Once the plats are approved, County Supervisor Pat Call said afterward, “Then that area can’t be split into the wildcat 4-acre lots anymore, with individual wells. It has to go into development. And if it develops, it will develop much more water-consciously than if it was an RU-4 lot split.”
The supervisors approved the Mountain Ridge Subdivision Tentative Plat, which consists of 37 lots on 42.35 acres; and Sonoran Estates Subdivision Tentative Plat, with 73 lots on 160 acres.
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The developer of both neighborhoods is CVE Inc., an Arizona company that is from out of town and is represented by Jim Huff of Shade Tree Consulting. Jason Harral of Kleingers & Associates is the project engineer.
Tuesday’s action by the supervisors is just one in a series of steps. Before final plat approval, the developer still faces hurdles that include providing the county with a letter of assured water adequacy from the Arizona Department of Water Resources and expensive road-building that will provide legal access to Highway 90, “as approved by the Cochise County Highway and Floodplain Department.”
The planned subdivisions are located about two miles south of Mustang Corners and within a half-mile east of Highway 90. The developments represent “the end game of a long process,” Call said.
Call and fellow supervisors Paul Newman and Richard Searle enacted the Babocomari Area Plan in 2006, which imposes water-conservation measures on developers.
“We would much rather have that kind of development there than unregulated high-water-use development. That’s the whole point,” Call said.
“What we did with the Babo area is we allowed more intense development, more than the basic RU-4, which is one home per four acres,” Call said. “But for the developers to have that more intense development, they had to jump through some very rigid water hoops, if you will, because of the closeness to the watershed.”
He added, “To their credit, the developers now have come along and adhered to those rules, plus some.”
Call said, “If people just go out and lot-split, and drill a well, helter-skelter, they don’t put in the transportation, they use a lot more water. But if we can encourage them to go into a subdivision, now we can say, ‘OK, well, you can’t use evaporative coolers if you do this. You have to set up for gray water. You have to limit your landscaping. All those high water uses. In return, what we’ll let you do is have an intensification of density.’ ”
Some land is in the Babocomari area within the northern fringe of the Hubbard Assault Strip Encroachment Area. Thus, some future homebuyers will have to be informed during real estate transactions of the caveat that C-130 Hercules military aircraft on training maneuvers will be flying low over their homes, Call said.
Hubbard Assault Strip is part of Fort Huachuca.
Herald/review City Editor Ted Morris can be reached at 515-4614 or by e-mail at cityeditor@svherald.com.
