not wipe out agriculture for Uarana. Joe Reit[y, 3229 N. 1st Ave.: Ora, I had the same thoughts. Pretend i'm a farmer today and I go out to buy farm land and I know that the Mormon church just bought land for two thousand an acre. I know that as a private farmer that I wouldn't pay more than six hundred for that because I know what cotton is goin§ for, and I say to somebody with entitlement, sewer, water available to your property your land will be worth $25,000. Am I going to tell a farmer that's worked his entire life that that opportunity isn't available to him. What sold me on the thing was that we have a phase in, it is to be phased in. It doesn't make sense for the community to have to extend infrastructure even though for almost 90 percent of the cases infrastructure is paid for by the developer. Bat if a developer brings it out there, and crowds out the farmer, for instance what happens if you have, like Mr. Clark's farm there, and what happens if we put in high density residential right next to him at three or four RAC, what happens when he goes to crop dust, there's going to be real problems there. Hence, the need for cluster housing, buffering and finding compatible uses. I am completely against the forty acre splits. When you look at the final analysis in what goes to pay for roads, it's going to be the head tax and what we bring in as retail. So in planning for our community we have to look for higher density residential which, roof tops equals retail. And if we want that retail tax we have to provide those rooftops. When somebody says, rural preservation, they say I'm a green zone here. You look up rural preservation and it does have elements of what's cost effective. That person may have to come up here and justify what's cost effective. Do I have the infrastructure available? Maybe. Do I have the floodplain taken care of? Maybe. Which, as soon as the floodplains and levees are taken care of, I fulty expect that the farming areas in this community will develop very fast. So I tend to think that the rural preservation is going to be preserved pdmadly by the buffedng areas, in those buffering areas you're going to see some of the rural preservations maintained. I know from a little bit of history and looking around this state that is very tough when you do not have a property tax to develop a town which is cost efficient without heavy density residential. But how do you do that and preserve vistas and green areas and things like that? It's a real trick. This master plan attempts to address all of that. Now wouldn't that be a trick if I told you that your property was only worth six hundred bucks an acre? Can you imagine, you work your entire life on five hundred acres and someone tells you, you can't make your twenty thousand bucks, you can't be worth $10 million because we as a town just say that you don't deserve to? I don't think that's fair to anyone. I was there, target East Points, and we had some lively debate. I had some great arguments if not fights with people at these public meetings. I will say that it's always the same in whatever community you work with, even the City of Tucson there are very few people that make their voices counted. There's always the same people in the community that come out day in and day out and make themselves heard. One of the things that I do hope you really push for is in this Master Ptan we do have in here a statement that we would like the town to be investing in buying open spaces it considers important. It asks for contributions from the pdvate sector, it asks that those things be made in conjunction also with the State Land Department. I would love a formula to be developed whereby we're setting aside a certain amount of funds to buy land that we consider vatuable, worth preserving. Make it our contingency fund, when we have to take property for instance, let's pay for it, let's not go to Court. The State Land Department is not in MINUTES OF STUDY SESSION MARANA TOWN COUNCIL JANUARY '15, '1997 the business of preserving our environment, it's there to make money for our schools. They're looking at Master Planned communities. They're looking at ten thousand, six thousand an acre, maximum use with the best use for the acreage, Master Planned community. Higher density, golf courses, all kinds of things, resort hotels. If we consider Burro Canyon or any of these other places worth fighting for or keeping, let's set aside the money to pay for it. I really hope that can come about, because I don't want this town tied down in Court. It's just no fun. Any questions? Jerry Flannery: Mr. Mayor and Council members, with General Plans it is by no means the staff, the consultant, I don't believe anybody's intention that this be a static document. The last General Plan we had was implemented in 1987. There have been no amendments to my knowledge. This document is intended fully to be a dynamic document that will be reviewed on an annual basis where reports, and you will be given to the commissioning Council, there may be amendments that come in through that process or through that annual review time where you may see an amendment to the General Plan. It's not just approving it and setting it up on the sheif and pulling it out once in a while when a weird zoning case comes in. it's meant to be a document that is aiive and that is used and everybody becomes familiar with it. If there are needs through the time that it's being used, just like with any ordinance, there's some things you need to go back and look at. W~th the General Plan after looking at it for a year, I think it can be implemented. After a year there may be major improvements that occur in the Town in portions of the town that cause a re-evaluation of portions of the General Plan, but not the whole document. Mayor Honea: Would this annual review, this will be a scheduled annual review? Jerry Flannery: Yes. Mayor Honea: If individuals own, say ag land and were being encroached upon by development, then those individuals could come in and say, we're being encroached upon by development and we would like to convert our ag land into Iow density residential or something of that nature and start progressively changing that as it becomes necessary. Jerry Flannery: Right, to take an example, Council Member Clark was used earlier, has property that is agricultural but there's some major improvements that are coming in and the infrastructure is coming in to suppod the transit[on of that property from agricultural into maybe higher density residential, then looking at bringing that out, may constitute significant change in the General Plan. On page eighty, under Monitoring Performance A, that's an action plan maintenance and it's monitoring performance. There's an annual review there, incremental achievements or General Plan element goals should be noted annually. Objectives that have been met or for which substantial gains has been recorded should be replaced with new higher civic conditions. Mayor Honea: What I was asking you, the question: if we're going to have an annual update and it's going to be scheduled individuals that have ag property that are being encroached upon, have a very good case to come in and ask for it to be changed to the Iow density residential or mix use or whatever. Because they are being encroached upon and obviously within the next few years they're going to be advantageous to them to develop the property, where ag property that's five miles from nowhere with no infrastructure improvements or anything like that, might be very difficult to develop it, unless it was a Master Planned community or something to where they have a 208 programs and have their own sewer and develop their own water and everything else. That seems to answer part of that question, Tom Clark: Mr. Mayor, one other thing, I drove through Chandler and Gilbert last week and one thing i'd hate to see for Marana to get into-- is for these farmers and the agricultural owners to sell off the lands in little thirty and forty acre parcels, because it's always a different developer that develops on it and there's no cohesion to the building of the houses. Neither for the entrances to them offthe main boulevard but also the designs and everything. You go through Gilbert like I did last week and I was just amazed, I mean there'll be a thirty acre parcel of ground with cotton still on it and subdivisions on three sides and then there'lt be another twenty acre parcel with cattle grazing on it and a tractor working on it and thoro'Il be subdivisions on three sides. I'd hate to see for Marana to grow that way because it doesn't seem like there's no cohesion to the way the developments are built. One developer builds one way and the next guy right across the street building a different way and it just looks very ugly to me. Jerry Flannery: Mr. Mayor, Council Member Clark, some of you may that know that Chandler is my home town, and when I grew up there it was a population of 15,000 and when I left in '88 it was a population of t MINUTES OF STUDY SESSION MARANA TOWN COUNCIL JANUARY 15, 1997 think 90~000. Now it's somewhere up around one fifty I think. I was talking to a friend of mine who's a planner there and he indicated that for the longest time, development was just an acre an hour, ~ike they were documenting in Phoenix a white back. Chandler was developing with the subdivision cookie cutter subdivisions like you're talking, but they all had a fairly generic look and one of the things that one of my friends in developreent ran into in Chandler was, the Council there wanted a whole revision, a re-writing of design criteria and you probably know the name of the ordinance but, they wanted to get away from the subdivision cookie cutter and the track type homes, so they started requiring all these different variations of designs so when you drove down the road it didn't look like a bunch of track homes, but there's a large portion of town in Chandler that is cookie cutter. I think there are some things in here that would prevent that and I think it could be solidified by further ordinances that may call out for more specific design criteria in certain areas and through the Planning Commission and Town Council and through the town's development program. Ora Ham: Mr. Mayor, t still have some questions. One question I asked, you haven't answered. If I wanted to change my land from Agriculture, what process do I go through, tell me what I have to do to change this General Plan to get another change. Rick Counts: In any case when you have agricultural land, you want residential zoning you have to apply for rezoning, The Mayor and others referred to on this document recommends that one of the implementation steps is to streamline your codes so that it will be easier to get the zoning changed. Now, if the land that is being converted requested from agriculture to residential or other uses, is indicated in a potentia( residenfial development color on the General Plan which could be the tan color of the community development or the lighter yellow of a Iow density residential, then you would simply apply for your rezoning. However, if the land is colored in agricultural use, you are still entitled to apply for a comprehensive or a General Plan Amendment at the same time that you appiy for your rezoning. Some communities, Scottsdale as an example, acAually allows General Plan Amendment and rezoning on the same Agenda. Your procedures are silent in that regard, as far as I know or have been unable to discover, but Jf you wish to entertain that kind of expedited process there is no reason why your Ordinances couldn't say an individual can apply for a General Plan Amendment and a rezoning at the same time to make it easy, as Council Member Clark, Mayor and others have observed. It may be that you would show up at an annual General Plan Review meeting, first with the Planning Commission and then they would make a recommendation to Council, I would assume that here are some changes, that flood protection or road extensions or utilities development has made possible and we would recommend Council Member Harn's farm be changed in color from green to yellow. Now, what that does, is it changes the available inventory of residential development and if we've had a good year, a whole bunch of acreage may have already been put in to new stores and new businesses and new homes and we'd need to make that change. Land that is now moved from one category to the other. So, it can be very simple, it should be a bit of a hurdle so that the town can legitimately say no to extreme cases. That's why you need evaluation mechanisms and the citizens have asked us to try to provide those in this document. Ora Harn: So basically what you're saying to me, if I may paraphrase it, right now, you don't really know how I would go about changing it, because we have no written procedures for that, is that right? Am I misunderstanding? Rick Counts: If you adopt this plan it does cai{ for a General Plan Amendment. (t is simp(y you need to decide as a matter of Council Policy whether you wish to entertain General Plan Amendment on the same agenda with a rezoning request. You can do it that way if you want. Ora Harn: But we don't have a written policy at this point? Rick Counts: If you adopt this, you will at least have a start toward this, But you're right, today you do not, Jerry Fiannery: There's an issue, Mr, Mayor and Council member Ham; we had an instance within the last year where somebody wanted to process a rezoning and amendment at the same time, and we said no you can't do this rezoning or you can't do this project here without the amendment first because your whole plan is tied to this amendment and that was an instance where we didn't have any written provision in the policy and that was kind of my decision. My decision was based on advice and counseling and discussion with the Town Attorney's office on how this thing would proceed. There are instances where that may very well actually go concurrent, we don't have a written policy in the Town Development Code and that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to write that into our Zoning Code. MINUTES OF STUDY SESSION MARANA TOWN COUNCIL JANUARY t5, 1997 Mayor Honea: And that's something that we can take care of even after we adopt the plan. We can set up the policy and we can do whatever we fee{ is correct because we can make it concurrently or we can make them wait 30 days or we can make them do whatever, but we can set up something. Ora Ham: Well it's something I think we need to take care of. Jerry Flannery: There may be a time where all the infrastructure is there, as far as floodplain, they're out of the flood plain because of the bank protection, the water, sewer, all the utilities are there to extend to or have been extended to and that may very well constitute a concurrent processing and that would be something that we would have written in the policy or written in the Ordinance, a Development or Zoning Code or it would be something that I would probably ask to be put on a council agenda, maybe for direction by the Council. Here's a situation, staff sees Council, we would like direction on whether or not to proceed concurrent with these circumstances and then the Council can direct staff, yes that's fine or no we don't think so. Ora Ham: Main concern is the need for a guide where people can go directly to where they need to get help in following the General Plan. We are the elected officials of this community and we have to pass this, and the buck stops here. If it's not good, we hear it, so ~ always assumed that the plan would come back to the Council. The opportunity for the Council to do a Study Session on it and review it and make comments on it. One of my concerns is, I don't want to have to read this whole thing, I want to be able to look in the Table of Contents and say here it is, Landscape, that's what is going to guide me to what needs to happen, or Transportation or something. Mayor Honea: Advised the need to maintain a difference between zoning and the General Plan. The General Plan is strictly a guideline, it can be made simple, to where it's concurrent. The average person is not going to have a copy of the General Plan, so Jf a person is buying a piece of property that's not a large piece, we'll go to staff and give the address and Jerry or one of his staff will pull out the book and advise as to exactly what needs to be done. If it's a developer, they're going to have that information and have professional planners on staff and they're going to meet with our staff and Jerry will say, well, you're going to have to apply for a General Plan Amendment and then you're going to have to apply for a zoning change for a specific plan. Ora Ham: If Ym just thinking about it, Mayor, I just want to pick up a General Plan and find out what kind of vegetation Marena is talking about, or their Transportation Plan or something, I don't want to read this whole book, I want to find it in the table of contents and look it up. Jerry Flannery: Mr. Mayor, Council member Ham, we on a daily basis have inquiries asking those very questions, and part of our job as staff is to point people in the right direction. So other jurisdictions carl that passing the buck, but half of the skill of passin9 the buck is getting it to the right person who can address the answer. In regard to Landscaping for example, we don't have a Landscaping Ordinance yet, we're processing one and that Ordinance specifically talks about the types of landscaping that would go with the project. We have a native plant program, and that wouldn't be addressed specifically in the General Plan document because it's an Ordinance that fal~s under the Genere~ Plan as a guiding tool, just as a zoning code isn't in the General Plan because the zoning is specifically on property and the General Plan is a guide for that zoning. Mayor Honea: Council Member Mullner. Sherry Millner: Well, since I just got this thing yesterday morning, I also find it very hard to read. I don't understand it, but sitting here listening tonight I have figured out that we might as welt change green Agriculture to yellow, because it's all houses, Marana is going to one Master Planned Community. And it's sad; we have very few green places and those will probably turn into yellow too. And we all know that the farms are sold as soon as infrastructure is here. Why are we lying to people, saying, this is alt going to be open space, there is no open space unless you want to go to the top of this mountain or the top of that mountain. I've sat here tonight and I'm getting angrier the longer I sit here; people are saying we're going to have this Iow density. I live in Iow density, it's not Iow density. Mayor Honea: Some of that ag land which is outside the town is state [eased land, and some of the other land even when we do the Bank Protection, first phase up to Sanders Road A and B, some of that land out MINUTES OF STUDY SESSION MARANA TOWN COUNCIL JANUARY t5, 1997 to Berry Acres and out further Hardin Road and that area out there is stilt going to be in the flood plain, unfli the second phase of the Bank Protection is done. It might be premature to take that out of Agriculture and put it into Iow density before you get the bank protection to even make it feasible or even legal to put it into iow density. What I think we probably should do is maybe adopt it the way it is, if the bank protection goes in, in May, like promised, then we can look at the plan in general and say all of this land that now says Agriculture because it's either in the floodplain or not protected, than we can start putting some of that land that is close to the infrastructure into Iow density. But a lot of it right now, it's not feasible to put it, because you couldn't build there right now anyway. Sherry Millner: Well, back here, I did get to a certain page and I started little sflckies in them yesterday, where it talks about Mountains and open space and desert environment and then rural atmosphere. I don't see that when I look at this map. Maybe I'm looking at it wrong, but I see a lot of yellow and it's all houses and in the Town limits, not very much agriculture. And I'd really hate to see Marana turn into another Phoenix or Tucson and that's, it's all going to be strictly houses. That's my personal feeling, and like Ora said, it's very difficult to understand. It jumps around, and I could only get through half of this and it's taken me all day yesterday and today to get through half of this and trying to understand it. Mayor Honea: Commented that maybe the cross reference on the legend, in reference to areas of Iow density housing allowing for a certain percentage of commercial, could be clarified a little more. Asked if anyone had a specific change they would like to see. Advised the plan is not going to be voted on tonight. Tom Clark: Commented that the plan talks about tourism in Marana. Also that the Chamber already is calling Marana the Gateway to the Saguaro National Monument, however, in the plan it does not show this. There have been a lot of people on the edge of his farm asking where Sandario Road starts again. Feels it's a far more beautiful drive to go this way, through Picture Rocks and into the Monument and then the Desert Museum and on to Old Tucson. The Monument is shown in the map, but nothing specifically spelled out about Marana being counted that way. Mayor Honea: We can certainly include that. Steve Tomits: I think that as long as we have these yearly amendments, that's pretty important. Mayor Honea: You want to see a concurrent amendment clause in the General Plan. Steve Tomita: It's in there, a mandatory yearly review. Mayor Honea: What I'm saying is, what Council is talking about, some areas allow you to do it concurrent, actually change the General Plan and apply for the zoning in the same. Steve Tomita: I think that would speed up things. Mayor Honea: Maybe, because if you weren't going to approve the zoning change you wouldn't change the General Plan either. If you were going to change the zoning plan, why go through the same functions twice to do the exact same thing and drag the thing out. That's what I liked, when you brought up the one year. That gives people lead time, and most people don't just right now need to know and need to change, they know that it's coming and they start preparing and then they can ask for it. Rick Counts: Mr. Mayor, and Council Member Clark, I think that's a good idea and we can make a short reference in that same implementation sector that would set up the policy of the ability to request a concurrent General Plan Amendment if one is required and rezoning, and then you have e statement of policy. If, as time goes on and you do revise your codes, then I think you would want to nail that down as a process for Genera{ Plan Amendment, as many municipalities do specify in their zoning codes. Mayor Honea: Does anybody else have any questions? Bill Schisler: Mr. Mayor, members of the Council, and staff, I listened to remarks, what the Advisory Committee and the Tax Committee and the staff want is a town different than Phoenix and Tucson. We don't want to be a bedroom community for Tucson. We want to have our own businesses and open space and trails and our own themes and etc. so I just wanted to make that point. We worked real hard to stress that we need to maintain that and in order to do that, what you've got to do is once you get a good General MINUTES OF STUDY SESSION ~ MARANA TOWN COUNCIL I JANUARY 15, 1997 Plan, you want to maintain that and not jeopardize its integrity. Once you start just getting loose and jeopardize it, then we could look like Phoenix or Tucson. Jerry Flannery: As Mayor Honea pointed out, the only way we could do that is to probably cross reference and we're looking at landscape, is to landscape to the Ordinance as it exists in the Development Cede. I feel like I need a couple college courses to get through the Development Code. It is a difficult document, you know if you've got a hill on your property, you have to go to the Hillside Ordinance, it goes on and on. So that's just probably the only way we can make that transition, is to mention it from the General, to the Ordinance section of the Marana Development Code. Mayor Honea: Any more comments? If not, this is on the next regularly scheduled meeting, or not? Jerry Flannery: Mr. Mayor, I believe at the meeting on the seventh we talked coming back on the fourth of February, so the first meeting of February. If that's still the Council's desire, we can do that. Mayor Honea: t think so, and if anyone has any further questions after they get into it more deeply, I'm sure Mr. Counts or Mr. Flanne~y would both be available for comment. So I guess we'll schedule it for the fourth of February. Tentatively for final approval. Are there any future Agenda items? Motion to adjourn. VI _FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS: There were none. VII ADJOURNMENT: A motion was made by Herb Kai, seconded by Tom Clark and carded unanimously to adjourn the meeting at 8:20 p.m. AUDIO TAPES OF THE MEETING ARE AVAILABLE AT THE MARANA TOWN HALL CLERK'S OFFICE. CERTIFICATION I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are the true and correct minutes of the Study Session of the Marana Town C~,;pcil held on January 15, 1997. I further certify that a quorum was present. ~'"'---~kNO~, ~'(~WN CLERK