TUBAC — When Nancy Diaz moved from Tucson to rural Amado in the 1960s, several people told her that rooftops would someday stretch from Tucson to Nogales.
"We said, 'Sure.' It sounded like a fairy tale," Diaz, 69, recalled last week as she stood on her six-acre lot along Interstate 19 ringed by her small home and two that she rents out.
Yet for many years, the vision of a near-unbroken line of homes was a growing reality, as development skipped past the San Xavier District of the Tohono O'dham Nation to Sahuarita and Green Valley. The Rancho Sahuarita, San Ignacio Vistas and Quail Creek developments were followed by Canoa Ranch in the Santa Cruz River Valley.
Northern Santa Cruz County, with its still-vibrant Santa Cruz River as well as ranches, art galleries, historic homes, bed-and- breakfasts and sweeping mountain vistas, was the next hot spot.
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But now, nothing seems inevitable along I-19, after voters Tuesday strongly defeated two proposed developments between Tubac and Amado that could house more residents than the city of Nogales.
All 23 county precincts voted against the projects — by 71 percent overall. That's even though developers raised $205,142 for the campaign through Oct. 15, compared with $43,613 for opponents.
The voters overturned comprehensive plan amendments for the Sopori Ranch and Las Mesas projects that were approved last year by the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors.
Officials of the development firms didn't return repeated phone calls from the Star last week, seeking comment on what they'll do now.
But for the next few years, at least, Tubac's character is likely to stay largely unchanged.
It will be diverse, with organic farms, dirt and paved roads, and large horse farms flanking newer, Spanish-looking houses that surround a bustling village center of aging adobe houses, restaurants, shops and galleries. It is flush with greenery, quaint and charming enough to merit a recent spread in The New York Times' travel section.
It is also expensive. The average Tubac home costs about $460,000, with more affordable homes in the Barrio de Tubac area costing $250,000 to $310,000, said Bill Mack, a Realtor who opposed the big Sopori Ranch and Las Mesas developments.
For now, it's going to be hard to get any big projects through the county's government, said Peggy Miller, president of the Green Valley-Sahuarita Association of Realtors.
"Eventually, everything changes, but it is going to be a long, hard fight," Miller said. "People there want to keep the community small. As far as Tubac is concerned, there is no grocery store down there — they have a little market; it's not much. The people down there have to travel to Rio Rico, Green Valley or Nogales to shop. It's a closed-niche group of people, and they don't want it to change.
"It's a a mini-, mini-Santa Fe," she added.
Those who fought the two projects deny an intent to stop growth. They point out that nearly 3,000 other homes already have been approved for the Tubac area, at densities generally lower than in Las Mesas and Sopori Ranch.
What they don't want is for Tubac to morph into a suburb with big-box stores and strip malls, they say.
"Everybody deserves to live where they want to live, and from the Northwest and the Northeast they come here," said opponent Frank Badolato, a 67-year-old produce broker who lives and boards horses in Tubac. "They come down as snowbirds. They build next to a guy who has animals. This is horse country, but they go to the local officials to complain about the horses.
"You want concrete. You want shopping centers. Why did you come here if you want to make it like everywhere else?" asked Badolato, who left his native Boston more than three decades ago.
Such attitudes will be hard to overcome, the other side said.
"I think what this did — it's going to give any person who wants to develop land down here second thoughts," said Manny Ruiz, chairman of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors.
"My concern is that as budgets shrink, we don't have the money needed to maintain our 900 miles of roads in this county," Ruiz said. "The developers in Tubac were going to build private roads. But if they have to build at the lower densities of the comprehensive plan, my concern in the future is they'll say, 'We'll build roads to county standards, and, under state law, you'll have to accept them.' "
For referendum organizer Lynn Carey, it made no sense to put projects this large so far from existing roads, police and fire stations and other infrastructure in Rio Rico and Nogales.
Last week's vote will put all Southern Arizona developers on notice that they must deal fairly with people living in an area slated for growth, and that existing residents can determine their future, said Carey, who moved to Tubac 15 years ago from Wisconsin.
"It won't be determined by people who come from outside the region to make a lot of money," said Carey, a 62-year-old Tubac Realtor.
The Arizona Constitution says the Legislature — which Carey interprets to mean in this case a Board of Supervisors — can't amend a citizen-generated referendum without a three-fourths margin. That translates to a 3-0 vote of the three-member Santa Cruz board, she said, when the board only voted 2-1 last year for the Las Mesas and Sopori Ranch plan amendments.
Hugh Holub, an attorney for the Las Mesas developers, disagrees with Carey over whether the requirement for the Legislature's approval can be applied to county supervisors. The Arizona Constitution's language on that point is ambiguous.
But looking long-term, Holub, a Southern Arizonan for more than 50 years and a one-time assistant Tucson city attorney, said that if residents want to preserve important land, "You have to go beyond arguing about zoning."
Holub, 62, lives in a century-old Tubac adobe home that he and his wife, artist Nancy Valentine, have spent more than two years restoring. Since his childhood, he has watched zoning fights drag on for decades. The only constant in the conflicts was that the battlegrounds keep moving farther out from Tucson.
But 25 years ago, he recalled, he persuaded a Southeast Side developer to sell a stretch of Cienega Creek to Pima County at the price the developer had paid for it. That was the start of a county greenbelt that has kept spreading around Tucson's southern edges.
"The real deal is putting areas into public ownership that the public wants to save," said Holub. "In 20 years, the battles will begin again with a new cast of characters, and the political climate changes. The hard line around the sprawl keeps getting busted."
But the realization that Santa Cruz County lacks money to acquire large open-space parcels led to the county's comprehensive plan that has low-density recommendations for the Tubac and Amado areas, said Bruce Pheneger, a Tubac architect.
"We look forward to developers coming to our community," said Rich Bohman, a Tubac custom-home builder who, like Pheneger, supported the referendum drive. "We just want it to be in keeping with our comprehensive plan."
Vote breakdown
Across Santa Cruz County, the projects were opposed by:
• 58 percent to 73 percent of voters in 11 Nogales precincts.
• About 90 percent of Elgin voters.
• 85 percent of Tubac and Amado voters.
• 63 percent to 70 percent of Rio Rico voters.
• 75 percent to 84 percent of Patagonia voters.
Source: Santa Cruz County Elections Division
