The Pima County Board of Supervisors rejected a proposed $900 million development which would have brought 6,100 homes, two golf courses, a hotel and an airstrip to an area 30 miles from downtown Tucson. This is the first time in 25 years the county voted down a major rezoning proposal.
Ray Carroll, a county supervisor who opposed the project, said the vote represented a “paradigm shift” for the county from a longtime pro-growth philosophy to one favoring more restrained suburban expansion.
Instead, the county will adopt a desert conservation plan which will preserve the area, preventing it from filling with suburbanized tract homes and strip malls.
James Kuleish, of the American Subcontractors Association of Tucson, voiced the usual warning of impending doom, “A crisis is on the horizon. You’re telling the community your plan is for no growth, no jobs, no paychecks.”
The county has enough land zoned for housing to accommodate another 400,000 people or so by 2020, when the current 823,000 county population reaches about 875,000.
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