Trades/Construction
Paragon Electric
Electricians General
Chapel Haven West
Program Staff Dental
Dr. John Carson, DDS, PC
Dental Asst/Treatment Coordinator Health Care
Visiting Angels
Caregivers Driver/Transportation
Pioneer Landscaping
Drivers/End-Dumps Restaurants and Clubs
Zinburger
All Positions Sales and Marketing
Xentel
Business & Residential Callers

With any luck, the city's experiment in controlling minidorms — private homes that are greatly expanded to become boarding houses for students — will trigger a lawsuit that will end up in the Arizona Supreme Court.

On Monday, the City Council approved a plan that takes a conservative approach to giving 22 older neighborhoods near the University of Arizona some control over the look of minidorms. It doesn't rid the neighborhoods of minidorms or the nuisances they bring with them, but it enables the city to launch a process that gives it some control over the appearance of those structures.

At the same time, the city's plan offers developers some incentives to build minidorms along main arterial streets instead of in the center of neighborhoods. That may help preserve tranquillity in streets that have long been exclusively single-family residential, but only if developers think the city is offering them a sweet enough deal to lure them elsewhere.

The plan approved by the City Council is a pilot program, and periodically will be reviewed to see whether it needs to be modified. It will take time to determine whether the plan — technically called a zoning overlay — is a success or failure.

The problem is that, in this case, success or failure is measured by how many lawsuits, if any, are filed as a result of tweaking the zoning regulations in a way that imposes some control on minidorms.

The city took a cautious approach in permitting neighborhoods to decide to adopt the overlay zone that would impose new design criteria on minidorms. It did so because, like every other city in Arizona, it is worried about the effects of Proposition 207, a draconian law that threatens the future of new zoning and land-use laws throughout the state. Voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 207 in last year's elections.

Proposition 207 was very appealing because it seemed deceptively simple. But its implications are far-reaching and complex.

The new law does two things. It limits government's ability to condemn property using the right of eminent domain — a superfluous change because such laws already existed — but more importantly, it drove a stake into the ability of cities to adopt and enforce new zoning laws.

It did so by saying that if the government does anything that causes the value of someone's property to diminish, it must reimburse that person for his or her loss. It doesn't spell out those things that actually result in a loss of property value.

Nevertheless, on the surface, the law sounds fair enough. Just below the surface, however, it creates a nightmare because it mainly vests real estate entrepreneurs with the ability to circumvent the will of the majority of residents in any given neighborhood.

By claiming that a proposed change would diminish the value of his or her property, a developer can scare a government into inaction.

City governments can get intimidated by the prospect of big-ticket lawsuits and end up doing what Tucson's City Council did — avoid lawsuits by adopting a program that benefits developers a lot more than it does the residents.

Proposition 207 was theoretically a victory for private property rights, but in reality it is only a victory for some property owners — mainly the commercial interests. Unless Arizona courts unscramble the inevitable mess that will come with trying to determine what has caused someone's property value to drop, and by how much, the developers will likely get their way by merely threatening cities with a Proposition 207 complaint and lawsuit. It is questionable how many cities want to stand and fight and bear the high cost of legal talent.

Private property rights are fundamental to our form of government, but Proposition 207 went too far. In effect, it sacrificed the will of the community on the altar of 19th-century libertarianism. The result is anti-social legislation.

The trajectory of civilization has been a movement from farm to village to town and city and nation — a movement away from isolation and toward community building. In the process, individual wishes — at least to some extent — become subordinate to the needs of the community. For example, hardly anybody likes taxes, but we agree to pay them so that the community will have police and fire protection. Similarly, we adopt zoning laws to govern not just our own homes, but where we live.

In practice this means a property owner may not be permitted to move a double-wide trailer to a lot in Sam Hughes, and this protects the character and value of other homes in that neighborhood. Such laws are an extension of community values.

The trouble with Proposition 207, as recent cases in Flagstaff, Phoenix and Tempe have shown, is that it renders community values subordinate to the individual, and it has the potential to freeze well-intentioned community planning.

In Phoenix, for example, the city created a historic district but repealed it in April when the owner of an apartment complex in the district filed a complaint threatening to sue for $40 million.

In Flagstaff, a similar conflict is unfolding. Urged by a grass-roots group, Flagstaff created a historic district in an old neighborhood. In July, the Pacific Legal Foundation filed a complaint on behalf of four residents saying the designation had diminished the value of their property. They're demanding that Flagstaff pay $400,000 in lost property value.

Proposition 207, the gun aimed at every city planner's head, does not spell out what constitutes a drop of value.

The law's details must be clarified by state courts. As long as it remains on the books, it renders every planning department in the fastest growing state in the nation an endangered species.

The 22 areas that are eligible to opt into the neighborhood overlay under the pilot program are:

• Armory Park Historic District

• Barrio Anita

• Barrio Libre

• Blenman-Elm Historic District

• Catalina Vista Historic District

• Colonia Solana Historic District

• El Encanto Estates Historic District

• El Hoyo/El Membrillo

• El Montevideo Historic District

• El Presidio Historic District

• Iron Horse Historic District

• John Spring Neighborhood Historic District

• Menlo Park Multiple Resource Area

• Pie Allen Historic District

• Rincon Heights

• Sam Hughes Historic District

• San Clemente

• Santa Rosa

• Speedway-Drachman Historic District

• University of Arizona Campus Historic District

• Warehouse Historic District

• West University Historic District

SOURCE: City of Tucson's Department of Urban Planning & Design