Oro Valley Blooms With Yellow Signs

"Signs Signs Everywhere A Sign"

“Yellow Signs” are blooming in Oro Valley. These are the signs that are posted by the town‘s planning department regarding hearings of various sorts required for some proposed development projects. We don’t think the blooming is caused by the wonderful Monsoon season. We think they are caused by a backlog of possible requests they were being held back pending the results of the 2022 election. Well, the elections over and the yellow signs are blooming.

Projects of all kinds

There are proposed projects everywhere in the town. We have been covering many of these. There is the Oro Valley Church of the Nazarene request to build a sports facility. There is the “Avilla tiny rental homes“ project.  These projects will add a substantial number of residential properties to the Oro Valley inventory. There are also conditional use permit requests to add things like a drive-through car wash near the Oro Valley marketplace and an RV storage facility at the Mercardo Del Rio.

But one stands out because of its uniqueness... Grading request to cut a hillside

There are other types of projects. One we think is particularly unique. It’s a 41-lot subdivision that is proposed to be built on the north west corner of El Conquistador Way and Oracle Road. The land is zoned for residential use. The applicant is requesting a grading exception to allow cuts in the land greater than eight feet. In this case, the cuts are going to be enormous because the homes are proposed to be built on a piece of land, a portion of which is unsuitable for intensive construction because of the topography.

We’ve included some photos in the panel so that you can see what is the problem. The land slopes upward along Oracle Road and it’s actually above the grade of the road for most of the way. On the west side of the property, there is a 20 foot ledge that drops down into a wash which protects a number of patio homes and smaller homes in the area from flood and erosion.

The proposal is to put four of the forty-one homes on the other side of the wash. So, as you can see from the photo, they’re actually going to have to significantly raise the land up to the grade of the street or they’re going to have to drop down the land on the other side well below the grade level of the street. This is an engineering challenge that they will try to overcome with a great deal of digging.

 
Any drastic digging will mean drastic change for the area because all of the town homes to the west of the property are protected from erosion by the hillside. All of these homes sit well below the grade of the property. So, flooding from a monsoon such as we had this year could well destabilize the hill and jeopardize the homes below.

A marginal land use project

This is the type of project that Town planning Director Bayer Vella has labeled a marginal land use project. He told the Town Council six months ago that these types of projects would be proposed as Oro Valley was approaching “build out”. A marginal land use project is a project on which the land or the zoning needs substantial change in order to be suitable for the proposed use.

No compelling reason to accommodate wishes of the applicant

The land is located in the original section of Oro Valley. It was zoned for the high density residential use by Pima County before the Town was incorporated in 1974. The use is compatible with other homes in the area. That use has been designated in all three the town General Plans. The landowner is entitled to build high density residential homes on it. However, they will need Town Council approval to override the “Hillside Ordinance” to allow the type of lots that are being proposed. Otherwise, they are free to build within the current zoning standards without exception.

Neighborhood Meeting on October 20

The first Neighborhood Meeting for this project is October 20 at 6pm in Oro Valley Town Council Chambers.