Posted in On-going Action, Politics and Editorials on May 22, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Tucson Residents for Responsive Government was an outgrowth of meetings during summer 2013 sponsored by Tucson’s Neighborhood Infill Coalition. These meetings werean outgrowth of the Urban Neighborhood Symposium a year earlier which culminated in a white paper, that led sparked interest in a coalition. The 2013 summer workshops that followed, produced a foundation document called This We Believe. In May of 2014, the BY-LAWS for TRRG was written and later accepted.
Posted in Infill, On-going Action on June 15, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Since the real estate crash more than 500 million dollars has poured in the core of Tucson fueled by commercial incentives like the Infill Incentive District (IID). Now, core residents are concerned about impact and would like to see a different kind of incentive for infill and edge development that serves to stabilize and not harm their neighborhoods. They would also like their own brand of incentives. Here’s what’s happenings:
July 22, DSC, basement Room C @ 6:00PM. 3rd Planning Commission IID Subcommittee to revise the Infill Incentive District. This deals with concerns of impact to neighborhoods from infill development. A 4th meeting is tentatively scheduled for September 9th.
July 13, Ward 6 office, 9AM to 12PM. The Neighborhood Infill Coalition (NIC) is hosting the 2nd neighborhood workshop to seek consensus for neighborhood unity. Attending will be neighborhood coalitions, leaders and residents. This follows the 2012 neighborhood symposium, and 3 subsequent resident-staff discussions.
Posted in Edges and Overlays, Main Gate UOD, On-going Action, Politics and Editorials on April 2, 2013| Leave a Comment »
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. Click here to view the rest of the article.
Posted in Edges and Overlays, IGT, On-going Action, RTA on February 17, 2013| Leave a Comment »
IGT (Imagine a Greater Tucson) is a desire for greatness, but is it any more than just a wish? Will it be Tucson’s voice? Will it be a voice of planning reason as Tucson moves into its future? For an update on the IGT results, view their website. http://www.imaginegreatertucson.org/what-is-igt/ As the IGT project comes to completion, we can look back at over two years of community work. Last May, 2012, at the College of Architecture, Urbanist and Architect, Corky Poster brought up some good things in a defining keynote address. He discussed alternative modes of transportation, surgically installed density sectors, form based building design, planned housing @ IGT densities and neighborhood respect… Click here to read the rest of this article.
Posted in Conversations, Edges and Overlays, On-going Action on October 22, 2012| Leave a Comment »
“Imagine Greater Tucson (IGT) released the results of its 2-year study, Looking Forward, A Vision for a Greater Tucson Region. PlanTucson is winding up its citizen participation phase of the City’s writing of a new General Plan for the coming ten-year period. I would expect that City staff will be looking at the IGT document as one source of data to consider. One of IGT’s nine principles is Quality Neighborhoods. On p. 19, eight values for them are listed. The three I find most relevant to mid-town, and, therefore, most in need of specific clarification, are…” Ruth Beeker. CLICK on Imagine Getting Compacted to read the rest of Ruth’s article. Many believe that the IGT and Plan Tucson are generalized goals. In the eyes of core neighborhood leaders, the correct vision has to emerge from their impacted communities. Pro Neighborhoods a long time Tucson community foundation was victim of recent budget cuts. It’s last funded project is a Neighborhood Symposium Project; presented by Jefferson Park Neighborhood. It’s panel presentation is set for January 26th, 2013. The focus is on neighborhoods and a strong voice of direction in their future. The next planning meeting is on Monday, October 29th, 7pm, at the International School of Tucson, 1701 E Seneca.
Posted in Edges and Overlays, Main Gate UOD, On-going Action on March 29, 2012| Leave a Comment »
An Open Letter to Mayor Jonathan Rothschild Regarding the Overlay Ordinance (Tucson Weekly Article) “As I read through the new ordinance, it struck me that it could easily have been written by developers”…Click on title for rest of this telling piece by Cathleen Shirley.
Many core neighborhoods are on fire to see West University Neighborhood succeed in their petition drive to repeal what they see as a dangerous precedent for the debut of UOD re-zoning in Tucson. An understanding is setting in as to why the current public process hasn’t worked. The Main Gate UOD is Tucson’s debut for what is essentially a new tool for planners to insert large tracts of re-zoning along main roads and within targeted or “blighted” areas. This inaugural effort gives away the farm for a corporate plan. Several other UOD’s are lined up at the gate to also be adopted. Tucson needs to get this one right. Sending Tucson’s first UOD to ballot box is a citizen process. It is a difficult and challenging way to exercise a voice, but necessary if we want this to be for Tucson. Let’s hope the Mayor and Council appreciate its constituents for taking the heat off of them and asking the questions they couldn’t.
Posted in Main Gate UOD, On-going Action, Preservation on March 5, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Land Use Code, On-going Action on November 8, 2011| Leave a Comment »
The LUC simplification project is probably not simple but it is has been ongoing for almost 2 years. It is intended to clean up the current LUC piece by piece until it fits a vision for a prop-2007 proof land use code that better fits Tucson’s emerging development paradigm. Paradoxically, a totally new and modern zoning code, the Unified Development Code (UDC) is emerging right by its side. Wierd? Not so!… It is being designed to ultimately replace the LUC. The LUC will remain as a pre-proposition 2007 alternative to the UDC, long enough to deal with lingering “prop-207” challenges that are expected to impact the UDC. Ladd Keith perhaps explains the motives behind all of this in his blog, what’s next for cities & urbanism.
Posted in Edges and Overlays, On-going Action, Preservation on June 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »
On June 21st, Jefferson Park Neighborhood Association (JPNA) succeeded in becoming Tucson’s 2nd pilot Neighborhood Preservation Zone (NPZ) by adoption of the Jefferson Park Design Manual (JPDM) You can view in PDF by clicking here. Council members Uhlich, Scott and Romero argued effectively to protect core neighborhoods and pass the manual, while Council member Kozachik and Mayor Walkup showed remorse over the JPDM’s omission of a density strategy along arterial edges. Considering both good and bad, the vote was unanimous. While, we are a step closer to saving the heart of residential zoning uses around the university, planners and stakeholders have a mandate to come up with the right answer for edge density and diversity. In the coming weeks, this issue will get hotter, as a key vote by the board of adjustment will reverberate through out core neighborhoods. The ruling to enforce proper residential uses is under appeal and is scheduled to be publicly heard by the Board of Adjustment. If the ruling survives, neighborhoods will still need targeted incentives and policies that will assure stable investment in their university homes. In fact, several JPNA residents stated they were holding off on property improvements until passage of the JPDM. Now, more than ever, neighborhood representatives and developers would like to see a comprehensive housing vision with a clear edge strategy. Councilman Kozachik stated after the adoption of the JPDM, regarding mixed uses and targeted zoning density along major roadways, that “…this is critical to protecting the interiors of our neighborhoods from non-conforming and incompatible building…” One could say that implies a pro-active city government that can play a lead in the mandate for a cohesive venture between the University, the City of Tucson, the Core Community and developers to save what is left of our core neighborhoods. Please click on Arizona Daily Star’s editorial.
Posted in Conversations, Ideas, Land Use Code, On-going Action, Politics and Editorials on April 7, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Tucson residents don’t want to imagine exploding gas prices in a typical sun belt city designed to rely on lots of roads. That day of reckoning is moving upon us and the message is fewer cars and more sustainability. These notions might reflect in current trends to provide student housing that will rely on the modern street car and other public transportation. The University of Arizona recently reached a goal to house freshman students on campus. Now, developers want to tap into the rest of the market for high density sustainable housing projects with one of the first, looking to be The District at UA. Not withstanding, the anxiety of homeowners, West University Neighborhood is particularly unhappy with it because its edge relationship with the neighborhood is too abrupt. That is simply, an omission of planning that the UA and City of Tucson choose to ignore. Nonetheless, the District still speaks more of an urbanized housing future than popular inefficient alternatives. This is a question about the balance between an urbanized university and its neighbors.
The market driver is the 30 thousand perennial UA students scattered around a few dozen neighborhoods. They are a shifting market geared towards much less driving. That begs the question; will the vacuum that this shift creates, be in-filled with better and more stable single family housing around the U of A. As vehicle-free high density housing projects are built, market pressure will lessen to build vehicle dependent group home style mini-dorms, which lease as fast as they are built right now; to make a point. They are the antithesis of sustainable student housing. Now, as the City of Tucson sees it, group homes are not actually a residential use in its recent zoning determination. The alternative scenario is more urbanized student housing solutions and re-vitalized single family zones surrounding the U of A.
On a bigger planning level, Tucson’s latest vision project, Imagine Greater Tucson (IGT), actually introduced a survey of what Tucson citizens want to see happen to the greater Tucson region at the Marriot Hotel on April 7th. Out of (9) focus areas, the University of Arizona and the subject of Urban Planning were (2) of these. Our problems are all around us. Its a matter of identifying and solving them, unlike Tucson’s past vision exercises.
Posted in Land Use Code, On-going Action on August 23, 2010| Leave a Comment »
The downtown core district is an overlay of the Infill Incentive Zone with a variety of incentives that simplify or eliminate current provisions in the land use code, particularly parking, landscaping and loading zones. As such these overlay incentives are being proposed as an amendment to the Infill Incentive Zone. The DCD Draft can be downloaded and viewed here in PDF. On August 18th the City of Tucson Planning Commission forwarded the draft to Mayor and Council for adoption with a revision to maintain portions of the NPPO ordinance in drainage corridors that run though the district. The overlay boundaries of the DCD are concentrated in the core of downtown Tucson with its northern edge a couple blocks north of some run down commercial sites along Stone/6th/9th Ave and 5th/6th streets. Stone in particular is considered a gateway. The Downtown LINKS project overlays these gateway points.
One small remaining roadblock to development downtown are high cost of city revocable right of way use easements along downtown sidewalks that start @ $5000 plus annual renewals had not been adequately addressed. This type of easement applies to things like a café using portions of wide sidewalks with right of ways for outside European style seating, marquee signage, canopies, etc…
Posted in Conversations, Ideas, On-going Action on April 29, 2010| Leave a Comment »
The university a
rea community, developers, and planners are invited to an informal meeting at the Ward 6 office, 3202 East 1st Street, on May 4th @ 7:30Pm, large meeting room, to explore the future of neighborhoods surrounding our University and its downtown linkages. The ward 6 office is just south of Walgreens, east of Country Club on 1st street. See you there. This is a privately initiated meeting forum and not a Ward 6 initiative. People with diverse knowledge of UA neighborhoods and development have been invited to share opinions. There will some brief summaries and discussion on the City of Tucson’s recent downtown initiatives, neighborhood concern relative to the status of contextual preservation and how the new NPZ ordinance is working or not working, the University of Arizona’s master plan, edges, and more. The focus is on an Urban University Interface; stabilizing edges vis-a-vis complimentary private expression of urban form that ultimately enhances preservation of our neighborhoods. What do you want to see happen? What are we preserving? What are our options? How do we get this ball get rolling? See intent statement.
Posted in Land Use Code, On-going Action on April 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »
April 28th, 2010 –
On the 9th of March, 2010, City of Tucson planning staff was directed to analyze the concept of a Downtown Core District. You can download and view a PDF of an April 27th mayor and council memorandum; Potential Downtown Core District Analysis, which summarizes the mechanics of achieving this overlay.
Posted in Modern Street Car, On-going Action on March 8, 2010| 1 Comment »
“Tucson received a federal allocation of $63 million for the University/downtown streetcar. It is anticipated that this project will generate at least $1 billion of private investment. Things are happening! The urban street car project is estimated to create 2,850 jobs over 19 industries as a result of the project’s construction.”
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Bill Ford
Urban University Interface.com 
