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Transition-Stabilization Zones in Tucson’s Urban Core

A resurgence of development from 2008 to 2013, heavy in private student dormitories is now pushing a public dialogue about the impact on core residents.  More than 3,000 new beds in a mile radius of the downtown core coupled with the streetcar project could set the table for retail, services and entertainment sectors to be the next boom in Core Tucson.  How does single family fit into this picture?  At the behest of the Mayor & Council, a Planning Commission subcommittee will try and find out why the GIID’s (greater infill incentive district) biggest project made record profit, but is hurting the future of R1 and R2 zoning in a protected historic district.  The District on 5th is a 700-bed luxury dorm.  While the owners celebrated success, at least six nearby homeowners moved.   As the subcommittee hearings begin, there is an interest in something other than design standards; incentives.

Sentiments are that big enough monetary incentives for single-family enhancement are a hard sell and zoning incentives that work commercially can’t attract investment for single-family as easily.  Homeowners typically do not maximize their zoning rights for many reasons not the least, a safe investment.   R1 and R2 zones that should be the right focus for  homeowner investment are rundown and work counter to that.  In fact, homeowner investment is perhaps the least understood and under utilized market in the core.   Incentives in designated residential transition zones have to be different and deserve a bold look at incentive capital and political leverage.  With protection of neighborhoods at the top of M & C’s purpose list, transition-stabilization zones can counter balance what the GIID wants to stimulate along busy streets.  Synergistic transition-stabilization zones would be new to Tucson and could be an answer.  History shows homeowners do not invest in property that has no future for them.  If they live there now, they may sell or rent, holding out for more single-family attrition to attract bigger rental investors.  Many of these zones are high crime, are run down and draw low tax revenue, but have good location factors.  They could snowball into something much better.  With a synergistic push, these zones can transform into investment magnets for single-family enhancement and historic preservation within and outside their boundaries.

IID SUBCOMMITTEE – Revising the GIID

Tucson’s Mayor and Council want a revision to the Greater Infill Incentive District (GIID) to make it more neighbor-hood friendly.  The GIID subcommittee had their first public meeting mid June to begin hearing resident concerns and related updates on the street car TOD plan and the downtownLINKs; form based code overlays that may assimilate parts of the IID making design more fluid.  A third meeting is scheduled for July 22nd with more to follow.   If a revision to the GIID is successful the following M&C purpose goals would have to be met:  1) neighborhood protection, 2) commitments that run with the land, 3) better design review, 4) salvaging the IID, 5) merging the IID with the streetcar plan and downtownLINKs and 6) preventing redundancies.  The committee’s case study looks to be the District on 5th, which left portions of West University Neighborhood unstable and some residents disenfranchised.

Synergy and Context Sensitive Transitions – Thinking Outside the Box

Relative to the GIID’s “District on 5th”, a goal of stabilizing its 5th Street development boundary could have been to protect historic 4th Street and beyond.   As a case study, this project is a place to start identifying the need for synergistic transition-stabilization zones that help protect and enhance neighborhoods.  What emerges from the study could address other high impact overlays that can potentially imperil vulnerable single-family and historic property.

The GIID was designed to kick start commercial real estate after a near repeat of the great depression.  Single-family development was left out of picture, yet the downtownLINKs team reported that residents are not opposed to urbanization as long as it is inclusive of authentic resident input and characteristic of well thought out edge development.   The GIID also didn’t recognize the importance of planned boundary transitions that can assure safe investment in surrounding single family property as well as future growth in revenues.

It will be a hard job to make the GIID work for both sides, but it can be designed into a smart planning strategy.  Residential zone based incentives to attract single-family development and preservation can be an answer and a key to growing city revenue in the near future.  This could be described as a strategy for off-site synergistic transition-stabilization zones that penetrate into sensitive neighborhood edges and stimulate improvement to the greater area.  The intent would be to design these boundaries between high impact development and vulnerable neighborhoods.  The goal is that a once a viable boundary is realized, home-ownership will be stimulated.  People will want to make their homes there.   The level of development impact and residential vulnerability would be the trigger to the magnitude of incentives in a transition-stabilization zone.

How well this works, depends on how much we think outside the box.  It could begin to work like this:  Tax and fee incentives in transition-stabilization zone would be triggered by a property owner’s proposal for “x” % improvement to said property in exchange for “x” years of tax relief and waiver of permit and impact fees.  An applicant would submit a value qualifying preservation plan or single-family design proposal that conforms to design standards and covenants.

Where cost and unwillingness to adapt are an issue, some residents will want an equitable buy-out.  Others may be willing to adapt but can’t invest enough.  Low interest loan guarantees can help those that are close.  Still, It is unlikely that the City or developers will buy property at high enough rates so something else has to factor in.

Consider that every commercial zoning incentive recipient is in effect given a degree of additional marketable value when the City grants an increase in base zoning rights or eliminates parking making land more revenue producing.  This leads to an intentionally enhanced asset for the developer.   What happens if part of this value is intentionally re-captured as a trade-off; a privately contracted fund source?  That would propose trading zoning incentives within the context of a goal-oriented planning strategy.  As such, portions of the developers incentive package would be identified to construct and commit matching funds for contracted homeowner investment.  The funds would also be used to purchase property wishing to be sold for similar purpose where the developer can make the improvement and covenant the property.  Context friendly investments would be assured by design proposals with covenanted uses.  To keep it simple, a no strings attached GIID incentive could start at a low threshold base with minimum standards in keeping with the base zoning.  More ambitious projects can opt for a program of increasing zoning incentives subject to higher design standards and transition-stabilization zone trade-offs.  The notion of trade-offs can work when linked to big enough incentives and additionally credited towards a waiver of conventional impact fees.  A targeted investment tool  is then created and a neighborhood can have a source of investment funding for a transition-stabilization zone.  If the City can waiver impact fees for cause deferring re-capture, this scenario is possible.  Low revenue properties that characterize these zones now become a stabilization market.  This is a planned trade off strategy for future neighborhood stability and establishes necessary boundaries that homeowners need in order to retain their occupancy and invest.  Each realized brick and mortar investment is a stake in the future of home-ownership in and outside of planned  transition-stabilization zones.

The synergy is when quality development of a critical weight and context sensitive design along its edges are mutually supportive and stimulate the quality of neighborhoods.  Boundaries are respected and residents outside transition-stabilization zones will know it’s safe to  stay or return to a stable core neighborhood with a future.  An urban oriented residential renaissance is the goal and a smart urban-university interface strategy is the counter-balance grease on the wheel.  As for market potential, we know home investors will spend lots of money for fine residential design and exquisite historic preservation.  We know there is a market waiting to emerge that speaks to work study, graduate students, affordable housing, senior housing,  faculty investors, U of A and City employee housing, visiting scholars, dignitaries and other urban-university oriented occupancies.