Our Oro Valley neighbor Hector Conde raises some interesting points as it concerns Arroyo Grande. It might behoove the "powers to be" to consider Hector's concerns.
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Do the math on cost of state land plan
State land in the Arroyo Grande project is estimated to be worth $1.7 million average per section (or square mile).
If this is an old valuation and each section is worth $3 million, the sale of these 13 sections would bring $39 million.
The project would include 30 adjacent sections in Pinal County, adding another $90 million.
The cost of bringing in CAP water would be about $150 million. But the greatest expense would be road construction.
A road from Oracle Junction, where the project ends, to Tucson, where the jobs are, would be approximately 30 miles.
A six-lane road costs about $8 million per mile. I would not even try to guess the cost of the land for such a road.
If the project extends into Pinal at four houses per acre, the population would increase by 279,000 people.
The road requirements and cost would become seven times as much as in Pima County, probably more than $1 billion.
Extending La Cholla Boulevard through the mountains as proposed would be costlier.
The idea of spending $1 billion-plus for a $129 million land sale baffles me. I hope somebody has done these calculations. Otherwise, I urge the counties to stop and study the cost-benefits and the state Land Department to reconsider, too.
Nine million acres are available. Nowhere do the statutes say state lands have to be sold at any schedule, or ever. The land will only gain in value. And state land sales do not increase the education budget, either.
Hector Conde
