A Core Neighborhood Plan?
Last May 2012, the Main Gate Urban Overlay District (UOD) saw its first major building permit, a 35 million dollar high-rise student housing project. That set the path for the Main Gate overlay district and painted a disappointing picture of what a UOD looks like to neighborhood sustainability. Overlays aren’t new. Tucson has been using zoning overlays as planning tools for decades. An original overlay, the Historic Preservation Zone is well liked. The newest one, the Main Gate Urban Overlay District became an icon to mistrust in public process. City planners passed a UOD fast track enabling ordinance in 2010. Its reasons were mixed. Infill conditions for a 63 million dollar federal streetcar grant was one. Other reasons are downtown infill, a needed warehouse district, a desire to add density along arterial edges and the fallout of the deepest real estate recession since 1929.
After 2009-2010, new core infill projects took hold. The Main Gate Urban Overlay District and an IID[1], “The District on 5th”, project were examples where public process didn’t work well. The way they were executed damaged public perception of overlays. An unintended consequence was that these large-scale infill projects have catalyzed an emerging resolve for neighborhood leaders to pursue a real citizen based planning strategy. Where old area plans and promises have failed, neighborhood leaders are now asking for hands on control in planning the outcome of infill and its impact.
Since the 2008 real estate crash, neighborhood leaders have been reacting to overlay projects, RTA plans, mini dorms, the general plan and the defunding of neighborhood planning resources. One budget casualty was Pro Neighborhoods. They were able to award a last and significant grant to Jefferson Park Neighborhood for a neighborhood symposium. Its goal; to review what leaders see as inadequate public process. The event attracted organizations that included CORE BaNC, the Infill Coalition, the Ward 3 Alliance, the Broadway Coalition and many neighborhood activists. Over 40 organized neighborhoods were represented at their 1st meeting on January 26th, 2013.
Then on March 4th, 2013, at the Randolph Park Community Meeting Room, neighborhood leaders spontaneously converged with city planners to vent, just short of a rage. It flared off with a cannon shot of issues, all related to the future of planning in the core of Tucson. A revealing point of discussion was the subject of a neighborhoods planning commission. It was suggested as a way to have a decisive voice in planning the core. It is an idea that has been casually circulating between neighborhood leaders essentially wanting to re-shape neighborhood planning and sustainability. Response ranged from having a neighborhood planning commission hands tied to open meeting rules to challenges in having enough grassroots representation. When a planner brought up the maze of old area plans and a need for updates and new plans, the idea was met with angst. Changing area plans will be hard. The perception is that area plans mean something. Unfortunately, that translates to hard work and broken promises. What is clear, however, is that now is the time to change the way neighborhood leaders get involved with core planning.
The obvious challenge is that neighborhood planning involvement is an intimidating specter. It would appear that the resolve to move forward with this has to emerge from a willingness to do two things. Neighborhood leaders would have to engage in detailed planning efforts that ensure core neighborhood sustainability and do it in a way that allows edge development. Neighborhood leaders and developers have to think outside the box. We all would need to understand the impact of neighborhood design parameters on both the quality of living and infill. We all need to understand this from the vantage point of plans that illustrate this block by block. If core neighborhoods engage this vision, their voice will have credibility. On the other hand, a hands-off approach has shown us that intrusive infill development and demolition usually win while neighborhood sustainability loses. Paving a path for sustainable single-family occupancy to an urbanized 21st Century Tucson vision is a job yet to be faced.
Community planning efforts since 2010 have addressed visions along these lines; we just cannot figure out how to get there with out losing the neighborhoods we want to preserve. Compact neighborhoods, for example is a “Plan Tucson” concept of a modernized and a more urban living environment. It’s a great idea on paper, but how do we get there? We know from experience that design is difficult to mandate. A spontaneous accretion of mini-dorm compounds in the absence of a plan can be a poor example of the IGT’s compact neighborhoods concept.
So, we know that 2012 and the start of 2013 were and are heavily pre-occupied with a community wide push to complete the Imagine Greater Tucson (IGT) vision statement and the Plan Tucson’s[2]comprehensive 10 year planning policy statement for Tucson. Although these plans have created a broad vision and policy, they are challenged to define neighborhood empowerment in planning the core and setting the stage for an acceptable transition. They fall short of embedding or alluding to predictability and necessary financial tools to assure sustainability. This is further complicated by fee concessions given to developers[3]. These two community plan efforts have extracted an enormous commitment of energy and resources from Tucson citizens and are moving forward without a policy for neighborhood empowerment in planning and the required logistical support. The IGT and Plan Tucson efforts still leave a want for a neighborhood based sustainable planning model. It’s unlikely that citizens want to let another 10 years pass with addressing a sustainable core neighborhood plan.
[1] The IID is the broadly impacting infill incentive district that has been harshly criticized by neighborhood leaders because of the student housing project know as The District on 5th.
[2] Plan Tucson is a Tucson policy and vision based general plan that is targeted for completion in 2013. It has to be submitted to voter referendum every 10 years. Currently neighborhoods are criticizing it for a lack of voice in core planning and neighborhood sustainability. The IGT stands for Imagine a Greater Tucson and is a visioning exercise that has had broad support. It also has been criticized.
[3] According to Pima County Waste Water, sewer fees are now calculated based on the size of the water meter servicing a building, meaning more than a 60% decrease in collectable fees for luxury dorms. It is estimated that the first two highrise dorms at Euclid and Speedway and the District on 5th are paying us 2.4 million dollars less than they would have 2 years ago. This is approximately $1300 less per bed based on the fixture ratio that luxury dorms rely upon. It will also transfer some burden on small starter homes that will pay a larger amount than previously, based on a minimum of $4050 for a 5/8″ water meter, the smallest allowed. Although the new fee structure offers 30 to 60% discounts for most construction, the smallest one bath homes now pay 28% more to hook up than they did a year ago even though it was advertised as a savings for all. This direct revenue loss doesn’t factor in other fee concessions which should include an omission of targeted impact fees, linked to value added zoning additions such as height increases in overlays.
Bill Ford
Urban University Interface.com 
The District on 5th is an example of a pseudo public process that exactly achieves its goals. The Infill incentive District was created to short cut the normal re-zoning process by allowing projects that would have normally required variances or re-zonings to proceed with a single public meeting administrative process. The public process part isn’t a failure because it intentionally doesn’t exist.
When the Ward 6 councilor showed up at the Iron Horse Neighborhood Association meeting advising them to get on record as opposing the Junction project proposed for 9th St and 3rd Ave he wasn’t really painting the entire bleak picture for them. He was alluding to some mayor and council vote on the project. There isn’t one and there won’t be unless the neighborhood appeals what is likely to be an unfavorable decision by the director of the city of Tucson’s Planning and Development Services Department. The criteria the PDSD director must apply to the Modification of Development Regulations application are spelled out in the IID ordinance. There isn’t really any leeway.
This is the intent of the IID, to allow developers to proceed apace with their projects. No this isn’t a failed public policy in fact it’s an immensely successful one. We’ve already seen Derek Anderson and his fellow investors make a quick 16 million dollars when they flipped the District just after it opened this past fall. That’s what the IID was created for. To create wealth for investors.
One can only hope the Junction at Iron Horse is as successful. Fronted by a local, Roy Drachman and the newcomer to the team Keri Silvyn. The out of state investors have stated their intention to sell this project sometime after it is completed.
What’s that saying? You can have it fast, cheap or well done, pick 2 out of the 3. We know which 2 the City of Tucson chose.