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HomeMy WebLinkAbout11/21/1995 Regular Council Meeting MinutesPLACE AND DATE Marana Town Hall November 21, 1995 I. CALL TO ORDER By Mayor Honea at 7:07 p.m. II. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Led by Mayor Honea III. INVOCATION Led by Mayor Honea IV. ROLL CALL COUNCIL Ed Honea Sharon Price Tom CLark Ora Mae Ham Sherry Millner Herb Kal Bobby Sutton Jr. Mayor Vice-Mayor Council Member Council Member Council Member Council Member, excused Council Member STAFF Hurvie Davis Dan Hochuli Sandra Groseelose Jerry Flannery Roy Cuaron Dave Atler Brad DeSpain Doug Maples Town Manager Town Attorney Town Clerk Planning Administrator Finance Director Town Engineer Utilities Director Building Official 30 Members of the Public V. APPROVAL OF AGENDA A motion was made by Ora Harn, seconded by Tom CLark and carried unanimously to approve the agenda as written. VI. ACCEPTANCE OF MINUTES A motion was made by Ora Harn, seconded by Bobby Sutton, Jr. and carried unanimously to approve the minutes of the Regular Council Meeting of November 7, 1995. VII. CALL TO THE PUBLIC Hurvie Davis: Mr. Davis introduced Doug Maples who will serve as the new Chief Building Official for the Town of Marana. He also made the announcement that as of this afternoon Judge Rodriguez of the Superior Court of Pima County signed an order dismissing the Lawsuit of Tucson vs. Marana for the Ina/Thornydale annexation. VIII. STAFF REPORTS Reports on file at Marana Town Hall XX. GENERAL ORDER OF BUSINESS A. CONSENT AGENDA 1. RESOLUTION NO. 95-65 - Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA~ with Arizona Department of Transportation IADOTI. Regarding administration of federal funding for Santa Cruz River Emergency Repair Project at Cortaro Farms Road. 2. ORDINANCE NO. 95.29 - De-annex/ng property south of Orange Grove Road to take effect only under special c/rcumstances. 3. RESOLUTION NO. 95-64 - Home Investment Partnership {HOME) Program Policies and Procedures. A motion was made by Ora Harn, seconded by Sherry M/liner and carried unanimously to approve the Consent Agenda as written. B. PUBLIC HEARING ORDINANCE NO. 95.30 - PCZ 95-07~ Cortaro Ranch Rezone IShamrock Dairy); Consideration for rezoning of a 98.7 acre parcel from Zone C {Large Lot Zone~ minimum lot size 25 acresl to R-$ ~Residential~ minimum lot area 8~000 sq. ft.I and VC IVillage Commercial), in order to develop 299 single family detached residences and community level retail services. Hurvie Davis: This is a Public Hearing to rezone 98.7 acres from Zone C to R-8 and VC zoning. They plan to develop single family dwellings as well as a commercial area. This matter has been before the Town for an extensive period of time and has also been to the Planning Commission. Jerry Flannery: This item came before the Council some time ago. There were objections of 20% of the owners within 300 feet of the project at that time. The State law requires a majority vote of the Council for a project to be approved when there is 20% or more that object. At the Council where it was heard, the majority vote was not met and the project failed at that time. Several issues came up, archaeolo~r and transportation were two of the significant issues. The project manager who worked for El Dorado, Tom Graham, met extensively with Staff and the State Museum to try and remedy the archaeology situation. They wanted to do that before it came back to the Commission or Council because they knew it was a significant issue. Several things occurred in that year. An excavation was done and the report came back that there were some significant findings on the property. Since then the project planner has changed consultants. They submitted the project in June and the issues were still ex/sting. The project came to the Planning Commission in September and at that time the Tohono O'.dam Nation came to the Planning Commission and said they felt very strongly that this Memorandum of Agreement had been figuratively signed off by the Chairman of their Cultural Committee several of the other tribes spoke out and said they did not feel that was the agreement that was agreed to. The Planning Commission at that time said they did not want to see the project back until the MOA was signed off. We had a meeting at the San Xavier offices and we met with the tribe, the developers, the State Museum and several archaeologists. Once that meeting occurred an MOA was worked out, they came back before the Planning Commission in October. On October 25, 1995 the MOA was presented to the Planning Commission and they then went out to several other issues of concern. The one major issue that came out of that meeting was the traffic analysis. Mr. Flannery has sat down with the Town Engineer to discuss the traffic issues. There have been several meetings with the developers, with ADOT and Pima County, we have tried to come up with a proper and fair solution to this situation. The item tonight is for a rezone, Staff is recommending a conditional approval with ten conditions. Mayor Honea: He would like the applicant to make a brief presentation and then comments will be allowed from the audience. Gordon Stone, Cella Bart Associates, 4911 E. Broadway Blvd. Tucson, AZ: This project has evolved over the hst year and a half. This is a completely different plan from the previous plan. We started to get involved in this rezoning back in January. This concept is basically for a single family development which is 299 lots. The typical lot size is going to be about 7,000 square feet. There is going to be a two acre archaeological park, this will most likely be dedicated to the Archaeological Conservancy. On the other side is a .7 acre size park. Surrounding the development is also a 25 foot wide buffer which could also serve as a trail system for the project. There is also going to be a 25 foot buffer between the residential and commercial area. The commercial portion of the property is envisioned to be developed with an Albertson's Grocery Store, they have a total of about 11.5 acres. In addition to that there would be a 150 room motel and a couple of restaurant pads on Cortaro Farms Road. Through the evolution of this project there have been a number of different issues. Regarding the issue of traffic, we've worked many meetings with ADOT, Pima County and the Town of Marana. We have finally reached in agreement, at least in concept as far as improvement to the realigning of this interchange. The idea now is that we would allow through a dedication on our property the realignment of this future alignment of Cortaro Farms Road. What that would allow is it would take away the kink that currently exists. In addition to removing the kink in the first phase there would be another lane added to Cortaro Farms Road. It would be a continuos left turn lane to allow people to turn into the project. This property would bring sales tax revenues to the Town of Marana. There is a report done back in June of 1995 which summarizes the tax revenues that would be coming to the Town of Marana. From the commercial development it is expected there would be $400~000.00 per year in sales tax. With the development of the Albertson's center there would also be employment opportunities, possibly 100 - 150 full and part time employees. In addition to that there are certain revenues that would also come to the school district, for the residential portion that would equate to approximately $120,000.00 on 299 lots. The commercial portion would be roughly $75,000.00, for a total of approximately $200,000.00. The residential would bring in nearly $250,000.00 and the commercial approximately $150,000.00. He has taken a look at the existing commercial developments in Marana and roughly using their assessed values is how some of these numbers were arrived upon. The other benefits it would bring to Marana are the transportation improvements. Cortaro Farms Road would be widend, new paving, a signalization and the I-10 interchange would have a realignment dedication. Sherry Millner: What schools would these children in this area go to, what elementary schools. Gordon Stone: The elementary school children would attend Quail Run Elementary. Sherry Miilner: Are there plans to expand that school. From what she understands that school is already very over populated. Gordon Stone: He has no idea what the plans are for that expansion, it might involve some modular portable units. Tom Clark: Was there an environmental impact study done on this property since it was a dairy. Gordon Stone: There has been a phase one environmental study done. That is showing that the property is clean in terms of any residuals effects from the dairy site. When the dairy site was removed, they actually scraped the ground clean and over excavated it. Tom Clark: And the dirt that was scraped was removed from the site. Gordon Stone: Yes. Sharon Price: How much dirt was removed off that property and how deep. Gordon Stone: He can't say how much, but it was a lot. Lonny Catt, 8431 N. Freeman Lane: He came in support of the development, he is an immediate adjoining property owner. He has watched this property sit vacant for a number of years since the clean up of the dairy. He doesn't really welcome losing the ruralness of his property, but on the other hand it is just sitting there full of weeds. There are kids partying there at night and cutting the fences, it's become an attractive nuisance. The developer did have neighborhood meetings and most of the concerns were addressed. We asked them for that trail system around the perimeter and they agreed. They are providing open spaces and parks to keep the kids inside that area not in neighboring properties. Traffic is bad in this area and getting worse with or without this project. He asked that the Council accept this project. Richard Brown, 7204 Odyssey Way: He is against this project basically because of the traffic concerns at the freeway. The school system is already over crowded and this will just bring more kids into the system without having the schools improved. This project should be looked at to possibly pay for some of the school improvements. June Stevens, 14452 N. Rock Springs Lane: For more than twenty years she has owned and paid taxes on a sizable parcel of land in the vicinity of this proposed development. She has looked at this plan in considerable depth and she strongly supports this land for developing this area. In her opinion it is a near perfect plan. Joe Koehler, 8861 N. Shadow Rock: He has been living in Continental Ranch going on three years and the traffic has gotten steadily worse during that time. The main thing that he has noticed recently is the traffic coming from east of the freeway onto Cortaro Farms Road. When you add in not only a grocery store and motel but a group of homes to that area, you're going to add a lot more west bound traffic onto Cortaro Farms Road. The additional problem that we will see from this project is the schools. There needs to be some sort of plan on how the schools are going to accommodate the 300 children that are going to come from this neighborhood. He is an attorney and he knows very well that the Council has the power to extract certain concessions from a developer before a project is approved. Among the concessions he thinks are most important for the Council to obtain are the building of a signal at the freeway interchange itself to control traffic as well as having them involved in the expansion of the schools. Elizabeth Douglas, 8810 N. Joplin: Her concern is are we going to be able to come out of Joplin Lane and make a left turn on Cortaro Road. Will there be a solid or open medium of the left hand turn access. Gordon Stone: It is set up for a continuous left turn lane so people coming out of Joplin will actually improve their access by having the left turn lane to access. Scott Mundell, Assistant Superintendent/Marana School District: He would be happy to answer any questions the Council might have in reference to the School District. The developer of this project has conferred with the School District and his numbers are accurate. Mayor Honea: With the build out of this development would it put an undue hardship on the Marana School District. Scott Mundell: It's current designated elementary is Quail Run, we currently have 550- 590 students with a total capacity of 600. The school plan includes the design capability to add modular buildings and take that school up to around 1,000 students. We are under major building programs at both Tortollta Junior High and Mountain View High School. In August of 1996 we hope to open a new elementary school in Continental Ranch. We are also opening another elementary on the current Desert Winds site in Avra Valley. This will help to alleviate some of the over crowding temporarily. Ora Ham: The Town is concerned about the over crowding of the schools and yet even if we would turn down this particular zoning there is other zoning that we couldn't turn down if we wanted to. She is concerned at what the Town could do to help resolve some of those issues. The Town would like to work with the school district to try to see how best these issue could be resolved. She would like to know if there is an opportunity for our Board and their Board to get together and talk about some of these issues. Scott Mundell: Our Board is very interested in these issues and he is sure they would be glad to work with the Council. Our Board is supporting the pending legislation for impact fees. Mayor Honea: We have scheduled this for our next regular Council meeting. Ora Ham: It is her understanding that some of the issues and problems are coming down to us from the State. Funding has been cut considerably for the schools and that is also an issue where the Board and Town Council could join forces. The State is not actually giving the schools what they had proposed to give them in past legislation. Scott Mundell: The current statute under equalization of school funding has a provision that requires the legislature to give school districts an inflation increase every year, unless the legislature specifically takes other action. That increase is based on the Gross Nation Product Price Deflator Index. That has only been funded by our legislature once in the last fifteen years. Last year the inflation rate was 3%, we got .8% in additional funding. Sherry Millner: Approximately how many children are there per classroom at Quail Run right Scott Mundell: He does not know that figure off the top of his head. The District has mandated caps on enrollment, 32 above third grade, 30 in first and second and 25 in kindergarten. We have been working those slightly lower over the past several years but every indication is that they are going to have to go up significantly in the next year or two. Sherry Millner: Her experiences with classes of over 30 students is that the children do not learn and the teachers become very frustrated. Sharon Price: These parks that they are putting in, are they going to be opened to non- residences of the area. Gordon Stone: Yes. There would be a home association to maintain those. Sharon Price: What about the perimeter trail around the project, who is going to be responsible for maintaining that. Gordon Stone: That would also be the association's responsibility. Sharon Price: If you have three exit points on Cortaro Road won't there be a lot of congestion with people trying to make left hand turns. Gordon Stone: Eventually it will be a Five land divided roadway which will improve the traffic situation. Sherry Millner: Is it going to be an equestrian trail around the perimeter of the project. Gordon Stone: Yes. Ora Harn: She wanted to clarify that the Town has no power to put lights at the freeway. Those are controlled by ADOT. Mayor Honea: Anything dealing with the freeway belongs to the Arizona Department of Transportation. We can suggest and try to encourage but we have no authority what so ever. Cortaro Road itself is in the County with the exception of that small piece of the curve which would be in the Town. On the school issue, he agrees with Council Member Harn. School districts don't build schools in anticipation of people building houses, it is not monetarily feasible to do such things. Schools are enlarged or built to accommodate growth. If we turn down this project strictly because of schools he feels it would be grossly unfair. Continental Ranch is going to have 2,000 or 3,000 more houses within the next few years, they are already approved. Westinghouse is already approved, they have a Master Plan, we will have children there as well. This plan is minuscule compared to some of those other projects. To ask a builder on a project of this size to put large amounts of money into the School District other than what will come from the taxes and revenues, He feels this project will hold its own with the School District. Hurvie Davis: He has been talking with ADOT about the Cortaro Farms Interchange for about two years. When he first approached them they asked them if they had any traffic counts to see if the interchange met the warrants for traffic signals. They had not done any traffic counts, they proceeded to take the counts and the first count did not indicate the need at that time. Subsequently that has changed as a result of increased traffic from both the west and east sides of the interstate. ADOT does not have any improvements planned to the interchange at this time. We have been working with staff on alternatives on how they would address it. In order to signalize the intersection they have to merge the frontage roads and the romps. If we don't ask for it, we'll never get it until they decide to give it to us. We need to get down and have a good turn out at the board meetings. This interchange needs to be addressed with or without this project. Regarding this project, his experience indicates that this is a unique project, the buffer strips are very unique. The revenues that would be generated not only to the Town but to the School District, the commercial revenues are approximately 60 - 62% of the revenues from the residential to the School District. As we all know residential causes a negative impact on schools, where the commercial does not. The commercial gives you a tax bose with absolutely zero impact on the school district in terms of students. Staff is in agreement with this project and would support it under the conditions that staff has indicated. Dave Atler: Beginning next month he will have an outside consultant preparing a project assessment which will address the interchange more thoroughly. That process will take about eight months and it will deal with what they will do with the ramps and the signalization. Tom Clark: Was there any discussion about putting a larger publ/c park within the property. If there is going to be 300 kids within the community, the little parks don't look like they could support very many children. Jerry Fiannery: The discussion did come up at the Planning Commission regarding this issue. The idea came up that it might be better to conglomerate them on one side or the other. The requirement under R-8 as Mr. Stone has explained is that yon have an 8,000 square feet minimum lot size, but you have an option to go down to 7,000 square feet. For every foot that you reduce from 8,000 you have to put that square foot into a park or into open space, they do exceed that requirement. Bobby Sutton, Jr.: He is concerned with the traffic at the Cortaro 1-10 interchange. We are adding to that problem with this project. The issue with the schools has been addressed. He feels it could fund itself with the sales taxes revenues, but the traffic is still a big problem for him. Dave Atler: ADOT recognizes that today there is a hazard. With the addition of this project, that hazard will grow. The question on the timing of the light is something he needs to talk to ADOT about, They have expressed interest in a partnering project with Marana paying roughly 25% of the cost, which would run approximately $30,000.00 for the Town. Sharon Price: She is very very concerned with the traffic that is going to go through there. Once they put a grocery store there, people from Continental Ranch are going to be crossing that traffic. The other issue is if it goes into an association then all that equestrian trail and traffic around there become private, is that correct. Gordon Stone: The equestrian trail will be outside the perimeter wail. It will not be part of the lots. Jerry Flannery: Who ever controls the voting rights in a home owner's association has the right to say what certain things may be used for the CCR's. If the association five years down the road is sold out to individual home owners, there is a possibility they may choose to do other things with that equestrian trail. Sherry Millner: Is there a noise buffer wall for the railroad. Those home owners are going to hear those trains go by. Gordon Stone: They will consider during a wall, it is a possibility. Jerry Flannery: He would like to expiain one of the conditions on the Ordinance. Condition //10 is a condition that after discussion Mr. Atler and Mr. Flannery came up with. He would like to read condition #10 into the record just so Council is aware of it. A traffic study shall be submitted concurrently with the development plan or preliminary plat for any portion of this property. Approval of the development plan or preliminary plat is contingent upon the approval of the traffic study, which shall determine the transportation improvements required by the project. If the Town requests the owner to construct transportation improvements in excess of what is required by the traffic study the Town and owner shall enter into a development agreement to reimburse the owner the costs and excess of the owner's share from sales tax proceeds. The development plan and the plats for the project will require approval from the Planning Commission and the Town Council. Bobby Sutton, Jr.: We're going to have to pay for some of the road construction and different things, what is our amount going to be. Jerry Flannery: The traffic analysis will determine a number of those improvements as he understands it. The Town will evaluate the analysis and whatever the fair share is of the developer, they will pay that. Dave Atler: The traffic impact analysis is to analysis the impacts from the freeway up to and including Hartman Lane. Mayor Honea: Were notifications sent out to the conti~uous and 300 foot land owners again. Jerry Flannery: Yes they were. Mayor Honea: What was the response and how many were sent out. Jerry Flannery: He believes the notices sent out were approximately 40 and we did not have opposition as we did in the first go round. The opposition that we had was mainly from the Countryside residents. Mayor Honea: There were no official negative responses. Jerry Flannery: No official ones. Ora Harn: The piece of property that this property owner is giving to make the new alignment, about how much property is that. Gordon Stone: Approximately 1.5 acres. Tom Clark: He has gotten more information from the developer that he wants to look at. He does not feel he could vote for or against it tonight until he looks at the materials. Mayor Honea: This is an action item tonight to be voted on. Each person on this Council has had an opportunity to be made aware of what was going on with this project. The developer has done everything we have asked them to do. There are stipulations in this proposal that the developer will upgrade the road system as necessitated by traffic studies on this project. We have to be fair. He is asking the Council point blank to approve the project, Town Staff have all asked Council to approve the project. He asked the Council to be reasonable on voting on this project. Mayor Honea declared Council out of Public Hearing A motion was made by Ora Harn, seconded by Ed Honea to approve Ordinance No. 95.30 approving the rezoning of 98.7 acres parcel known as the Cortaro Ranch Rezone, from Zone C large lot zone to Zone R-8 residential and VC Village Commercial subject to the applicant meeting the staff conditions. Council Members voted as follows: Bobby Sutton Jr. - Nay, Sherry Mlllner - Nay, Ora Ham - Yes, Tom Clark - Nay~ Sharon Price - Nay and Mayor Ed Honea - Yes. Motion fails. C. PIMA ASSOCIATION OF GOVERNMENTS IPAG) AGENDA - Discussion Hurvie Davis: He wanted to point out Item #6, the Council may have some concerns with is the La Mirage Plan Amendment that we approved on the east side of the railroad tracks next to Adonis some time back. According to PAG the developer has to report and do certain things for the holder of the 208 Plan Amendment. This reporting is done on an annual basis and is coming up next month. D. MAYOR'S REPORT Mayor Honea: He has spent many hours on the El Dorado project along with Staff over the last couple of weeks. E. TOWN MANAGER'S REPORT Hurvie Davis: Tomorrow afternoon the City of Tucson is sponsoring a meeting with the Tucson Chamber of Commerce as well as the Greater Tucson Economic Council Boards of Directors regarding municipal tax equity and proposed legislation for 1996. Vice Mayor Sharon Price and Mr. Davis have been invited to attend. Vice Mayor Price is unable to attend and Council Member Harn will be going in her place along with Mr. Davis. On November 13, 1995 he met with representatives of Coventry Homes which is a subsidiary of Del Webb. They indicated they would probably be moving into the Continental Ranch area, they have a serious interest into moving into that area. This past Friday, November 17th, Dick Moreno the consultant for the fire services and Jane Johnson held a pre-proposal conference regarding our RFP for fire protection services. We were soliciting proposals from the fire departments, but Mr. Hochuli in checking with the Town's policies he made an opinion that we had to go out for an RFP. We prepared an RFP and the proposals are due the gth of December. We had Avra Valley, Picture Rocks, Northwest, Rural Metro and Flowing Wells all present at the pre-bid conference. Mr. Brad DeSpain was in the hospital over the past week, he is doing extremely well. We are working in concert with Pima County Department of Transportation, looking at improving Thornydalc Road between Orange Grove and Ina to six lanes divided. Pima County along with other jurisdictions has proposed that Thornydale Road be improved from Linda Vista aH the way south, including the Ina/Orange Grove area connecting Thornydala over to River Road at La Cholla. The first phase of that would be the section between Ina and Orange Grove. We would hope to use 15% moneys which the City of Tucson has used the last six or eight years in the building of Aviation Parkway. We have pretty good support at the regional level for the application of 15% funds on that project. Mr. Atler will be working together with Pima County staff in addressing this project. X. FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS .Bobby Sutton, Jr.: In reference to the item that was before Council most of the evening~ the Shamrock Dairy property. He is uncomfortable with anything going on that side of the free way until the light on the west side of 1-10 is put in. Ora Harn: She would like to look into having the Town of Marana advertised on the Internet. It is her understanding that other cities and towns in Arizona are using the internet as a market- ing tool. She thinks it is worth looking into. XI. ADJOURNMENT A motion was made by Bobby Sutton, Jr., seconded by Sharon Price and carried unanimously to adjourn. TIME: 9:03 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 Regular Council Meeting of the Marana Town Council held on November 21, 1995. I further certify ~ ~h~ t_a_~ U_O_ ru~s present. CLERK