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Ordinance No. 9666 was amended at the Mayor and Council meeting of 1/28/02, as described in the section immediately below. The Ordinance was adopted after midnight and thus is dated 1/29/02. It became effective on 3/10/02.
The full text, including the amended section of the Code dealing with Traffic Impacts, is given as a two-page PDF file of Ordinance 9666 (242 Kbytes) and as a shorter typescript version (3 Kbytes).
[The PDF file was generated with TIFF images from a scan of the document. The TIFF images were converted by use of OCR software to the typescript version (.txt format), which is quick to download and can be edited but lacks indentation and other formatting of the parent document.]
The City Council (Mayor Walkup absent) held a public hearing on a draft ordinance that relaxed various requirements of the "Big Box" ordinance passed September 27, 1999.
From the Mayor and Council Meeting Regular Agenda for January 28, 2002:
16. PUBLIC HEARING: LAND USE CODE AMENDMENT - LARGE
RETAIL ESTABLISHMENTS ("BIG BOX" REGULATIONS) AND
ORDINANCE ADOPTION
(a) Report from City Manager JAN28-02-61 CITY-WIDE
(b) Hearing on a proposed amendment to the Land Use
Code (LUC) concerning changes to that portion of the
LUC regulating Large Retail Establishments ("big box"
development).
(c) Ordinance No. 9666 relating to planning and
zoning; amending portions of the Tucson Code
concerning large retail establishments, Chapter 23,
Land Use Code; Article II, Zones, Division 5,
Commercial Zones, Sections 2.5.1.2, 2.5.3.2, 2.5.4.2
and 2.5.5.2, Division 6, Mixed Use Zones, Sections
2.6.1.2 and 2.6.2.2, Division 7, Industrial Zones,
Sections 2.7.2.2 and 2.7.3.2; Article III, Development
Regulations, Division 5, Performance Criteria, Section
3.5.9.7; Article V, Administration, Division 4,
Procedures, Section 5.4.2.3; and setting an effective
date.
The City Manager recommends that the ordinance be
adopted.
Comment: The draft amendments relaxed various requirements of the "Big Box" ordinance.
Council allowed the changes in parking, but not the other changes.
However, the attempt to change the ordinance will come yet again before Mayor and Council: Council charged the Planning Commission with review of the original ordinance in its entirety, rather than selectively as in these amendments.
Documents relevant to the draft amendment are found in the
City of Tucson Planning Department archives:
The draft amendments had been addressed by the Planning Commission with neither approval nor disapproval at the public hearing of January 2, 2002.
The Big-Box ordinance had been passed at the Mayor and Council Meeting of September 27, 1999. [alos, Arizona Daily Star report on the January 28, 2002, Council action:
'Big-box' parking rule altered City Council votes to allow fewer spaces By Joe Burchell ARIZONA DAILY STAR The City Council voted early Tuesday morning to allow developers of "Big-Box" stores to provide fewer parking spaces than previously required. The vote was necessary to pave the way for a Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse on North Oracle Road, where developers and neighbors have agreed to landscaping that will eat up some of the store's parking space. Other proposed changes to the law regulating the development of stores larger than 100,000 square feet were rejected, on a 5-1 vote, at a meeting that didn't end until well past midnight. Instead, the council opted to send the entire 2-year-old Big-Box law back to the city's Planning and Zoning Commission for a complete review. No timetable was set for that to be done. Councilwoman Shirley Scott, a Democrat, said the council always intended to revisit the Big-Box regulations to see if changes were needed. "Now is that time," Scott said. Democratic Councilman Jose Ibarra opposed changing the parking requirements, saying it made no sense to make that change in isolation. He said changes should be reviewed along with the rest of the law. The new parking standard allows developers to provide fewer parking spaces than now required if a traffic study shows they don't need the required one space per 200 square feet of store area. Delaying that change would have caused a problem for the planned 150,000-square-foot Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse at 4147 N. Oracle Road, which comes to the council for approval next week. That plan, the result of lengthy negotiations with neighbors, provides less parking than previously required. "We'd rather add landscaping and amenities the neighbors want than 300 parking spaces we'll never use," Lowe's representative Roger Bernstein said. City planners described most of the other proposed Big-Box changes as "minor technical amendments" that wouldn't affect the law's regulatory clout. But most speakers at a public hearing disputed that description, saying they erode neighborhood protections. Several speakers were neighbors of El Con Mall, which was a focal point in the creation of the law. They said the regulations already provide inadequate protection for neighbors against noise and light. Democratic Vice Mayor Carol West tried unsuccessfully to get the council to approve several other changes, including modifications to loading zone and lighting standards, saying she believed they increased protection for neighbors. Lacking support, she voted for the review. In other business on Monday night, the council unanimously: * Voted not to approve a change in development restrictions in the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base approach and departure zone. A state law passed last year imposed more restrictive limits than those the city and the base recently agreed to. Instead of bringing the city regulations into compliance with state law, the council voted to lobby the Legislature to amend the state law. * Asked the Animal Welfare Alliance of Southern Arizona to review the city's contract with Pima County Animal Control and analyze the county agency's practices and its treatment of the animals in its custody. * Contact Joe Burchell at 573-4244 or burchell@azstarnet.com.
Prior to considering amendments to the "Big Box" ordinance, the City Council held a long and somewhat rowdy public hearing on a set of three ordinances on development near Harrison Road and 22nd Street, that relocated a segment of Spanish Trail:
13. PUBLIC HEARING: MAJOR STREETS AND ROUTES PLAN AMENDMENT - OLD SPANISH TRAIL: HARRISON ROAD TO 22ND STREET 14. PUBLIC HEARING: (SE-01-01) BARCLAY GROUP - 22ND STREET AND HARRISON ROAD, C-2 ZONING SPECIAL EXCEPTION LAND USE AND ZONING EXAMINER'S REPORT 15. REAL PROPERTY: REALIGNMENT OF OLD SPANISH TRAIL BETWEEN HARRISON ROAD AND 22ND STREET AND DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT, RES 2001-084
Neighbors in large number vehemently expressed their unhappiness with the proposed relocation; the unhappiness extended to include the proposed Big Box, a Target store. Council did not ignore the tenor of the crowd: the relocation and thus the development plan was not passed. The plan will be revised, presumably without proposed relocation of Old Spanish Trail, and Mayor and Council will revisit the matter and likely pass it.
Neighborhoods when energized can alter a development plan. This group expressed feelings similar to those that surfaced during the El Con hearings.
More details of the ordinances are in the Mayor and Council Meeting Regular Agenda for the date (1/28/2002)/
The Arizona Daily Star report:
City denies road closure for planned Target By Joe Burchell ARIZONA DAILY STAR The City Council voted 4-2 Monday against closing the section of Old Spanish Trail from South Harrison Road to East 22nd Street. The closure would have accommodated the developers of a 154,000-square-foot Target store and associated shopping. Vice Mayor Carol West, who cast the swing vote to deny the request, said the issue could come back to the council. The vote doesn't block the shopping center development but will require developers to modify the site plan for their 30-acre property, which is split into two parcels where the road cuts across one corner. The council initially deadlocked 3-3 on a motion to close a public hearing on the road closure. By refusing to close the hearing, opponents Jose Ibarra, Shirley Scott and Steve Leal, all Democrats, blocked action on the road closure. Ibarra later moved to deny the closure outright. West joined the Democrats to make it a 4-2 vote, with Republicans Fred Ronstadt and Kathleen Dunbar opposed. Republican Mayor Bob Walkup was absent. West said she voted to deny the closure with some misgivings and indecision. She said she wanted to continue the issue to resolve concerns about both the Target development plan and the plans for moving traffic, bicycles and pedestrians through the area once the road is closed. But when it was apparent there weren't enough votes to continue, denying the road closure seemed the next best option, she said. "I'm still looking for ways to get something done out there," she said, because that portion of Old Spanish Trail has become a safety and congestion problem. * Contact Joe Burchell at 573-4244 or burchell@azstarnet.com.
Council votes to save Trail from shopping center Councilwoman Carol West switches sides to preserve the disputed segment of Old Spanish Trail. MICHAEL LAFLEUR Citizen Staff Writer Jan. 29, 2002 City delays workers' pay adjustment Neighbor objections helped kill a city proposal to turn an 800-foot segment of Old Spanish Trail into part of a planned East Side Target "Big-Box" shopping center. Following a long and raucous public hearing, the City Council last night voted 4-2 to kill a measure that would have deleted the segment of Old Spanish Trail between South Harrison Road and East 22nd Street from the city's road system and allowed a Phoenix developer to incorporate it into a 29.6-acre shopping center. After first backing an unsuccessful motion to pass the plan because she said it would have provided the safest alternative, Councilwoman Carol West, whose ward includes the project, switched sides and in a surprise move cast the deciding vote. She joined Councilwoman Shirley Scott and Councilmen Jos Ibarra and Steve Leal in backing the measure that killed the proposal. Mayor Bob Walkup was absent from last night's meeting. "A good leader, when she sees that her followers aren't with her, then you have to think of some other alternatives," West said. "I'm determined that something is going to be done to that intersection. I'm just going to have to couch it in different terms. "There are alternatives to the closing of this particular street," she said, adding that she wished to respect wishes of bicyclists and other "nonmotorists" who opposed the plan because it would reroute a bike route that runs along Old Spanish Trail. Last night's vote does not kill the Barclay group's plans to build a 154,000-square-foot Target store as well as 103,000 feet of retail and restaurant space on the site. The developer already has the zoning necessary to build on the lot. Commercial zoning has been in place there since the 1970s. The developer must now resubmit a new development plan to the city zoning examiner, which will then be considered by the council at an undecided future meeting. City transportation department officials argued that the segment of Old Spanish Trail runs through the middle of the proposed Target site and that it would be safer to reroute the street - whose confluences with both Harrison and 22nd are deemed to be dangerous intersections - than have it be the major entry point into the large-scale development. A majority of neighbors last night opposed the project, saying they wanted to preserve the scenic quality of the road. In other action, council members voted 6-0 to hold off on implementing changes to state law that would create larger buffer zones around Davis-Monthan Air Force Base than those Tucson has in place, which were developed in conjunction with D-M officials. The continuance allows for state lawmakers' plans to revisit and rewrite the law in their current session and make many of the changes Tucson is proposing, reducing the buffer zones to a level that is not quite as drastic. Under the law, which was enacted last year to protect Arizona bases from a round of closings anticipated to take place within the next two years, would have precluded residential construction of any kind within the buffer zones and imposed some restrictions on commercial development. Thousands of people would have been affected, primarily in Rita Ranch, a portion of which would have fallen under the buffer zones, essentially preventing homeowners there from building additions to their property. The University of Arizona Science and Technology Park could also have been affected.
Ordinance No. 9293 was passed at the Mayor and Council Meeting of September 27, 1999, as a modified version of the options developed by the Planning Commission. It became effective on 11/11/99. Various court and other tests followed its adoption. All were defeated, and the ordinance stands.
The full text is given in a single 16-page PDF file of Ordinance 9293 (1164 Kbytes) and as a shorter typescript version (27 Kbytes), which also includes Ordinance 9666 at the end of the document.
[The PDF file was generated with TIFF images from a scan of the document. The TIFF images were converted by use of OCR software to the typescript version (.txt format), which is quick to download and can be edited but lacks indentation and other formatting of the parent document.]
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URL: http://urban-issues.com/Documents/Big-Box.html
Last revised: May 28, 2002
John Rupley: rupley@u.arizona.edu