SDCP - Steering Committee Meeting Notes December 7, 2002

DRAFT

SDCP - Steering Committee
Pima County Public Works Bldg. Rm 'C'
8:30am to 11:30am
Saturday, December 7, 2002
Meeting Notes

Participants: See attached sign-in sheet David Steele, Maeveen Behan and SIMG staff.

Documents made available to the Steering Committee members at the meeting:
* Agendas
* CD with Environmental Impact Statement Issue Papers; Maeveen Beham, Pima County
* Letter of Invitation and list of policy makers invited.
* Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan and Affordable Housing; Susan Shobe, Assistant Director of the Coalition for Desert Protection.
* County Lotteries as a Funding Source for Conservation; Doug McVie

Meeting Commenced at 8:30am
Meeting commenced with 26 Steering Committee members and 2 members of the general public. By 9:15 there were 42 Steering Committee members and 8 members of the general public. David Steele opened the meeting by introducing himself, reviewing the ground rules and reviewing the agenda. David noted that the agenda only called for 2 hours, but the meeting would not exceed three hours.

Logistics for the next Meeting:
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
6:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Four Points Sheraton
1900 E. Speedway Blvd.

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

Old Business:
Approval of meeting notes from November 6:
* Lucy wanted to be sure that her changes requested at the September 4 meeting and noted in the November 6 meeting notes, had occurred.
* Meeting notes for the November 6 meeting were approved.

Update on the Economic Consultant/Impact on Steering Committee work:
Maeveen: Recommendations have been made by the panel and by the Board on the 17th. There's a protest period of 5 days, so if any of the firms who weren't recommended want to protest, you make a public announcement of the recommended consultant and then it goes to the Board on the 17th. The Board will direct staff to negotiate a contract with a consultant. It's public that the panel has recommended a firm from Phoenix with a sub of SWCA, and so that was the panel's recommendation. And that will go to the Board, and then the Board will direct, on the 17th the Board will direct the county staff to negotiate a contract with one of the consultants.

Questions:
Question: Will the economics consultant be on board by the 1st of the year?
Maeveen: Yes.

Question: Should we not expect any results until probably May at the earliest? The shortest timeline has been 4 months.
Maeveen: It depends really on whom they select. Because the timelines for the projects were different. Four months is right. With deliverables earlier. So we can expect deliverables as soon as January, February. Depending on who they select. That will be part of the discussion before the Board.

Question: Could you tell us the impact the economic consultant will have on the Steering Committee's work?
Maeveen: The timelines on these different proposals were very different. So if the Board goes with the recommended consultant, it's a very fast timeline to work with the Steering Committee. And it states essentially with deliverables coming through your ?? essentially on your timetable. And then there's another life that they would have working through the EIS process. You'd get to work with them right away, have them at meetings.

Question: What can we do on the track that needs the economics consultant?
Maeveen: There are two tasks for the economic consultant. One of them is to stay around for the process that follows the Steering Committee, which is the federal process, actually going through drafts of the MSCP and EIS. And that's one thing that they'll be on board for which will extend the timeline of the contract. And then what was your question and the RFP and whatever else the Steering Committee wants to add to it, they're ready for that, you know, in January, so you can start having them at those kind of meetings. So I don't see this, I see it as working with the Steering Committee on the timelines that you set.

Question: Maybe that's something that we need to agendize for our January meeting is coordination with the economics consultant and feeding it, what do you think about that idea?
Maeveen: I think it's a great idea, and you might want to have Paul Fromer here, too.

Status of Stakeholder discussions:
David asked the question whether the stakeholder meetings among the various stakeholder interests gotten together with each other on an informal basis outside the Steering Committee and the status of those discussions:
* At this time there had not been any discussions among the stakeholder groups.

* Lucy proposed a motion that the Steering Committee delay the January 8th deadline that was in the original Hartmann motion.
* David thought that the Steering Committee could not act on that motion, because it was not property denote on the agenda as an action item. He recommended that this could be placed on the January 8th agenda so the Steering Committee could have discussion and action on it.
* Other members thought the motion should be left the way it is. They felt that although the Steering Committee would not be done by January 8th , there was no reason to assume that there would not be material to discuss by January 8th.   These members felt that the offline meetings were going to occur, that the Steering Committee would be more or less on target for the spring if they kept moving at the present pace and therefore could not see any reason to push things forward any further.
* The motion presented by Gayle Hartmann at the November 6 meeting would remain as originally stated.

Section 10 Environmental Impact Statement Strategies, and Geographic Implications; Presented by Maeveen Beham
Maeveen: Thank you. I'm going to keep my presentation short and I have two things that I brought for you today. One is a new disk with EIS issue papers that have been published on it. And one is like a one page facts sheet. I brought this just because I think it gives a context for the relationship between the comprehensive plan and the Section 10 permit which might help you focus on what remains to be done. And use that information to frame alternatives. We wrote this cost model and it's the template for the EIS issue papers. And the only reason we're writing any of these is to try to advance the conversation and pass along information to you so that you can see how assumptions are made. If you don't like them, you can change them. And take that information and extrapolate it as you make recommendations. So just to, I felt like you were just a little bit stuck and that concerned me, and so that's why we wrote these papers. So if they don't appeal to you, you don't have to refer to them or use them at all, but that was just to break open the discussion, that's really why we wrote them. So the cost model, I'd like to talk a little bit about that and then talk a little bit about how the EIS issue papers relate to it and then talk a little bit about some maps I brought on land availability because that's I think the most interesting of the EIS issue papers. The theme of all these documents is that when we started this process, I think the mindset was that, and rightly so given other MSCP's, that the entirety of the conservation commitment that the county made would be expressed in this federal permit. And I think people thought that, that worries some people, some people like it because they think it brings the force of federal law into a conservation commitment. Some people don't like it for that same reason. And the conservation plans that have gone before have done that. You've had a local government that would not have put a conservation plan in place if they didn't have an endangered species crisis. That's what you were dealing with. I don't know if Tony or Mitch is here, but they're doing a, the Star's doing a 3-part series and it will be published next weekend. What I realized as I worked with them, they went to Austin, Clark County and San Diego, and they're running those stories in that fashion. What I realized is, even the Star reporters who have covered this all the way don't understand how different our opportunities are and how different our approaches. Primarily because the local government here would have put a conservation plan in place with or without the endangered species pressures. And that's really already happened in the comprehensive plan, and it's in the conservation land system. So we'll lucky because Paul Fromer who works with us was involved in all those plans. So one of the things we asked him to do was just go right to the source and ask him to write up a study that compares all these. So he's doing that and we'll have that for you next week. But I think the main difference between Pima County and these other major MSCP efforts is that those areas really wouldn't put a conservation plan in place if they didn't have to and that completely changes how they approach the Section 10 permit. So I just want to make that first point. The second point is since we started this process, what we need to mitigate in a Section 10 permit, unincorporated Pima County, the picture's completely changed. And I've made this point before and we realized it while we were doing the cost model but I want to make it again because PAG(?) now has their numbers out and it's even a lighter projected burden on incorporated Pima County. So the two pieces of information are, when we started, PAG projected that Pima County in the next 20 years would pick up 157,000 people, a third to a half of the population. Today they're projecting that in the next 20 years Pima County will pick up under 20,000 people. And the reason for that is because in the last 4 years the incorporated areas have annexed 63 square miles. And they are also anticipating future annexations. But that's their projection. So in the cost model we went from 157,000 to 37, but the cost model actually assumes 100,000 people. We state that PAG makes this projection but we'll for purposes of discussion talk in terms of 100,000. But just to put a context on that, what PAG is saying is that for the next 20 years, Pima County will see impacts that are on the order of what we used to see every year, to exaggerate slightly. That's what they're saying. And so if you think about the different options you have for pursuing a Section 10 permit, what that means is our impacts are a lot less and so we could carve out a small permit, we could carve out a permit that's bigger than we need, or we could do something in between. And I just think a real public discussion that will happen, and it would be great if the Steering Committee had a position on this, is what is the wisdom of expressing your conservation ethic in a federal permit? I can see good sides to that, I can see why people would worry about that. I can see why you might want to phase towards that. So I'm not advocating any position, I'm just telling you that there's a tremendous opportunity to think this through and really craft the permit to what our needs are. There's another twist to this story, which is that when the City and Marana, Sahuarita, and not so much Oro Valley, Oro Valley didn't really pick up a lot of endangered species issues. But Marana really annexed the worst of the pygmy owl endangered species compliance issues. The City and Sahuarita really annexed the worst of the Pima pineapple cactus issues. And that all just played out in the last 4 years. So it's not just that we're not seeing a lot of people coming and putting houses down on habitat in unincorporated Pima County. It's not the endangered species habitat that will be impacted in unincorporated Pima County like it will be impacted in other places because of these annexations. So that's, those are two paradigms that make us different than other MSCP's, and I think it frees you up as you think about alternatives. And I'm not making any suggestion. As Tony comes back to me with all these quotes, I think my concern is that people think I'm advocating for one position or not. I'm not. I'm just saying you have a lot of freedom. So that's what the cost model sort of points out.
Independent of this whole world of knowledge, what happened was the science community, right?, working through the technical teams, came up with their recommendation about where they think the most valuable resources are, completely independent of this. When you look at what they came up with, and I just want to put this one more piece of information out in front of you, they say that 97% of the reserve that they would like to see protected somehow through some process, they aren't recommending it has to be a Section 10 permit, they don't look at the jurisdictional boundaries, but as it turns out, 97% of it fell in unincorporated Pima County. And so what they did was try to capture the maximum biodiversity with the smallest footprint and you see how they made those decisions, 3 or more, 5 or more species get greater levels of protection. But all of that really fell outside, 97% of it fell outside of the incorporated areas. And so I've said this before, but where Pima County finds itself at sort of the end of this process is we hold little of the problem and most of the solution, from a regional perspective. So where we're valuable now, most valuable I think, is as partners to the local jurisdictions that won't be able to develop in the fashion that they imagine probably, designating themselves as growth areas and at the density that they've built out before, unless we partner from a regional perspective. I don't know if that's an issue that you want to take on, but we're working with Marana, which is wonderful. The City of Tucson signed a cooperative agreement and Oro Valley signs this week; so all those partnerships will be in place. That, I think, is one thing that, a discussion I haven't seen because maybe people didn't know the degree to which it becomes important. If we don't work regionally, what we're left with is, really, the southeast side of Tucson not being able to develop in a way that accommodates population sufficient for us to be able to stay out of the conservation land system. I'll say that a different way. It's to the advantage of the development community, I believe, and the conservation community to free up some land for take, which is the essence of a Section 10 permit, and this in particular for Pima pineapple cactus in southeast Tucson and Sahuarita, and let the reserve that the biologists have identified in unincorporated Pima County really do the work to protect that species. And that I think is going to be the tough issue that people haven't really realized. That the City of Tucson is going to be tied up project by project in the southeast side, and Sahuarita is too, over pineapple cactus unless there's a regional solution.

Questions:

Question: I'm not completely sure what the MOU was, the memorandum of understanding between the city and the county. I looked it over but I'm not sure I understand the details. But as I recall, it said that they, the City, needs to look inside its incorporated boundaries for the solution to its problems. If that's the case, how do they or how are they required to act outside of their boundaries? Because they haven't signed on, as I understand it, to a regional plan. They've just signed onto something where you're going share information.
Maeveen: Right, right. And that's, you know, I've been trying; this marks my four year anniversary trying to get cooperative agreements with everyone. And so I, all right, Jerry. What you see in the Marana cooperative agreement and the City of Tucson, and in the Oro Valley cooperative agreement, is an option to work regionally if that is what people want to do when they have all the knowledge and risks before them. Or to just sort of carve out their own, to think very proactive. And that's a decision point before us. But what we have now that we didn't have before is so much conversation going on at the technical level that you'll see that I think the bureaucrats will see the logic and there'll be common advantages to negotiate with Fish & Wildlife that come forward. Because you're looking at things across administrative boundaries. And then I guess what I'm suggesting is, there's an opportunity for constituent pressure, whether it's from the Steering Committee or anyone else, to achieve a regional solution. A regional solution. I just don't want that to be lost.
And I wanted to make kind of one more point with these maps to say why I think, if we don't achieve a regional solution, we've really lost a huge opportunity to develop in the best fashion till we reach build out and conserve in the best fashion. So I have these maps and what they show is vacant land owned by the state, vacant land owned by private individuals, and one more category which is land that has a little bit of an improvement and is over 5 acres. Potentially developable. Vacant land, classified by the assessor, it's a very draconian classification. You can't have any improvements on it at all. So we cut the data so you can see those first two classifications, and then the last one with the full cash value at 10 thousand, 15, 20, and 25, to see if substantial acreage was added if we raised the dollar amount on the improvement. So you're not talking about shed, you're talking about some other structure that has more value. And it really didn't raise the acreage on that 3rd category significantly. So I'll just give you some rough numbers and show you this first map, and the rough numbers are: there's about 100 square miles of vacant land not in the conservation land system, so you never have to step a toe in the reserve, about 100 square miles of vacant land owned by the state; about 100 square miles of vacant land owned by private individuals; and about another, more than 100 square miles of land that has a small improvement on it. So 300, just for purposes of discussion, 300 square miles of land that's not in the conservation land system at all. Now we're looking across administrative boundaries. We're looking at everything. And this I think is a way to start thinking regionally. So you look across administrative boundaries. If the goal is to determine how much land is available for development in the urbanizing area, without stepping a toe in the conservation land system, what does that look like? And it's roughly 300 square miles.   So then you have to think about, what does that mean? What does that translate to? And if we continue to build out in the fashion we have, if we make no improvements with density, we just continue to sprawl, if you think we're sprawling, you can translate, we're at 3,000 people per square mile, and so 300 square miles, by this map, 900 thousand people can come into the area that's already been impacted so much that the biologists are saying it doesn't add to the overall reserve that they've staked out, so that's 900 thousand people. Now there are a lot of questions that have to come up. You know, is that land really available for development? I think Chris Sheafe brought that topic. There might be other constraints on it that make it difficult to develop.
Then I think another issue is, at 900 thousand more people, where do we stand in relation to our water budget and the carrying capacity of the community? And it's not the topic for the day, but there's the topic for the future which is what are we going to do then. But the general message is that land availability is not the problem. I would love to see a perfection of this map, some ground truthing by the development community. And if we need to come to terms with how much development is going to occur in the conservation land system, that we start to get a feel for that early. Because some of this land is not available for development. So that's where I'm trying to take the discussion. I guess I'll just point out, on the map here, where you see State Land Department, City of Tucson, everyone pointing towards the southeast and saying that's the place to develop. If we don't resolve pineapple cactus issues down here, from the regional perspective, that's going to be fragmented, it's not going to accommodate the density and it's not going to pick up the population that we might pick up outside of the CLS if there's sort of a regional vision about this. So that's the purpose of this set of maps.
We have another set, and this was, whenever I read economic studies, really the way to read them is to figure out what assumption the author made about build out and density. And what you see is, in the studies that come up with a real high price tag on the impact of conservation, they're assuming an up-zoning and they assume different levels of up-zoning. What we wanted to do is just map out, we took satellite imagery today, this is a picture today. And you can see all this land which essentially translates to the conservation land system is open, it's open for the moment. What we did was just make a visual of what would happen at build out. So want to show us the picture of build out. So these are the two extremes. If build out occurs at the level that has 3 rack, at the level that has been assumed in prior economic studies, there's the vision of Pima County. Of course, we don't have enough water for that, but that's what you're looking at. And then we have, so you go from this to this, sort of the extremes. Then there are gradations in between with lesser density. I thought I'd leave these here so you could just take a look at them and kind of, you can look at a lot of data and you can bite, you know, assumptions here and there, but I just think it really helps to look at what's the picture, you know. If you agree to a little bit more density here or there or if you start stepping into the reserve. I don't know, my staff told me when I asked for this, they said, are you saying like a picture's worth a thousand studies? Which of course pains me to admit. (laughter) I said, yeah, I think it might be.   So that's why we did this. And that's probably the land availability. We learned how to put these together in-house, this is all in-house. So if anybody wants a variation on this, we can look at that, too. That's really what I thought, where your discussion might take you. Well, what is it going to look like if we move to the southeast in the next 20 years? Or if we move, start moving into the conservation land system; what density do you want to talk about. So because, the reason this conversation is relevant is because the central question of the Section 10 permit is how much impact are you going to offset, and that has a price tag to it. So that's really the decision for the Board in incorporating your recommendations. So that's really
I brought you a disk and it has, let's see, cultural resources. These are really interesting the way these fell out, the EIS issue papers. Invasive species, environmental justice, ranching, recreation, utility right of way, riparian priorities. And a number of others, we'll publish a few more. But what we really did was take that cost study template and ask the advocates of cultural resources to say, if we pick up mostly ranch land, what does that do to your resource? Are you better or worse off? If we pick up mostly riparian, what does that do to your resource? If we resolve this mostly by picking up mountain park, assuming that all of this satisfies the endangered species requirements, does that help you or hurt you, and then if we focus on the northwest side, does that help you or hurt you. Now none of this is to say that, you know, will there be a single solution. But it's just to show the tradeoffs. And this is really interesting. We have all this on maps, so we could just overlay it. The cultural resource, for example, is most advantaged by protection of ranchlands. And we thought it would be riparian. But the riparian is so linear and the resources are up on the bank that it just misses it. So there would have to be a decision to really sort of expand riparian to include cultural resource, if that's the direction people wanted to go in. And if it is, then you increase the cost and you can quantify that. So that's the purpose of these papers. We found out things we didn't know as we went forward. But we just wanted to just think generally about that minimum option, put the other competing resources up against it, and then look to see if there's one or two of these solutions that generally advantage most of the interests. So that's what we did.

Question: Are the maps on the disk?
Maeveen: They're not on the disk I'm giving you today, but they're on the disk I'll give you next week. We've got a number of other issue papers and we did a report on mapping, there's been studies coming out constantly. So we owe you probably 3 more disks.

Question: you were talking before about how you would like it to be regional and therefore because of the PAG studies you are assuming 20,000 or they are projecting 20,000 in the next 20 years, and so it kind of exonerates Pima County from all the problems. That's the impression you gave. But if we go regional, Pima County is the applicant and Pima County will have to come up with the funding also, including the jurisdiction, so how are we going to, we haven't found anything. Whether it's within Marana or the City or unincorporated, we still have to carry the burden.
Maeveen: Let me, everything you said worried me, and I'm glad you asked those questions because the first thing I need to say is (laughter), Pima County is not, Pima County is not exonerated and we will get a Section 10 permit. It's just like buying an insurance policy. So you want to buy a big one or a small one? That's the question before you. That's it. We are an applicant for our own permit and we will get one. You have opportunities to frame the scope of that permit and there are good reasons to have it small, large or something in between. So I'm not saying we won't get a Section 10 permit, we absolutely will. The other jurisdictions may be applicants. It's a decision point for them. And I think they're doing studies right now to figure out if they want to do that. If it's to their advantage to buy that insurance policy. What we will likely discuss within the governmental community is, what's the next generation of cooperative agreements? What do those look like? And as we all go get permits, are there some opportunities to partner with projects, with programs. If for example Clark County decided that each applicant has, they run their own permit, they run their own permit. But what they wanted was, they want to run the program. So the cities gave, they draw down so much money, they gave it to the county, county works with a group like this, and that group makes decisions about what land to buy. Cities just didn't want to be in that program. They decided that through an intergovernmental agreement. I don't think that will happen here. But I think that we will have joint projects, especially riparian, intergovernmental. I think that there may be mitigation opportunities on pineapple cactus that result from issues for Sahuarita and for the City. And I think that on the federal side you'll see a lot of joint ventures between Pima County and the major land managers. I think what you'll see is, buy into a uniform adaptive management program that frames what the management programs are for each of those governments. Which is great because then you have regional approach to recreation, regional approach to ranching, regional approach to all of these issues, cultural resource protection, with the major landholders. So I want to make sure no one walks away from this thinking I'm saying we don't need a Section 10 permit. We do. But it doesn't mean that this wasn't a good use of time. Because the region needs a Section 10 permit as much or more than it ever did. And so that's why I said that Pima County will get a Section 10 permit, it's great that all this information is here, and we are increasingly valuable as partner to offer regional solutions. And I think everyone's seeing that now, intergovernmentally.

Question: Wouldn't you say that since the other jurisdictions of annexed areas with pygmy owls and pineapple cactus, that this gives us as the county an opportunity to have other people pay for the reserve system by transferring their solutions into the reserve that the county is setting up so that this whole thing seems to be an effort to transfer the burden of compliance to now with a big compliance up front instead of a nickel and dime all the time, every project, compliance down the road. So even though Pima County is going to have its own permit regardless, if these other jurisdictions, Sahuarita, Marana, etc., they can transfer their solution to our reserve and give us money to pay for it with, it seems like.
Maeveen: I think it's a good point for the Steering Committee to discuss. If you look at the history of what types of funding have been successful, that competition, like we'll shift the cost here, we'll shift the cost there, generally is not successful.   And so that, you won't see in any of our documents, and you'll see in the cost model, that we're not promoting that at all. I believe that the county, Tohono nation and the federal agencies, the reason why we were able to cooperate early is because we have so much land that we're forced to think regionally. And that's just the way we think. And the incorporated areas are, they feel I think sometimes a little bit ganged up on by that. So what I heard you say concerned me a little because it sounded like sort of adopting a competitive mode and I'm really going in the other direction. : A decision point for the Steering Committee, the recommendation the Steering Committee might make, and we put this in the cost model, is how do you apportion the burden and the benefit. How do you want to do that? But we were thinking more of the different people who, not jurisdictionally, but who gets a break because the entire region has some breathing room on endangered species issues in its government development services department, developers, people who buy homes, people who enjoy the reserve. And how do you want to, do you have a recommendation about the fairness of apportioning that burden which might be reflected in how it's funded, but there's such serious limitations on what funding is actually available that I almost see it as moot. It's moot to create a lot of controversy when the regional solutions, regional funding has been the only thing that's worked in the past.

Question: From the point of view of the county staff, are you able to provide us with a list of decision points or better still a graphic decision tree that might help us with that focus and that setting of order?
Maeveen: Maybe we could do it this way. The answer is yes, but maybe to just maximize the feeling of freedom for the Steering Committee, we could have a little outline of what types of decisions prior processes have, you know, what do the Steering Committee weigh in on. So if you had Clark County where they all, 100 people sat in a room and fought over every word in a technical document and it took them years. That's one process. Or you have processes where the Steering Committee just came in and said, there are 5 concepts, this is our recommendation for the general direction based on those concepts. So, the total range. And we could give you that. I'm glad you asked that because I would like to work with Paul Fromer and get you just a list of what we would like to hear from you that would help us, and you can add anything you like to it.

Question: Could you tell us what the points at which we have to make decisions and from the county's perspective, what our alternatives are?
Maeveen: I'll tell you how easy it is. It's as easy as getting the table of contents to prior MSCP's and going down that list. It's very easy to do. So yeah, I'd love to provide that.

Question: Please answer the question as to when you believe we might get a Section 10 permit in place.
Maeveen: Okay, first, I think that I'm so close to this information and it is so complex for people who come in and leave and have a real life and do other things (laughter) that my insight is that you've made this much harder than it is. And that has been, I guess what I'm trying to convey in a nice way as I come before you, to say I believe if you stay on this track, you'll never finish. Just to be lost in the complexity of it. I believe it's much simpler. So if we can sort of clarify what the assignment is for the Steering Committee, I think that you have your recommendation in March, the Board would submit it to Fish and Wildlife, and it would run through iterations of draft EIS's, and we're talking about the timeline that we originally projected, which is a permit in 2003. The Interior Department is not jumping to help Pima County now as it might have been in the past, and so that federal timeline is not something that I can control. Typically it takes longer, the federal timeline, you know, takes 18 months and their process is completely different. They just hold, they just send a document out into the world like pygmy owl recovery plan or critical habitat and people show up at a hearing and vent. And so it's not the kind of process that we've had. And by the way, all of this is in addition to what the basic rule is. We didn't need to do any of this. So that really makes me think that we've made things harder than they need to be. So I believe that the community can know what the Section 10 permit is going to cost and what it's going to look like and what its benefit's going to be in 2003. Because the federal process really is just typically just, I'd say, changes details. Doesn't change the basic substance. A lot of people think they're through when they recommend the alternative. And they don't know, like in San Diego, a lot of those people don't know a lot of those jurisdictions never finished or haven't finished. They declared victory early, when the recommendation was made. And I think that's when the newspapers would sort of lose interest. I mean, nobody, nobody really follows drafts of the EIS. Maybe we will in Tucson, but I just haven't seen that in other places. I believe we'll know everything generally, you know, the big pieces of information in 2003.   And I believe we'll know it in the spring of 2003 if we don't continue to sort of complicate what we're up to. You could extrapolate from the cost study right now and go forward. But the economic analysis, if you want verification and you want more information, you want other questions answered, you'll have those on the timeline that you're on. Working with the consultant. So that's another thing that I think has been really kind of held out as ?? and made more complex. I believe that because I'm very close to this information.   And let me just tell you that if you were in another jurisdiction and you talked to the people who sort of put that plan together, the way, like Clark County, how did they come up with an impact fee of$550. How'd they do that? Was there an expensive economic analysis that measured the cost of everything and? No. What happened was they went to the biggest developers who had the most influence and asked them what they could tolerate. And they came up with a fee.   And that was, then became the rule and they tested it against different, they had it in place for the planning process, they funded the planning process, and it turned out to bring them a lot of money, so that was a good guess. In one way you could start to get a sense of, I just say, every community has its own way of funding things and its own way of sort of breaking log jams. And I believe that a predictor here of total cost is what the community has supported in the past for bonds. If you want to get a sense of, you know, is this going to break the back of the community, what will be requested or required. My main messages are, it doesn't have to cost much. That's an option before the community for unincorporated Pima County. And another message that I think I'm not really conveying here, I don't think I'm Columbus discovering the new world, saying that there's opportunities for regional solutions. I'm saying something very specific, which is, if as a part of Pima County's permit we have a safe harbor for Chiricahua leopard frogs that give a break to the ranchers that can reduce the total cost of the permit and give one group a huge break. I'm talking about specific projects, specific proposals, and the same thing could come about with pineapple cactus if in partnership with the City and Sahuarita, as a part of our permit, we had a joint program, we had a joint approach, and that was part of the permit, you'd see huge benefits. So I'm not, this is not fuzzy thinking on my part. I have specific proposals that would drop the overall cost of the reserve, create projects and partnerships. That's what we're talking right now, with Tohono Nation, with a lot of places. Everyone's thinking, well, what do we do next. So that was what I was trying to convey.

Question: Do you have specific suggestions of what we ought to do to change our behavior as a Steering Committee in order to accomplish the task of getting a Section Ten Permit?
Maeveen: I didn't mean to overstate that. I think that, the idea of just having sort of an outline of what types of decisions you might weigh on. You know, the central ones are if unincorporated Pima County doesn't need a big permit at this moment, do you recommend that we buy a bigger insurance policy for a number of reasons. And from that flows many, many other decisions. We can create a tree, you know, if you go this direction, here is the next set of decisions. If you go this direction, here's the next set. So I think fundamentally if you can, I've always thought this that in the end people would believe this was disappointingly practical. After all this ideology and all this creative energy and then it comes down to, if you every see these permits, they're just really practical. If you can get a sense that we need to fill in the blank on a few of these federal requirements, that might crystallize.

Question: Could you just give us some thoughts as to how we could make our meeting with the legislature and other elected officials as productive as possible?
Maeveen: I think if you understand, thanks for asking. I think if you understand that essentially the state has no money to spend in this next session on new initiatives. And if you could just keep that in mind. You know, we're not going to be asking them, Pima County, for laws that cost money, we're just not. So I think if there's a way for you to let them know what your thoughts are but not set yourself up for failure by not understanding their situation, you'll be better off, you'll have more credibility.

Possible Issues to Address at December 11 Meeting with Legislators and other Policymakers:
At the November 16th meeting several Steering Committee members took on the task of addressing various issues at the December 11th meeting. These members wrote papers that were distributed to the Steering Committee members.
* Transfer of Development Rights Christine McVie
* Arizona Preserve Initiative Gayle Hartmann
* Heritage Fund Lisa Stage
* Conservation Easements Debbie Hecht
* Private Property Rights Mike Zimet

Meeting with Legislators and other Policymakers Structure and Format
David gave a status report on the invitations:
* Invitations have been sent out to all 90 of the legislators that are going to be in the next legislative session.
* Meeting notices were sent to the mayors, town councils, Tucson, Oro Valley, Marana, all the incorporated, the state officials and the new administrations, and included in that, the new elected officer holders.
* Follow-up calls were made to each of the legislators by SIMG staff.
* 3 legislators confirmed that they would attend.
* The majority of the newly elected legislators are going to be in D.C. for a legislative orientation on December 11th, but they were all very interested in coming to the meeting, and they asked to be notified of any future meetings.
* Steering Committee members requested, in view of the low turn-out, that this meeting be deferred to a date in the near future when more legislators would attend.
* The suggestion was made to hold this meeting on a Saturday during the legislative session, as the legislative week ends on Thursday. David would send out a query to the legislators regarding which Saturday meeting would be best.

David noted that Chuck Huckelberry wanted it to be clear that the Steering Committee was not representing the Board of Supervisors or Pima County.
* While some members felt the Steering Committee was not ready to make recommendations for legislation because consensus had not been reached on any of the issues, other members wanted to have the County present the issues to the legislature.
* The point was raised that the Steering Committee wanted to make these recommendations directly to the legislature as a citizen's coalition.
* The concern was voiced that too much time from regular meetings was being spent on the planning of the December 11 study session and the Steering Committee was losing focus of the recommended preferred alternatives that had to be presented to the Board of Supervisors by March 1st.

The Steering Committee discussion shifted after taking into consideration the low response from the invited legislators.
Motions:
·        Convert the December 11th Study Session into a meeting to address the six items and the additional issues that the Steering Committee might have agreement on.
Motion failed.

·        Limit the agenda on December 11th study session to issues related to the legislators briefing, the agenda, the structure of the meeting and the issues that we will raise with them.
Motion failed.
* December 11th consider the legislators briefing and the discuss the issues matrix.

Motion passed.

Call to the Public:
David Lutz: This may not be related to this particular issue but my name is David Lutz and I'm a property owner in an environmentally significant area. It's near Panther Peak and there's state land which the National Park Service wants to annex but they put it on the back burner. Since then there's been a lot of wildcat development in the area and people moved in there, been dumping stuff on the state land, they've been tearing it up with off road vehicles and stuff like that. It's an area, Panther Peak is a mountain which is on the far northwest corner of the Tucson Mountains. The east half is in the Saguaro National Park, the west half is state land and a lot of the state land in that area is being impacted, this particular peak, because a wildcat development is cropping up in the area, and then people moved in and they've, a lot of off road activity, like somebody took a very big truck and did a lot of damage on the state land. They knocked down a palo verde tree, saguaro cactus, tore out a lot of trees and shrubs for no good reason. I tried to plant it back, then I got signs from the state land department posted around there, but still there's a lot of impact.

* Maeveen Beham and Carolyn Campbell addressed Mr. Lutz's concerns in sidebar discussions.

New Business:

Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan and Affordable Housing; Susan Shobe, Assistant Director of the Coalition for Desert Protection
Susan: In this presentation I'm going to address the argument that the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan will decrease the supply of affordable housing in Pima County. During the presentation I'm just going to mention briefly, I'm going to refer you to Maeveen's presentation that she just gave. I appreciate that she was here right before I was. Regarding the supply of developable land. I'm also going to talk a little bit about the current state of affordable housing on the housing market in Pima County and discuss potential impacts of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan on this. I wanted to touch on this briefly about the sources that I used for this presentation. I did refer some to Mr. Lurie's handouts that he gave in the presentation last time, that he gave on affordable housing. One of the major reports that I used for this was the first one that's listed up there. It's "The Length Between Growth Management and Housing Affordability: The Academic Evidence". And the reason why I wanted to mention this is because this is a report by the Brooking Institute and it's an analysis of growth management based on the information and evidence presented mostly in scholarly literature. Including articles published in refereed and a few other publications, written by those whose work routinely appears in this. This report does not include publications by interests affected by the subjects. Either the development industry or environmental interests. So it's strictly academic literature. I also referred a lot to the housing reports in Pima County that were put out just last year and the comprehensive plan update. And referred to the SDCP education sessions that you all went through on both demographics and the economy. The main argument that we heard with regard to affordable housing is that the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan will decrease the supply of affordable housing in Pima County because conserving large amounts of land will cause a scarcity in the supply of land available for development. And land and subsequently housing costs will rise in response. Now this argument is valid in that it is consistent with the simplest of economic theory. Whenever you have two factors in a relationship, when you're dealing with the supply of a good and the cost of a good, if you do decrease the supply of a good, it will increase the cost because of scarcity. However, even in economic theory the introduction of even one additional variable into that relationship means that that relationship is not necessarily going to hold. And as we know, and as Maeveen even pointed out during her presentation, the one factor that she mentioned was water. The introduction of that means that this relationship is not necessarily going to hold. And as I will mention in the presentation, there are many other factors that affect affordable housing outside of just the supply of land that have great impacts here in Pima County.
The critique that I'll give in addressing the supply, the availability of developable land, again I'll just refer you to Maeveen's presentation. She stated that there is enough land within, I'm sorry, outside of the entire con?? land system to accommodate growth at current densities in Pima County for almost the next 100 years. And that water is going to be the limiting factor for growth in the region. That being said, there are some questions about how the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan will affect affordable housing. And in order to understand this, we need to understand that the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan is only one part of an overall growth management strategy that exists in Pima County. Growth management can be generally described as the deliberate and integrated use of planning, regulatory and fiscal authority of federal, state and local governments to influence the pattern of growth and development in order to meet projected needs. And the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, since it's inception and as Maeveen reiterated, has always been projected or promoted as both regulatory requirement of the Endangered Species Act and an urban growth plan at the same time. Growth management policies are characterized by their goals which attempt to manage growth in ways that both minimize costs and maximize benefits to individuals and to the larger public. And these goals are to preserve public good, to minimize negative externalities, to minimize public fiscal costs, to maximize social equity and to elevate the quality of life. Essentially, successful growth management policies create value within the community. This is great from many perspectives. How many of us wouldn't want to live in a community known for its clean air and water, efficient transportation systems and overall being a great place to raise a family. So essentially, successful growth management policies create value in the community. However, this can lead to increased housing prices. But it's important to distinguish that the increases are the result in a real increase in demand in the community rather than the relative increase in demand that comes from restricted supply. There are some that would argue, however, that increasing housing costs is still going to increase the amount of people that can't afford affordable housing. And in Pima County, given the current situation of affordable housing, this is a legitimate concern. For example from 1991 to 2000, the median cost of a new home in Pima County rose from 106,000 to 137 point 6 (137,600). Of the 11,707 homes sold during 2000, around 4,800 of these were new homes. In 1990 almost 50% of homes permitted for single family residence were mobile homes. Of 332,000 occupied housing units, 64% are owner occupied, 35.7% are renter occupied, and of the renting households, almost half spent a third or more of their household income on housing.       In addition, for the low and very low incomes in 2000, 20% of households made under $15,000 a year. And this income group could only afford less than 4% of all houses sold in Pima County. For moderate incomes, the median household income in Pima County is 35-5 ($35,500); an affordable house for this income level would be below $90,500. Looking at affordable housing, I just want you to know that this is consistent with Mr. Lurie's definition of affordable housing as being paying no more than 30% of your income toward housing and utilities. The only 6%, about 612% of new homes constructed in 2000 were sold or priced out or below 95, within the affordable level for that income. And for the decade between the mid-1980's and the mid-1990's, inflation-adjusted middle income wages experienced a 21% decline in buying power, the largest decline in real income of any state in the nation. And over the same period, home prices increased by 30%. As far as the demographics, this is important in looking at what our projected population, what the projected residents of Pima County are going to be like. Almost all persons who relocate to Pima County are poorer than residents currently living here. Traditional family households are declining relative to the population. Meaning we have more widows having houses, more single parent family housing, more extended families living all within one roof. A bunch of statistics kind of mean nothing until you break it down into what does this mean. There are just not enough homes affordable for households that make less than $15,000 per year. We have 20% of the market competing for less than 1/25th of the housing available to them. Rental housing, mobile homes and non-new homes are very important sources of housing in Pima County. New homes are catered to the top third income bracket and the affordability gap for moderate to low income owners has risen over the last decade. The affordability gap means the difference in a person's income, what they can afford for housing and what they actually have to pay for housing. Now these notable points are consistent with the Pima County reports, with Elliott Pollack's report on the Arizona Affordable Housing Study, the Arizona Housing Commission Report that Mr. Lurie handed out during his presentation. In addition, these findings are consistent with the Brookings Institute report that finds that market demand, not land constraints, was the primary determinant in housing prices. Here in Pima County, income levels of the lower and middle income brackets are just not keeping pace with the other incomes to which the housing market is being catered. Now in addition, the Brookings Institute report found that both traditional land use regulations and growth management policies can increase the supply of housing, with the growth management policies. That is, if the urban growth boundaries or the supply of land is constrained too tightly, that can, just as I said before, it is consistent with economic theories, that's the primary factor. However, and we can see the conditions that have resulted in Pima County with current land use policies. The question is then, next slide please, how do growth management policies differ with regard to affordable housing from traditional planning. Growth management attempts to overcome the exclusionary forces that exist for low to moderate income earners by increasing the supply of housing relative to demand. Typical growth management programs have affordable housing and inclusionary elements that are designed to lower the costs of construction and broaden choices to more housing segments. It attempts to increase the supply of housing relative to demand, as I said. Usually, or sometimes this is done through increasing housing densities, promoting a mix of housing types. One of the things that Elliott Pollack said in his report is that overall, Pima County really needs to do a better job of increasing both the types and prices of housing for all economic segments. And finally, promoting regional fair share housing or other inclusionary housing elements. In addition, if housing costs are viewed as a portion of a family's overall wealth, then simply examining the cost of housing is not the only factor to consider when you're looking at what is affordable. For example, in 2001 the typical American household spent about 27% on housing and 17% on transportation.   That's a total of 44% of their income. If that typical family decided to move to a different house so that their transportations decreased to 10% but their housing costs were then 34%, their housing would be considered unaffordable even though that family was no worse off than they were before. Therefore the second main goal of growth management with respect to affordable housing is to offset potential increase in housing prices with increases in amenities.   Such as decreasing transportation costs, decreasing costs associated with providing public infrastructure, providing better access to jobs, services and amenities, and promoting policies that promote higher paying jobs. In Pima County the primary growth management mechanism is the comprehensive land use plan. And word to words, the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan has been integrated into the comp plan via this comprehensive land, I'm sorry, the conservation land system map which was adopted into the plan in December of 2001. It can and it has been argued how the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan directly serves and/or complements growth management goals. Such as the preservation of public goods and elevating quality of life. While this is true, it's important to remember that affordable housing is affected by the growth management strategy as a whole and by many other aspects that are simply outside of the scope of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. We can see that by looking at the current situation in Pima County, the current housing situation in Pima County, that has resulted completely outside of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. Therefore, to lay the blame or the credit solely on the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan for either obliterating or saving affordable housing would be inaccurate, especially because the primary concern with regard to the SDCP's impact on affordable housing, that it would cause a scarcity in the availability of developable land, has already been significantly addressed. In order to assess how affordable housing will be affected by the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, we need to look at the overall growth management strategy or the comprehensive plan to see how it's addressed. The reason of the comprehensive land use plan is encouraging in this respect. It specifically states, in order to accommodate future population growth and carry out the compact form development goals of Growing Smarter Plus, mixed use and affordable housing programs will need to be a part of Pima County's updated comprehensive land use plan. There were several policies that were implemented during this recent update that are positive steps in addressing affordable housing in Pima County. The first one, establishment of housing policies and programs, these include inclusionary or mixed income subdivision programs, homebuyer education programs, enhancing opportunities for placement of manufactured housing, a strategy to insure housing availability for population groups with special needs, and a program to develop a strategy to provide affordable housing for families with incomes at medium, low and very low incomes. As determined by high intensity urban and multi-functional corridor to create a mixed use designation that is anticipated to best fulfill the needs of promoting and creating mixed use compact development. And it's noted that incentives will most likely be necessary in order to promote development in this designation. Again, under the circulation element, this is transportation. They want to promote high density, mixed use development and redevelopment along the major transit corridors. That directly corresponds to decreased transportation costs for persons living along those corridors. The growth element. They identify growth areas based on the ability to make circulation more efficient. To conserve natural resources in coordination with areas outside the boundaries and to promote financially sound infrastructure expansion through coordinated development. These go right back to the secondary strategy that I mentioned with regard to growth management, in that their goal is to offset potential increases by decreasing, I'm sorry, by increasing service to amenities and better service overall. The last section was the cost of growth element. And this is also called "potential policies and strategies to require development to pay its fair share". Essentially this establishes a method of assessing and funding minimum levels of public service to insure concurrency with development And this can assist with affordable housing efforts by making sure that goods and services are distributed equitably throughout the community.    Finally, I mentioned earlier that there were many factors outside the scope of the SDCP that have great impact on affordable housing. And due to time constraints, I'm not going to go into a lot of detail, but they definitely need mentioning. First of all, let's see, I stated earlier that the updated comprehensive land use plan was encouraging. Really, the proof is in the pudding, as they say. In going over various county documents related to affordable housing, I found that the county has been contemplating action and reviewing detailed plans since 1989. I'm sure that if I'd gone back to the 1989 version that it would have referred to even earlier proposals for incorporating affordable housing elements. The county and the state, as our elected officials, have the power to choose what issues they address, and previously they have neglected the needs of the neediest people by promoting economic development in different areas. The liaises faire approach to land use has resulted in an increased gap in affordability for housing and sprawling, gapping, inefficient infrastructure development. Another issue affecting affordable housing everywhere in the nation is the types and amount of support available from the federal government. In addition, local lending practices definitely need to be mentioned here. In 2001, local banks in Tucson were rated the second worst in the country for Hispanic individuals, who were rejected 2.79 times more often than whites. This is an increase of 15% since 1999. Even when the numbers are broken down by income levels, Hispanics were rejected more often than whites. Given the large and increasing number of Hispanic people in Pima County, discriminatory lending practices are particularly disturbing because they not only increase the problem of affordable housing, they increase racial tension in the community as well. The "nimby" attitude. Mr. Lurie touched on this during his presentation somewhat. This has been a continual challenge for affordable housing. Negative stereotypes about people who need affordable housing, what affordable housing looks like, and the racist origins of exclusionary zoning still permeate our society. These are compounded in the west by the public policies that have served to promote the idea of "Camelot among the saguaros" or "17 acres and a horse for Johnny", as David Taylor said to you in his education sessions on demographics (applause). Finally, the lack of participation by the business and development community needs mentioning. This is not indicative, or this is not unique to Pima County at all. At a series of recent affordable housing roundtables held by the National Housing Conference in Seattle, Portland, sorry, in Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis/St.Paul and New Orleans, the private sector was noted as the missing player. Private industry is inherently linked to both the supply and demand for affordable housing. They control or significantly influence the construction of housing, the wages of local earners and the taxes that help equitably distribute the benefits of economic growth. Their participation is absolutely critical if the affordable housing dilemma is to adequately be addressed. So in conclusion, housing costs may rise under the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. However, this is not going to be due to land scarcity. It is going to be, if it happens, it will be the result of value created within Pima County by the implementation of overall growth management strategies, and that it will not necessarily negatively affect affordable housing. In fact, this growth management strategy may be the best thing for affordable housing that's every happened in Pima County. The impacts to affordable housing will greatly depend on those policies that are implemented. Inclusionary housing policies, those regulations and incentives are needed. In serving the types of affordable housing promotion that's been done all over the country, most times incentives are not adequate to solicit the participation by the private industry needed. And in Washington, D.C. they found that implementation of some of these regulations decreased the number of people unable to afford housing within their range by 13% over a very short amount of time. In addition, to reduce barriers to infill and mixed development. This is something that the regulated or that the private industry has had a common criticism all over the region with regards to affordable housing, is that you need to decrease the barriers to infill and mixed use development. Building From the Best of Tucson. The Sonoran Institute did a survey or a study awhile back on different types of building within Tucson and there are some really great examples in there about what you can do with infill, making things economically viable for people. In addition, to direct the benefits of growth management, I'm sorry, to direct the benefits of growth equitable, I'm sorry, management should not be in there. This is just redistribution of funds to areas that need it. Finally, political will and community support are absolutely critical to increasing the supply of affordable housing. The last thing that I want to mention is that a lot of people are talking about, or actually Mr. Lurie said last time in his presentation that he was not dealing with people who needed solely federal support or solely I'm sorry, subsidies, federal subsidies for this. However, it could be argued and it has been argued by affordable housing advocates that those in the lowest income level, if they do not have housing in their level, they will take housing from levels, from upper levels. Therefore you have a ripple effect of a shortage of affordable housing that can go even up to 80 to 100% of median income levels. Therefore, it's been argued that it would be most cost effective to address the neediest first and bring about a better balance in the supply of affordable housing for all income levels.

Questions;

Question: I hear a lot of about the need for in-fill, but that has the potential to create a 'heat island' of Tucson.
Susan: Actually this was a presentation talking about affordable housing and addressing how the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan is going to affect affordable housing. There are, I understand that, I mean you can drive down any street in Tucson in the center of town and see tons of empty vacant buildings sitting there.   Those are, those could be utilized for good space. I mean, they already are taking up space and they're not fulfilling a large purpose. So there's definitely room to be able to put more people where we already have them without necessarily causing a lot more impacts to things right now.

Question: How did you determine that hundred year supply and what was the criteria used?
Susan: I'm referring to the data that Maeveen presented in her report, that given current population growth projections, and given the area of land, like she said, it's nearly 900,000 people that would be allowed, that you could, that would fit in the area at the current rate that we're developing and the current densities that we're developing. Three hundred square miles could accommodate nearly 900,000 people. And that would last, based on current growth projections, that means that nearly 100 years into the future we could be accommodating growth.

Question: Is that property currently zoned for that growth?
Susan: That is land completely outside of the conservation land system.
Question: But it may be zoned SR, may be zoned RH, and it may never be rezoned to accommodate that growth, is that correct?
Susan: Well, it may not, but given that we are trying to direct growth away from the biologically sensitive areas and that it is not the intent of Pima County or any of the jurisdictions to not accommodate growth in the future, it's very likely that those lands would be re-designated to accommodate population growth in the future.
Question: Would it be unreasonable to ask as part of the plan that that land be designated as rezoned at this time?
Susan: I think it's definitely a legitimate concern that, and this is something that Maeveen has already asked for, is input from the development community to insure that there is an adequate supply of land available for development so that we don't incur land crunch.
Question: But to have that land theoretically available because it's there and have it available because it's zoned and ready to be developed over the years are far apart, two different things.

Susan: I suppose that if we did that, then we would have to ask that all of the land in the conservation land system then be restricted from any kind of development at all. If that were to be fair.

Question: Could you please turn this presentation into a memo?
Susan: Sure.

Question: Have you analyzed the relationship, if any, between the SDCP and the redevelopment aspects, particularly the residential redevelopment aspects of the Rio Nuevo project?
Susan: : I did not look at those a lot primarily because that is dealing with issue within the City and I realize that what the City's do and the jurisdictions do, do complement and have great impacts on residents and affordable housing in general. I did not have a chance to look at that. However, I know that there are things that, and that's where, in a way, having cooperative agreements with the cities or with the municipalities is really important because the county and the city then can work to complement, have complementary strategies rather than adversarial strategies. Thank you, that was a really good point.

Question: Do you have any idea how many acres there are of vacant land inside the city limits at this point in time?
Susan: Inside the city limits, I do not. From Maeveen's presentation, she was saying that there were approximately 300 square miles available for development, I'm sorry, available land for development completely outside of the conservation land system. I did not look to see how much of that was within city limits.

Comment: There currently is a scarcity of land in Pima County. It's evidenced by the price of land that it trades at currently, at the price of housing at it sells. So whatever we do to implement the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan on currently developable land will increase the price of land and increase the price of housing. It's part of our group, what we're supposed to do is figure out how much we're going to allow that to happen. Are we going to have a very large effect? Or a small effect or a moderate effect? That's number one. Number two is in terms of the maps that Maeveen showed, the 300 square miles, there are a lot of things you have to take into consideration. Because it's not available. There are infrastructure constraints, there are places that are undesirable from the market standpoint, and 100 thousand acres, or 100 square miles from the state, they don't meter it out. It is not available. So it's a fallacy to say that it is available for development. They traditionally meter out very little land for development.
Susan: I have a couple of things to respond to that. First of all, when you were talking about the scarcity of land and land costs going up, there are two figures that I came across that were very interesting to me. Number one is that many of the densities for which the lands have been zoned in outlying areas were not developed at those densities. They were developed at significant lower densities. And that most of the houses were, they're much larger houses than what were necessarily necessary. So the, you think if land costs were a factor, that people would be trying to build as many houses on that particular area of land as they could in order to make a profit. And they're not doing that. They're making bigger houses that appeal to higher incomes on larger lots. It's a fact. That's what I came across in the Pima County reports. And we can argue about that, but that's what the statistics were saying. In addition, the National Association of Homebuilders is promoting even bigger houses for the future which are going to be out of range for most people. And when you talk about what the market is preferring, a lot of us in this room may have certain preferences, but 20% of the population right now is not able to afford anything more than 4% of the housing market. We need to be looking at those people's preferences as well. And for them, their preference is to have an affordable house within reach of services that they can get to, and right now there just is not availability for those people.

Question: Am I to understand, then, that your suggestion for affordable housing places affordable housing within the city limits?
Susan: No, not entirely. Some of the inclusionary housing programs that have been implemented require that a certain percentage of say a subdivision of 200 houses is being built. A certain percentage of that would need to be affordable to those in the median income. Those are some of the policies as well that have been recommended and that have been successful in other communities. In other communities, that is what has happened. I'm not saying that that's what Pima County is going to do. I actually have not been able to, I have not had a chance to talk with the planning department to see where they are in their planning stages or what they are proposing. I know that that idea has been suggested in previous county documents.

Comment: Contrary to some of the comments that I've heard here today, if you read what was adopted in the comprehensive plan policies, you will find that a lot of the answers to the questions you're asking are already there. And the county, as Susan has reported, is working on those. And in compliance with the state law, Growing Smarter, we identified growth areas where there was available land where building should go and should be much more intense in terms of mixed use.   And those things were spelled out specifically. For instance the entire City of Tucson, for instance the Flowing Wells growth area, just to name two examples. Those went through multiple iterations of conversations and public hearings and were adopted again in April, after originally being adopted on December the 18th of last year. So the county has taken steps to do that. The second thing, or the third thing I guess I want to say, is that the market today is supporting lower density where there's less infrastructure where you're on septic systems, etc., and those costs are going up, absolutely, because that's what people want. And people are buying those 3.3 and 4.12, whatever, acre parcels and they're putting half a million dollar homes and more expensive homes on them. That is not what we're talking about here. What we're talking about here is affordable housing. So it's an apples and oranges conversation that you're having. There are places where we can do mixed use and infill, where we can build up, like Roy Drachman said, where we can have affordable housing that's adjacent to infrastructure that exists that does not put us in a position where we have to extend our infrastructure 20 miles at the cost of millions of dollars a mile. And those options have not been carefully considered by this community in cooperation with the city and the other municipalities Where infrastructure exists today and is strong enough or with appropriate enhancement could be strong enough to support increased population, it will cost us less as a community. Because it is in the transportation and in the infrastructure that we really have not gauged the cost to the community in the past. That's why we're looking at impact fees now. So that we can have concurrency. So that we can have infrastructure to meet the needs of the residents we're shuffling wherever we're shuffling them. So those things, I think, put a different light on it than certain elements that the community would want you to consider. I invite you to explore what the county has already done and what stakeholder groups through the comprehensive plan did do.

Issues for Future meeting agendas:
* January 8, 2003 -- The economics consultant, assuming it's all done with respect to Pima County Procurement.
* January 22,2003 -- Work at putting a property rights panel together. Possibly having Mr. Bosselman attend.
* February 1, 2003 Possible meeting with legislators.

Call to the public: None.

Adjourned 11:30 am