DRAFT
SDCP - Steering Committee
Sheraton Four Points
6:00pm to 9:00pm
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
Meeting Notes
Participants: See attached sign-in sheet David Steele.
Documents made available to the Steering Committee members at the study session:
* Agendas
* Newspaper Articles from Doug McVie
* Issues Matrix-Updated
Study Session Commenced at 6:00pm
Study session commenced with 16 Steering Committee members and 2 members of the general public. By 7:25 there were 18 Steering Committee members and 3 members of the general public. David Steele opened by introducing himself, reviewing the ground rules and reviewing the agenda. It was noted that the correct date for the Ad-Hoc meeting was Monday, December 16, although there is an Ad-Hoc meeting scheduled for Monday, January 13.
Logistics for the next Meeting:
Wednesday, January 8, 2003
6:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Pima County Public Works Bldg. Rm. 'C'
201 N. Stone
Logistics for the next Ad-Hoc Subcommittee meeting:
Monday, December 16, 2002
9:30 am to 11:30 am
Arizona Builders' Alliance
1661 N. Swan Road
Suite 144
Administrative Matters:
Document distribution
Many Steering Committee members have requested to receive meeting materials via email. As a result, Steering Committee members may opt to have meeting materials emailed to them as well as receive hard copies via US mail. Sign-up sheets will be available at the next meeting.
Call to the Public: None.
Meeting with Legislators and other Policy makers
At the December 7th meeting the Steering Committee requested that David find out the best date for legislators to attend a meeting with the Steering Committee. Following the Steering Committee's directive, David proposed two different dates to the legislators, February 1st or February 15th both are Saturdays.
· While some members felt the legislators should come down for a Saturday meeting, other members requested that the Steering Committee consider the option that the Steering Committee make a trip up to Phoenix to meet with the legislators.
· Although most members opted for the February 1st, other members felt there should be no more scheduled meetings dedicated to meeting with the legislators, but that a meeting should be added as the December 11th meeting was added. February 8th was suggested as a possible date for an additional study session.
· Other members felt that perhaps the Steering Committee should vote to have one mandatory meeting added so as many Steering Committee members as possible would attend the meeting with the legislators, and in addition, that perhaps some members whom have never attended should be removed.
· The point of clarification was made that the Steering Committee did not have the authority to remove Steering Committee members that do not attend. Attendance is reported to the Clerk of the Board and the Board of Supervisors decides who will be removed for unacceptable attendance.
· While the idea to make the meeting mandatory was not accepted by the Steering Committee members present as a possible recommendation to be made to the entire Steering Committee at a meeting, the idea of adding a study session was accepted as a recommendation to be made to the SteeringCommittee for voting at the January 8th meeting.
· After this discussion David committed to speaking with the Southern Arizona legislators and suggesting Saturday, February 1st as a possible meeting date. He would then report his findings to the Steering Committee on January 8th. The Steering Committee would also decide at the January 8th meeting whether or not to add an additional study session.
David put together an agenda based upon the discussions the Steering Committee had in November. The proposed agenda consists of introductory comments, overview and background of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, stakeholder views, business and development interests, environmental and neighborhood interests, and ranching interests, the 3 broader categories would do the presentations, then a Q & A with a larger panel. There would be a presentation of issues, if the Steering Committee were able to decide on specific issues to present to the legislators. Followed by an additional question and answer period, a call to the public, then an adjournment, then an opportunity for informal discussion.
· Some members requested a format so that the meeting moved at a more swift and organized pace.
· Other members recommended fixed time slots so that there would be sufficient time allotted for questions and answers.
Possible Issues to Address at meeting with Legislators and other Policy makers
Steering Committee member Gayle Hartmann suggested the easier and less controversial issues like the Heritage Fund, Arizona Preserve Initiative, and Conservation Easements be presented first thus allowing more time for the harder issues like the County Lotteries, Transfer of Development Rights and Private Property Rights. The Steering Committee discussed each issue individually and had the author of each discussion paper make a small presentation. The presentation was on David's laptop and he was making changes as the Steering Committee suggested them.
Heritage Fund-Lisa Stage: The Heritage Fund was established because the voters in Arizona recognized that funding for open space, parks management, cultural, historical preservation, is one of the first things to get cut. They wanted to set up a permanent funding source just for those things. They did that. The state legislature and the governor's office have continued over time to try to take money out of that specified fund and use it for the general fund or other spending purposes. So basically what I'm proposing is that we ask the legislators to please respect that the Heritage Fund, what it was set up for, and to not try to raid it to balance the budget. The basis of the sentence is, "we request the legislator respect the will of the voters and to maintain the Heritage Fund intact." The rest of it is just supporting clauses.
· Steering Committee therefore requests that the legislator abide by the will of voters when they established the Heritage Fund in 1990 and maintain the Heritage funding as restricted funding and intact for the purposes for which it was established.
Arizona Preserve Initative-Gayle Hartmann: The Arizona Preserve Initiative was passed in 1996. The goal of the law is to encourage the preservation of select parcels of state trust land in and around urban areas. I'm not going to go through what's eligible, that's sort of nit-picky stuff. The application procedure is sort of complicated. But the whole purpose of having this here is because, if you look at the bottom of the page, it talks about the parcels, the API applications in Pima County that have been submitted to the state. Catalina State Park expansion, Tortolita Alluvial Fan, etc., Tortolita Mountain Park, Tortolita Mountain East Biological Corridor, Tucson Mountains and west side of Tumamoc Hill. And with the exception of the Tumamoc Hill parcel, none of these have gone forward. They've been stuck on the state land commissioner's desk, unfortunately. I should add that with Growing Smarter money, 50% of the money to pay for these comes out of state funds and the county supplies the other 50% which at the moment has to come out of the 1997 open space bond and there is 7 million left in that. So the purpose of having this discussion with the legislators, at least my thought was 2 things. If you look on the back of your little piece of paper here it sort of explains them. One is to just explain to new legislators really what the API is and how it's intended to function. Because I suspect many of them won't know this too well. And secondly, to encourage them, particularly the southern Arizona legislators, to work with the state land department or help us to work with the state land department and we hope with the new state land commissioner so that the preserve initiative can benefit conservation efforts in Pima County. Now I should say, this is sort of a political comment, but I think it's necessary to say it, that within the last couple weeks there has been movement. There has been a change here. The state land commissioner has actually agreed to move forward on one of these large parcels, the Tortolita Mountain Park expansion, the 4500 acre one, the one to the east of the Tortolita Mountains.
* The Steering Committee recommends that Pima County, actually encourage legislators to help us in working with the state land department so that the Arizona Preserve Initiative can benefit conservation efforts in Pima County.
* For the members' information, the county can make an API filing at any time and it is irrespective of jurisdiction.
* The point was made that the Steering Committee is an advisory to the Board of Supervisors and they speak officially on behalf, but this diverse group of stakeholders wanted to bring some issues to your attention prospectively before they're actually raised.
Transfer of Development Rights-Christine McVie: At the behest of the ESLO subcommittee, which I've also explained previously, not on their own behalf, pushed this forward last year and it didn't go anywhere. We recommended that the law as it currently stands be changed to allow counties to participate in this process and I believe David made an excellent clarification the last time we had this conversation, which was that this should be not just for properties from county to county and/or a given municipality to a municipality, but that the idea here could be, if the Steering Committee so chose, to facilitate transfer of development rights between county and municipalities, if that would be equitable and fair as regards the development issues. So the bottom line is, there's a current law that exists and what we want to do is expand that to enable the county to participate. The ESLO subcommittee went through our process and took it through the county attorney. We got draft language out of staff; we submitted this to Mr. Huckleberry. It's my understanding that Mr. Willett was the point person. It's my understanding that everything he was the point person on didn't make it. ESLO is the Environmentally Sensitive Land Ordinance subcommittee that was appointed over a year ago by Mr. Huckleberry and it includes Alan Lurie of the Southern Arizona Home Builders Association, Patty Richardson of the Tucson Association of Realtors, myself, staff members and Mike Grassinger who was a planner for the planning center, as well as an attorney whom I haven't seen lately. There was unanimous support, and as Alan Lurie and myself both shared at a previous Steering Committee meeting, when we couldn't get the county attorney's response on this, I asked Alan to call his own attorney and his attorney had no problem with it and therefore SAHBA and I went together arm in arm and suggested that the county go forward. At which point in time Chris Straub actually paid some attention and it did go forward.
* The Steering Committee recommends that legislation be sought to permit transfer of development rights in unincorporated areas.
* The legislation should permit transfer of development rights within and also between and across jurisdictional boundaries.
Conservation Easements-Debbie Hecht, was not present but her written document was read by David Steele: "To implement a law with clear, simple guidelines that reduce property and income taxes for property owners who want to use conservation easements to protect their properties or portions of their properties to enable them to reduce their state income tax and their property tax. Any law should be congruent with federal tax guidelines for conservation easements"
* The Steering Committee has no recommendation on this. The issue was deferred in order to give the proponent an opportunity to explain it, and in addition, have Diana Freshwater, Executive Director of the Arizona Open Land Trust who was involved last year with Pima County in drafting language to go to the Arizona legislature to attend and address the Steering Committee at the January 8th meeting.
Lottery-Doug McVie: Well, seeing as though all our growth and stuff has left us money and we're trying to get this plan going and the development community has said a number of times that they're concerned and not interested in funding a lot of it. And private property and taxes are not popular because we have the highest taxes in the state already. I know that some of the stuff the Coalition did indicated that Colorado in particular used a lottery for some stuff and we might be able to suggest gearing one that would not erode the existing state lottery. In fact, it might enhance our Region 5, Arizona Game and Fish, and it might help actually fund education. When you turn over a section of land and put full rack housing on it, I think you create so many kids to educate that I'm not sure you're doing any favor. Whereas if you turn it over for conservation, you kind of enhance your quality of life and you actually create funds for the children that are here. And somehow to gear it to keep it local might have some appeal. Because we've noted possibly the API is going to kick in for a piece of land for the first time in history here in Pima County and that's a great thing. But we have a lot of other state land where apparently the API's been dropped on, that's the northwest side that Chris was talking about. The open space bonds are about used up and they weren't necessarily all spent where they thought they were going to be spent. A lot of it's the voter forum (?). And there just might be a way to get some funds for a plan, get some of the API and some of the state land stuff going a little differently, keep some of our money local. And I did mention, too, that possibly some of this funding could go to monitoring and management, because we don't have any money for that either. I propose that it's local county lotteries. I don't know exactly how the state lottery goes, but I'm pretty sure every cent spent in Pima County on it doesn't go to Pima County, would be my guess. And I'm suggesting some modification or a lottery per county for local conservation issues. And I'm also specifically talking about a percentage of it, and just a thing to throw out, 51% at least go to API to retire state land because that money does, by mandate, go to education. And get some feedback about the conservation issues in Pima County maybe. Remember that over half the money for this game would be going actually to education. So that's just a thought. I've suggested that the existent bureaucracy run it and I'm saying this would fund API, so I don't think that's another bureaucracy, that's a law apparently passed in '96 that's going to buy us the first piece of land in history, maybe, according to Gayle. So I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel, I'm just trying to fund some of our plans and try to do something with state trust land. I think the other effort on state trust land was to set aside a maximum of 3% of it, including some lake bottoms and stuff.
* This suggests a county-by-county lottery that the proceeds for which will be spent in the county for which the tickets are sold. Fifty percent of it will go the Arizona Preserve Initiative, a portion towards the education system and another portion of it would go for the purchase of development rights.
Private Property Rights-Michael Zimet: The first thing, the absolute right for a property owner to build his home on his property, which right, if precluded, shall be compensable by the responsible jurisdiction. Now, all that's saying is that an individual who owns a piece of property should have a right to build a home on there. It doesn't say where on the property he can build his home. We have situations because of the various overlays that effectively make a property un-buildable presently. And that's continued in the comprehensive plan, it's continued in all these other things that we have lately. All we're trying to say here is that a person should have the right, no matter what, to build a house on his land. The second issue says compensation of property owners for 100% of total loss or a pre-agreed upon percentage of partial loss of value. In other words, if among us we can say, well, if he loses 50% of his land, then that's compensable. It doesn't have to be 100% loss. Or if he loses 70% or 40%, some number. For instance, Peaks & Ridges is a good example. If a person bought a piece of property for $50,000 to build his house up on a ridge so he has a view and that's taken away from him, it seems to me that there's, he might lose 50% or more of the value of his property because he's asked to relocate that residence. So the second thing says, 100% of total loss. Or a pre-agreed upon percentage of partial loss of value. The third thing, vesting of rights of property owners with currently zoned private land or land covered by a development plan or special plan.
· Require the counties to pay the amount of loss or substantial diminution of value, if any, when home values or vested rights of property owners are affected by a county's adoption of conservation plans that restrict use of the subject properties. Provisions should also be made for the development and implementation of a fair, efficient and binding alternate dispute resolution to determine the amount of such loss of diminished value.
* There has been a legal adjudication as regards a downzoning case in Pima County. It is under appeal, but the courts have upheld the county's rights to downzone.
* There is an Arizona Supreme Court decision, which is quoted by both Frank Bangs in his CLE for the Arizona State Bar on Environmentally Sensitive Lands and in the proposed Critical Habitat Designation for the Cactus Ferruginous Pygmy Owl, which states that there is no taking as long as there is use and/or access and any viable economic use.
* At their last presentation, the conservation community put forward the following: Pima County need not compensate for instances where all economic uses have been extinguished.
* There was the general sentiment that there would not be agreement that any of this language was appropriate for state legislation.
Issues Matrix:
The Issues Matrix was created in order to identify the areas of agreement between the various stakeholder groups within the Steering Committee.
* David suggested that perhaps it would be beneficial to the Steering Committee if Bruce Gungle and Mike Zimet wrote a discussion paper for the January 8th meeting.
* David would write a list of the areas of agreement drawing from the Issues Matrix and as the Steering Committee dictated the changes in wording.
* One of the items noted by Carolyn Campbell was the funding mechanisms. She requested that it read: One of the funding mechanisms that should be considered for the acquisition of lands within the CLS is a voter-approved bond.
* The final wording of some issues was left in draft form until US Fish and Wildlife could comment on them.
Issues for future meeting agendas:
* The Steering Committee requested to hear from the Recreational Technical Advisory Team. The Recreation Technical Advisory Team would like to present their final report at one of the meetings in February.
* The time period for the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan needs to be revisited.
* What species should be included also needs to be reopened.
* There has not been an amicable date for the attorneys to address the Steering Committee.
* A few members wanted to see the following on a future agenda: the time period for the plan and what species should be included.
Call to the Public:
Harold Barnett: On the compensation issue, which clearly is central, instead of thinking at the level of absolutes, might think, since the build-up from another point of view, and this is just a statement to consider. If costs are imposed for private actions that yield some increase in value, compensation is reasonable if public actions yield to loss in value. So instead of thinking, hundred percent, zero compensation, since we know there are some costs already being imposed, we can think in terms of offsetting compensation. And work from the bottom up instead of the top down. When you mention up zoning and downzoning, that seems that it's a very easily done thing, transfer of development rights, that earlier discussion. There is also rezoning which is something different, which is in the comprehensive plan. And if you request your rezoning, there are clearly costs involved in terms of land set-asides. So it is not unreasonable, then, to state that if you restrict use of land below its current zoning, that it would be compensated. You know, so it's, what I'm essentially saying is that there is a degree to which costs are imposed, it's reasonable to have an offsetting degree to which loss is compensated.
Adjourned 9:00pm