From LOVE’s Facebook page:
Welcome to Hiremath 2.0….So disappointed in Winfield and crew.
So they said it’s OK to cram more homes onto smaller lots at the Oracle/Pusch View Lane location. Sounds like the last gang.
From emails we’ve received:
Email #1: At the March 6th Town Council meeting, Mayor Winfield told the applicant that he was not happy with the initial proposal and decided to continue the item rather than voting on it that evening. Although the applicant returned on May 15th with revisions, they only reduced the number of lots by five and the revised average lot size (7,145 square feet) was still less than half the original 15,000 sf entitlement and will allow the property to be mass graded.
I am very disappointed in the vote to approve this rezoning amendment. To quote staff in the Council Report: “The proposed revisions are substantive; however, they do not represent significant changes.”
Email #2: Winfield failed to kill it in March. At that meeting, the vote would have been 3-3 with Winfield being the tie-breaker. Apparently, he felt it was better to table it, giving the developer an opportunity to redo things to suit the council. So Winfield backed himself and the council into a corner and they were now compelled to approve the changes.
Email #3: For the past 8 years, all we have seen are General Plan Amendments and Rezonings with a quantum leap right down to the smallest lot size (often from 3.3 acre rural residential down to 7,000 sf Medium Density Residential. Some are down to 6500 sf.) This rampant mass grading of our beautiful desert and wildlife habitat is unconscionable to us.
Developers want small lot sizes because it is cheaper and faster for them to mass grade than to custom grade and it is cheaper and faster for them to build one connecting wall between each home than it is to build separate walls around each home.
They always claim that their proposal is what's best for Oro Valley, but their proposals are always what is best for them, whatever will make the landowner and the builder the most money. Their motive is not environmental protection or protecting property values. Their motive is profit.
The majority of Oro Valley residents do not want these types of developments. The proof is in the 2018 Town Council election results where one of the hot button issues was putting a stop to mass graded developments with 6,000 and 7,000 square foot lots.
Below is an email we received from a resident who was initially against the rezoning but eventually came to agree with the Town Council’s decision to approve it.
I spent a good 10 hours going through the application and agenda attachments. I opposed this because I don't like cluster housing on small lots, cuts to the hillside, and Richmond American homes. However, Rooney had numerous private meetings with the residents of Camino Diestro and reached agreement with them to eliminate some homes close to them and build only single story homes throughout the development.
At the March 6th meeting, Mayor Winfield gave Rooney/WLB a laundry list of concerns that they had to address to get this development approved. In my opinion, Winfield acted as the facilitator between residents and the applicant, much in the same way that Mike Zinkin and Bill Adler used to do, except that Winfield did it from the dais which then boxed them into approving it once the applicant made multiple concessions.
In terms of conservation, the 2002 plan was written before ESL [Environmentally Sensitive Land Ordinance] was passed. Therefore, the open space was initially within the 15,000 sf lots and residents might not have kept them as open space. In the revised plan, all open space is in the common area.
Even though I am disappointed, I can understand why this happened. I don't think they threw the residents under the bus. Some actually were okay with it after concessions. But I hope this negotiating from the dais ends now.
