Water-service exception possible

If city water does come to 54 lots near Camino del Cerro just east of the national park, it will be the first exception to City Manager Mike Hein's no-extension policy since he announced it at a December 2007 City Council meeting.

Residents say that will end several years of hardship, including sputtering wells that forced some to haul in water themselves, while others delayed building homes on their lots.

Homeowner David Christian, for one, doesn't see why water availability here should be an issue. "This isn't Mexico; this is the United States," he said.

But the water will not arrive without controversy in these rolling, cactus-studded hills.

The delivery is being fought by the preservationist Tucson Mountains Association, which fears the water will lead to more development in open desert on far fringes of the urban area. The group says it would set a precedent, allowing other landowners outside the city limits to get water.

City officials, however, say the area, lying a half mile or less from the national park, is "grandfathered" — meaning it falls under the old rules — because one of the landowners submitted a master plan for city water before the policy began.

Critics wonder why that won't open the door to another Tucson Mountains development, Painted Hills, to also win Tucson Water service based on past actions, despite being turned down by the city.

The Camino del Cerro neighbors learned the hard way that there are no guarantees when it comes to getting water in the desert.

Eleven years ago, Kurt Peterson bought 3.3 acres and had a home built amid the stately saguaros. He and four neighbors drilled a well that ultimately went 800 to 900 feet deep. For 18 months, the well worked fine, but it eventually went dry.

Since then, he and his neighbors have hauled water by truck to their homes, at a cost of up to $9,000 annually.

The residents would now pay about $1.3 million, about $25,000 per lot owner, to build a water line winding nearly three miles up and down dirt roads before connecting with an existing city line serving other homes.

City officials want to buy 1.1 acres on which the landowners could build a small reservoir and booster station to serve their homes with water. The city may build a 160,000-gallon reservoir on that land in the future to provide more reliable water flows for 500 existing water customers in the area.

The reservoir isn't on a city long-range capital improvement plan, meaning there's no timetable for construction of it.

The City Council had been scheduled to vote last Tuesday on the land buy. Construction of the water line and other facilities is slated to start in the spring.

But Ward 1 Councilwoman Regina Romero got the item delayed for what is likely to be a few weeks. Romero already has pushed to keep the city from serving water to ecologically sensitive areas such as the Painted Hills development.

"The bottom line is that we have to look at this and make sure that this decision does not affect our greater water policy," Romero said. "I want to make sure that Tucson Mountains Association's questions are answered and my questions are answered."

Tucson Water officials say this project falls under an exception to Hein's policy, which was never put in writing. The exception is for new development that had a previous contractual obligation with the city to get water, they say.

That obligation exists because one landowner had submitted a water-service master plan for five lots on 39 acres in February 2007, officials say. Landowner Hays Kirby later joined with the remaining landowners to form a new corporation to get water to the 54 lots.

Last year the larger group submitted an amended master plan. The city approved it in July.

Although the neighbors' plan hadn't been approved before the Hein policy began, and although the second plan was filed under a different name, the city is obliged to serve this area, said Chris Avery, Tucson Water's interim deputy director.

The submission of the original plan carried with it an obligation to approve it if that first plan met city design standards, Avery said.

"A master plan isn't a simple yes or no process," Avery said. "A party submits a master plan, a reviewer comments and then that party amends it and may decide to make more amendments. It's not that you get just one shot at a master plan and you don't get it exactly right and you are out.

"In this case, all the revisions happened during the relevant time period, and they submitted an amended plan within a year of submitting the original one," Avery said.

The water infrastructure that will be built is substantially the same under the current plan as under the original plan, Avery said.

Those words sound like smoke and mirrors to Judith Meyer, the Tucson Mountains Association's president.

She's particularly concerned that if this water-service project goes through, it will open the door for the larger and in her eyes more destructive Painted Hills development to get city water far to the south of the Camino del Cerro area. Painted Hills sits on nearly 300 acres near where Speedway and Anklam roads merge to form Gates Pass Road. A Texas-based developer plans to put 285 homes there.

Last year the city turned down Painted Hills' water-service request, citing the new city policy, although Tucson Water had previously written the Painted Hills developer a letter assuring it of water service.

Avery said that water-assurance letter had expired, which he contrasted with the Camino del Cerro landowner master-plan proposal that had not expired.

"I don't see where the Camino del Cerro folks have any contractual obligations with the city," Meyer countered. "Their master plan had never been authorized or approved. This guy Kirby Hays filed a master plan. … They said 'no' to his proposal. Where is the contractual obligation?

"If I were the attorney for the Painted Hills folks, I'd be all over the city with an equal-protection claim if they went forward," Meyer said.

Keri Sylvyn, Painted Hills' attorney, said she "would be interested in hearing the city's justification" for serving Camino del Cerro and not her client's project, but otherwise she didn't have enough information to comment.

Her clients are preparing for a possible lawsuit against the city, but "obviously if there's a way to get water without filing a lawsuit, we're all for it," she said.

For Camino del Cerro property owners and residents such as Peterson and Realtor Shirlee "Yoyo" Yocum, water delivery to their area would represent the end of a long, hard road.

Some have tried since 2001 to get a more reliable water supply. An effort to form a community water district to pay for the improvements failed in 2005.

The lack of secure water has stopped nearly half the area's lot owners from building there.

Yocum's home lies on 11 acres in the area. She owns three other lots nearby that she someday may want to develop. "Our well started at 25 gallons per minute and is now one-quarter or one-half gallon per minute, if that."

David Christian closed on his property about a year ago. He got a bank loan to build a home after getting a November 2007 city notice that he would get city water service, he said.

Now, the house is nearly done and he will move in soon. But to his consternation, he will be forced to haul in water.