Tonight, starting at 5PM, The Oro Valley Town Council will hear a major amendment to the 2005 General Plan. The amendment, if approved, will substantially increase the number of homes that can be built on a property. The property is located on La Cholla Boulevard and Naranja Drive, Northwest and Southwest.The town planning staff and the Oro Valley Planning and Zoning Commission, by 6-1 vote, recommend that the Council approve this amendment. You can read our previous postings regarding this amendment.
A public hearing on this amendment was held on November 20. Eighteen speakers appeared at the hearing. Those who spoke against the amendment did so on the basis of how the proposed development on the property would impact traffic, floodplains, and their "way of life". Those who spoke for the amendment did so on the basis that they felt it improve our community and match market needs.
The general plan focuses on land-use. It does not focus on details of how the specifics of how the land will be used. That is considered when the property is zoned and, then, when it is planned.
Only two people discussed "land use" at the the November 20 hearing. One of those was resident Bill Adler. We are linking to a previous posting where Bill discussed the concept of land-use. At this hearing Bill noted that the neighborhood meetings that were conducted regarding this property discussed the details of what could be on the property and not the concept of general plan land-use.
The particulars of the development of the land, such as impact on traffic, are discussed at the zoning stage, not at the general plan stage. One of the Planning and Zoning Commissioners stated this at the beginning of the Planning and Zoning Commission public hearing. He told the audience that many of the concerns that they were about to express should be addressed at the zoning stage of the property, and not at the general plan amendment stage.
It is expected that many residents as well as the developer and others special interests will appear to opine at this hearing.
Will we see you there?
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3 comments:
Actually, the people who spoke in favor of it at the November 20th P&Z hearing were people who stand to gain financially from it.
Also, telling us to wait to discuss certain items later during the zoning portion only helps the developer because zoning approval requires only 4 votes, not the 5 votes currently needed for these GP amendments. The majority-4 will rubber-stamp anything the developer wants. So whatever zoning they want is already a done deal and that's why we need to discuss it NOW.
Why do we need more, more, more homes? There are hundreds already on the market in OV. Keep it low density. These developers are destroying what brought us to OV in the first place!
If you want a quality community, you best keep housing density under control.
The Mayor and his developer friends have over built apartments up and down Oracle road. We will have to hire another 20 police officers for this new population. This will increase the police budge to 60% of town budget. When the building ends, we will be stuck with a property tax to pay for the required policing.
We could have been Palm Springs, we are now Fresno!
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