Rezoning Open House Follow Up from City of Scottsdale Planning

Posted By Les Conklin on Dec 16, 2014

December 16, 2014

The email message below was received by Les Conklin, Editor, from Kroy Ekblaw on December 15, 2014. Les attended the open houses referred to below.

You are receiving this e-mail based on your signing in and providing an e-mail address while in attendance at one of the Open Houses held last week for the two zoning cases that are being proposed in North Scottsdale. As a reminder, there are two separate cases being proposed:

20-ZN-2014 – proposes to rezone land that has been acquired by the City of Scottsdale for the Preserve, as Conservation Open Space (COS). Currently, this land is zoned for residential use and the rezoning to COS will help insure that the land remains in its natural state for perpetuity.

19-ZN-2014 – proposes to rezone State Trust Land to match the city’s General Plan land uses, which were proposed and approved in 2002. (These State Trust lands are located within the Preserve study boundary but which the city does not own)

There will be another Open House this Wednesday, December 17^th from 4-7pm at Florence Ely Nelson Desert Park, 8950 E. Pinnacle Peak Road.

We understand a lot of questions were raised at the open house and we wanted to provide you a very brief summary of the key issues from the history leading up to this point and the two cases being proposed. Additionally, we have attached the fact sheet we handed out at the Open Houses and we have also included a summary provided by two citizens, former McDowell Sonoran Preserve Commission Chairmen Howard Myers and current McDowell Sonoran Preserve Commission Chairmen Jim Heitel, which outlines their perspective of the history and current proposals.

The following is a brief summary provided by city of Scottsdale and Az. State Land Department staff:

State Trust lands
Granted to Arizona by the United States, per provisions for Arizona’s statehood in 1912.
Not public land, held in trust/managed for the sole purpose of generating revenues for the 13 beneficiaries, the largest of which is Arizona’s K-12 public schools.

Scottsdale’s desire for conservation
1990s, citizen desire in Scottsdale led to a plan to conserve natural open space (Preserve).
citizens passed two sales taxes to buy land for conservation.

The API is created to manage competing interests
Trust lands purpose for maximum return conflicted with citizens’ desire to conserve land.
1996, the Arizona Preserve Initiative (API) was enacted into law, allows a process for State Trust land in urban areas to be reclassified “suitable for conservation”
Per API, “The land value cannot be reduced because of the conservation purpose.”

1998 – Scottsdale requests 16,600 acres of trust land be reclassified as “suitable for conservation”
2001 – State Land Commissioner issues an order (Order 078-2001/2002), reclassifying approximately 13,000 acres of the requested 16,600 acres as “suitable for conservation”
As part of that order, the State Land Commissioner set expectations for the city to work with the ASLD to accommodate an increase in value for the approximately 4,000 acres of adjacent land not reclassified. The commissioner’s intent was to maintain the overall value of State Trust land.

2002 – City Council approves General Plan case 4-GP-2002, established land uses on all 16,600 acres of State Trust land, per State Land Commissioners Order/expectations.

2009-2012– Scottsdale requests /ASLD Oks land auctions for approximately 12,800 acres .
Scottsdale acquires all 12,800 acres of those Trust lands for the Preserve.
With the API process, Scottsdale received nearly $75M in matching Grant dollars from Az. State Parks for use in the purchase of the 12,800 acres of Trust lands.

2013-14 – Scottsdale seeks an additional 400 acres for acquisition.
Per the expectations of State land Commissioners reclassification order, ASLD expects the rezoning approval prior to the auctions for the 400 acres of land that Scottsdale is seeking.

19-ZN-2014 – ASLD is requesting rezoning on about 4,000 acres of State Trust land .
Rezoning conforms to land designations approved by the city council (4-GP-2002).
The approved General Plan case identified 6,271 residential units, 75 acres of resort and 40 acres of commercial use.
The proposed rezoning case requests 5,000 residential units, 75 acres of resort and 40 acres of commercial use (a reduction of 1,271 units).

With city approval of rezoning
ASLD will auction two parcels of State Trust land totaling approximately 400 acres.
Scottsdale intends to bid on them for the Scottsdale McDowell Sonoran Preserve.

20-ZN-2014 – Scottsdale is requesting rezoning of 22,300 acres of existing Preserve land from various residential districts to the “conservation open space” district, which will provide another layer of protection for keeping these Preserve lands in their natural state for perpetuity.

There will not be any events related to these cases during the upcoming holidays.

Dates for future Planning Commission and City Council Meetings will be set in 2015 and we will advise you of those dates and locations once they are set.

If you are interested, we will be glad to respond to questions and/or attend HOA or other community meetings to present information regarding the proposals in mid-late January.

If you do not want to be on this listing, please reply to the e-mail and note that you would like to be removed. You are also welcome to forward this information to other interested parties.

We appreciate your interest and your attendance at the open houses and will use this email list to advise you of future communications regarding these cases, Thank You

Kroy S. Ekblaw Mark Edelman

Preserve Director, City of Scottsdale Planning & Engineering Manager, ASLD

480-312-7064 602-542-6331

kekblaw@scottsdaleaz.gov medelman@azland.gov