Board of Adjustment – A Positive Step for the Santa Rita Sky Island

The Pima County Board of Adjustment met in Tucson on January 9, at 1:30 PM to hear the request for a variance in the cluster development proposed by the planners of the Kettenbach development at the mouth of Madera Canyon. Four members of the planner’s team were present and about 75 members of the public who were opposed to granting the variance.

Some Background - The owner, Mike Kettenbach, has owned this property for about 50 years and has been working and planning for its development over the past seven years. Until a paved road appeared off of Madera Canyon Road, no one knew anything about planning for a development. In fact, few people thought much about the new short paved road (see location map and description) until December 22 when a notice appeared that a hearing was scheduled for a variance on a cluster development plan for the property. That was 18 days before the hearing, and few people were aware that any planning had been done to build 288 homes in the grasslands at the mouth of Madera Canyon. Those who were opposed to the plan altogether and to the variance in particular had little time to gather support to request denial of the variance. However, the Friends of Madera Canyon was able to get the information out to the public. We asked the Green Valley News and Sun to research the background of the development plan and to print the date and time of a public forum to discuss the plan. They agreed to print an editorial comment on the plan from the Friends point of view. The forum on January 4 saw over 250 people learning what the plan was all about and wanting more time to study the matter and get behind a drive to ask for denial of the variance. With the time available, that was all we could do.

At the hearing, after some discussions, the planner for the Kettenbach’s said that they didn’t care if the Board granted a continuance since they would not be ready to present their full plan at the hearing tentatively scheduled for February 18. One member of the Board said, “Why not just take eight units out of the cluster and then you won’t need a variance?” Mr. Kettenbach’s reply was to ask that the Board forget about the variance and that he was withdrawing his request.

 

That was the first step and a good one – thanks to the Friends and the dedicated members of the community, who wrote letters, sent faxes, called, and worked to have the variance request denied.

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