Thousands of Sabino Canyon Road area residents are having the fates of their homes, their neighborhood, their lifestyle negotiated away by men they didn’t hire, didn’t elect, and don’t even know. It is the Pima County way.
Email correspondence over the past few weeks and days shows that attorney Bob Gugino, who was the Rio Nuevo attorney for years, has been “negotiating” with a handful of residents to push through the development of his property on the corner of Sabino Canyon and Cloud roads.
According to emails, the latest compromise will decrease the number of units to 130, but will likely increase the number of bedrooms per unit by “introducing a larger unit in the 1550 SF range that will be either a larger 3 bedroom or might be a 4 bedroom.”
In an email sent Saturday, May 3, Gugino advised this band of “negotiators” and carbon copied David Petersen and Chris Poirier, of Pima County Development Services, to make them “fully aware of the agreed upon terms and what we will be presenting to the BOS next Tuesday. We did notify Dave and Chris Wednesday of the compromise. I have also notified Districts [2-5] of the compromise. In the past I have not had luck having my calls returned from D1 so I will leave that contact to you.”
Contrary to Gugino’s claims, D1 has been in contact with Gugino. According to D1 Supervisor Ally Miller she has attempted to work with Gugino on behalf of the thousands of area residents who were left in the dark and out of the negotiations. She has meet with him on more than one occasion, talked to him by telephone, met with his development team.
“I have met with Mr. Gugino and he appeared to be unwilling to compromise, “said Miller.
According to Pima County Comp plan site design policy c.1.b, Infill “Ensure that new or redeveloped mixed use or infill rezonings assess the privacy and character concerns of existing neighborhoods in reviewing the location, density, and character of the Project.”
Major concerns for the already over capacity River Road Capacity is 13, 100 and 2012 traffic count is 15,613. With the new development it will be close to 17,000 average daily trips. Sabino Canyon Road will end up being at capacity based on calculations.
At the Planning and Zoning Hearing for this project flood control personnel expressed concern about the accuracy of the developers water demand calculations. Pima county’s Water resources Impact assessment finds that, under existing conditions, the proposed project does not have access to renewable and potable water unless Metropolitan Domestic Water Improvement district uses its interconnect with Tucson Water in this Area. MDWID currently has wells in shallow groundwater and additional demand on these wells will impact this groundwater dependent ecosystem.
The P&Z commission recommended denial (6-3) with Commissioner Bain absent.
According to residents, despite residents’ and County staff concerns, there was no real need to compromise. They believe that they had the votes of the Board. He simply needed to negotiate enough to provide political cover for the Board members.
And so the script was written.
In one email, a “negotiator wrote, “The hope is that I can get Ally Miller to speak to the rest of the Board and make the motion that an 8 rack (a rack is homes/residences per acre) be passed with the number of units not to exceed 13o. Ray will go with that compromise and it was suggested that she speaks of it as an amenable compromise between the developers and the neighborhood which was negotiated in good faith. She may or may not say that the developer started at a 12 plus rack (which I know one supervisor was prepared to “go to bat” for) and the neighborhood at a 6 rack.”
Clearly that “negotiator” felt trapped, and with little hope for a reasonable compromise, he wrote, “I would still hope that there might be someone (just maybe Ray) who might at the Hearing ask that a stipulation be added to the zoning that the developers consider the architectural character of the neighborhoods and work toward developing southwestern elevations consistent with either Pueblo, Mediterranean, or Spanish Colonial design. It’s unconscionable for Gugino to be unwilling to consider this.”
He continued, “To me, the compromise is a “con” and I represent no neighborhood association or affected party. I’m just a conscionable citizen of Pima County who spent 20 years of my life in Pima County in conscionable development….”
The marginalized area residents merely want conscionable development. They are not opposed to development at all.
However, their opposition is expected to be on display this Tuesday if their email responses to the latest “compromise” are any indication.
One resident wrote:
“Anonymous email author:
Exactly how were you chosen to exclusively represent my wishes as part of this process? Reminder- it is still a process. I find it interesting and a bit cowardly that you have chosen not to reveal yourself (selves) in this email, to negotiate on behalf of our entire neighborhood with absolutely NO communication since the last meeting.
If the compromise you outlined below is indicative of your negotiation skills I feel that a serious mistake has been made. This is the first update of any kind that we have received since the last meeting. We have continued to write letters and talked to our neighbors. Our calendars have been bookmarked for the hearing since the announcement.
We have agreed as the Sabino Joint Neighborhood Committee to show good faith and not drum up more protest. Thank you.
Really??????
How very cheeky of you to pretend to represent the wishes of the hundreds of homeowners who have turned out to speak against this plan! Your “political reality” is not my political reality and we’ll proceed with our right to protest a very bad decision and then seek appeals as needed.
If you cared enough about this issue to begin with and decided to act in a capacity to inform and encourage communication at least now have the good sense to reveal your identity (identities) and the dates, times and details of any compromise discussions that have actually occurred as opposed to waving a towel to throw in the ring.
There are others among us who are inclined to continue fighting the asinine assumption that there is somehow parity between the two housing density models. While it is apparent that you have “crossed over to the dark side” of this issue, please don’t assume that all of us, or any of us are joining you.
It appears that the scriptwriters might have to add a line or two to be delivered by Richard Elias or Sharon Bronson before the vote, something along the lines of “let them eat cake.”
Related article:
Sabino Canyon area residents facing Pima County political realities