What’s Next - Hard work for us ahead

The Kettenbach planners must update their plan without the requested variance and will present it to the Pima County Design Review Committee at their March 15 meeting. This will be for approval of the cluster development only. Following that decision, we have to study the revised plan to determine if the new plan complies with the county development regulations. We will retain an hydrologist to study the developer’s plans to obtain water for the development and how waste water and sewage will be treated and discharged. We will find an engineer to go over the plat and see if all aspects of the design of roads, bridges, and property parameters are within county regulations. But more importantly – we will answer the question, “Is the development consistent with the long-term goal of protecting and preserving a rare ecosystem at the mouth of one of Arizona’s prized recreation and educational outdoor resources?”

 

Surprising Fact - Mike Kettenbach has been a Life Member of the Friends of Madera Canyon since 1999. As a Life Member, Mr. Kettenbach made a life-time commitment to the protection and preservation of the intent and spirit of Madera Canyon. We are pleased to have him as a member and hope that in the end, he will uphold his loyalty to Madera Canyon by giving up the development of his property and finding a way to maintain it as part of one of the County’s few remaining undisturbed desert grassland habitats in Arizona’s unique sky islands. One suggestion we have is to erect an exhibit at the end of the paved road leading to the eastern border of the property where there is now a circular turn-around. This would be a prefect location for the Kettenbach Educational Exhibit with a shade-giving ramada, a restful bench where visitors could enjoy the sea of waving grasses, the flowering of the ocotillo, the silence of the open space, and the twittering of birds. To one side would be a few interpretive panels calling attention to and explaining the importance and interesting features of the desert-ocotillo-mesquite grasslands in the bajada or alluvial plain that extends from before your eyes almost to the Santa Cruz River.