More than three years after buying land associated with one of the state's most controversial developments, the owners of La Osa Ranch are taking their time deciding what — and how much — to build on the 18,300-acre property.
"We've just been spending the last couple of years learning the property," said H. Pike Oliver, senior vice president of Tempe-based W Holdings. "We're still doing our research. We're getting to the point where we know enough about the properties … where we might be able to put together a development plan."
What the plan is for La Osa is still unclear, Oliver said, though he knows one thing for certain: what becomes of the land will be far less massive than what its previous owner envisioned.
Pinal changed land-use plan
Development of La Osa became an issue in late 2003, when Scottsdale developer George Johnson got Pinal County to change its land-use plan to allow nearly 67,000 housing units that could have eventually brought up to 175,000 people to the area.
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Johnson, who came under intense scrutiny for allegedly blading ancient Hohokam sites at La Osa and introducing goats onto the property that led to the death of bighorn sheep in the neighboring Ironwood National Monument, eventually sold La Osa in the summer of 2004 to ABCDW LLC, one of five companies associated with W Holdings.
Since then, W Holdings has been conducting archaeological, biological, cultural and hydrological studies on the land to help determine how to properly and safely develop it.
"We want to be accurate when we have our plan," Oliver said. "This property is a very long-term property."
Eloy intends to annex La Osa
Changes might not be so long-term, however, based on action taken earlier this month by the city of Eloy.
On Jan. 14 the Eloy City Council approved a plan by City Manager Joe Blanton to expand Eloy's municipal planning area from 327 square miles to 545 square miles, extending its planning boundaries south to the Pima-Pinal County line and taking in all of La Osa's many non-connected parcels.
Blanton said Eloy intends to annex La Osa, though he is unsure how long that process would take. He said work already is being done on other annexations to get the city's southern border closer to La Osa's northernmost part.
Having La Osa become part of the city makes sense for Eloy for two reasons, Blanton said.
First, Pinal County has made it clear it wants its towns and cities to grab land slated for development, rather than have new homes pop up in unincorporated territory.
Second, Eloy's transportation studies include possibly building an arterial bypass route to its south that would require cooperation with landowners to acquire right-of-way.
"They've certainly been at the table in our transportation planning," Blanton said of La Osa representatives. "Being directly below the city of Eloy and having 18,000 acres, we knew they were going to have an impact on our transportation system."
Blanton said population estimates made recently by the Central Arizona Association of Governments call for Eloy to someday be home to 1.1 million people, not including what could end up happening with La Osa.
Eloy isn't the only municipality interested in how La Osa is developed.
On Dec. 18, the Marana Town Council approved a general plan update that included expanding its planning area to include a chunk of southern Pinal County that includes, among other things, Pinal Airpark and the eastern end of La Osa. That means Marana's planning area overlaps part of Eloy's.
"We want to know what's happening in those areas because it may affect the kind of services or infrastructure that we have now," Marana planner Paul Popelka said. "The easternmost part of La Osa is certainly much closer to Marana and would have more impact on Marana."
Oliver asked Marana not to include any part of La Osa within the town's planning area, writing the town and speaking at a council meeting. He said it makes more sense to deal with just one jurisdiction when planning La Osa's future, and Eloy is his company's preference.
"Eloy is interested in, or willing to undertake, planning all of the La Osa Ranch properties," Oliver said. "There's a certain kind of geographic logic with Eloy's planning boundaries."
Marana Mayor Ed Honea said his town has no interest in annexing La Osa but feels Marana should still be included in talks about what goes on there.
"We want to have some influence," Honea said. "Eloy is about 20 miles away from the area we put in the planning document, and we're right there."
The overlap of planning areas — roughly 15 square miles — won't cause problems, Blanton said.
"Planning-area boundaries are kind of just a line in the sand," Blanton said. "There are no legal issues with them."
Sensitive archaeological area
Though it's not in Pima County, what happens with La Osa Ranch is still a concern for members of the Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection.
"This is an area that is directly adjacent to Ironwood Forest National Monument," coalition Executive Director Carolyn Campbell said. "It's about the most sensitive and rich archaeological area in the country."
Much of the eastern part of La Osa falls within the flood plain of the Santa Cruz River and would need to be protected, Campbell said.
And the incident involving the goats that infected bighorn sheep "shows how close this development could be to sensitive areas," she said.
"Even at 45,000 people, that is a big impact to an area of this kind of sensitivity," said Campbell, who doesn't know whether Eloy is equipped to plan for the environmental part of such a potentially large-scale project. "That's a big question mark as to what Eloy would do."
Oliver, of W Holdings, said his company expects to have large portions of La Osa set aside for open space to protect wildlife and riparian areas.
Additionally, he said, an agreement has already been made with the Western Air National Guard Aviation Training Site that would severely limit the amount of development in areas the military currently flies over for training missions.
"With 18,500 acres of land, with the Santa Cruz, there's really an opportunity to make this an environmentally-sensitive project," Blanton said. "They want to make sure it's done right. What I'm getting is they're spending a lot of time making sure the George Johnson influence has been wiped clean."
