Tues., March 2, 2004

SAHBA won't oppose $174M bond issue to pay for open space

By Tony Davis

The Southern Arizona Home Builders Association, a leading critic of the county's Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, announced Monday that it will stay out of the debate over a $174 million open space bond that would help pay for the plan.

Two pollsters, including one who has conducted a poll on the May 18 open space bond election, said SAHBA's non-opposition to the bond issue greatly increases its chances of passage but doesn't guarantee it. Pollster Margaret Kenski conducted a poll last month saying 61% of respondents supported or were likely to support the bond issue. Monday, she said that lack of organized opposition to it would make its chances for passage 10 to 1.

SAHBA's board members said the entire six-question bond package represents a referendum on what kind of community voters want. As a result, "It is appropriate for us to take no action. We want the voters to make a decision and not have us or anyone else try to sway them'' about the open space bond, said Ed Taczanowsky, SAHBA's executive vice president.

Taczanowsky said the association may take stands later on the other five bond questions, and that the board of directors wanted to deal with the open space bond first because it was considered the most controversial.

The home builders have long been outspoken critics of the conservation plan, a county proposal to conserve the area's most environmentally sensitive lands while allowing growth elsewhere. The builders group has said the county failed to define the plan's scope and cost and warned that it could raise the price of homes by shrinking the supply of available land for development.

The association was prepared to spend money fighting the open space bond, but a presentation last month by County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry answered many of the board members' questions about it, Taczanowsky said.

So far, the Pima County Libertarian Party is the only group opposing the open space bond, which would buy 24,000 to 100,000 acres of land. The business groups Tucson Association of Realtors and the Metropolitan Pima Alliance are supporting the bond.

The Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, which opposed the $27 million 1997 open space bond, will announce its stance on the six bond issues in two weeks, said John Dougherty, the chamber's governmental affairs director.

More than a dozen environmental and other public interest groups have submitted arguments in favor of the bond for publication in a county booklet about the bond election. So have Stephen Phinny, developer of the Saguaro Canyon Ranch project in the Tortolita Mountain foothills, and developer consultant Barbara Strehlke.

A half-dozen individuals, including Barney Brenner, a property rights activist, Jonathan DuHamel of People for the West, and rancher Cindy Coping, have submitted arguments against the bond.

The Friends of the Sonoran Desert, an environmentalist political action committee, has spent $74,000 so far to support the open space bond, said Susan Shobe, its executive director.

"Right now, it's a one-sided election," Kenski said. "If there isn't organized opposition, it really helps. What the voters have to consider is, how much does it impact them personally? How much do they trust county government? How much do they think these things are needed?"

If nobody puts money into fighting the bond, its chances of passing are reinforced, given the community's predisposition toward conservation, said Bruce Merrill, a longtime pollster and an Arizona State University professor.

Contact reporter Tony Davis at 807-7790 or at verdin@azstarnet.com.

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