Local opinion: Tucson corridor rezoning will have far-reaching effects

On Tuesday, Tucson’s City Council is poised to move full speed ahead on its next major proposal — a citywide rezoning along major street corridors that will have far-reaching and potentially devastating impacts on existing neighborhoods.

This major rezoning is being promoted under the guise of trying to improve the housing situation; but in fact, there are no requirements for housing to be included in these new developments, and no requirements for affordable housing.

The proposal affects thousands of properties and would effectively allow 6-story buildings to be built within 50 feet of existing single-family residences, while 4-story buildings could be built within 30 feet.

The new zoning also proposes to allow developers to include on-street parking in adjacent neighborhoods as part of their required parking, which will substantially increase traffic in affected neighborhoods.

In the new zoning proposal, city staff would determine how much parking is required for each project. But in the past, the city has struggled to identify how much parking to require, as it did with the Benedictine Sanctuary development on Country Club Rd. In that rezoning, the city failed to require enough parking, which led to the demolition of several adjacent buildings to make way for a new parking lot.

If the Benedictine property had been developed under this new code, 6 story buildings could have been built instead of the 3, 4 and 5 story buildings that were constructed, and a substantial portion of the required parking would have been shifted to the adjacent neighborhood streets.

The lack of respect for existing neighborhoods in this proposal is punctuated by the failure to notify owners of affected properties, thereby eliminating public participation in any kind of process. Given that city staff will now have wide latitude to interpret much of the new code, it is not hard to see how staff will only be lobbied by the developer, long before residents even know about a proposed project.

To treat all aspects of transportation corridors in the same way suggests a lack of vision; development intensity would be better thought of as nodes, not corridors, with greater intensification at major intersections. A clear example that this concept has not been fully developed is that properties adjacent to the intersections of major arterial streets near the freeway are treated the same way as mid-block properties on collector streets within historic neighborhoods.

There has simply not been enough dialogue within the community on this radical restructuring of the zoning code. With a change this significant, there will almost certainly be unintended consequences that have far-reaching implications.

For example, the property that was formerly Rincon Market at the intersection of 6th Street and Tucson Blvd. could have a 6-story building developed on the property, with parking spread throughout the neighboring streets. You might think that no one would demolish a structure at the heart of a neighborhood — but the increased value of the property as a result of the new zoning, coupled with the demand for housing near the university, would provide the financial incentive needed. And the property’s historic status does not prevent a developer from using this new zoning tool.

Unbelievably, the zoning also makes no allowances to protect riparian zones from dense development; 6 story buildings could be built on properties directly adjacent to the Tanque Verde Wash and the buildings themselves could theoretically be located within the riparian zone.

A few members of the Planning and Zoning Commission at a recent meeting asked why this wasn’t being proposed on a trial basis or in a more targeted way, and the response from city staff was a surprising slip of the truth — they did not want to be in the business of selecting “winners and losers” — a stunning acknowledgement that if this kind of development occurs next door to you, you lose.