The "Tucson Growth: Decision at the Crossroads" audience exceeded 500 and included numerous city, county and regional officials.

benjie sanders / Arizona Daily Star

Other articles by Tony Davis:

2nd Green Valley water line proposed Can you really 'navigate' the Santa Cruz River? Vail residents savor victory over TEP plan ACC rejects disputed stretch of power line2 tours, 2 perspectives on Rosemont mine Congressmen probe review of decision that Santa Cruz is navigable New cistern promotes rain harvesting Southeast Side power line, stations up for ACC vote County yanks letter seeking Santa Cruz River designation State-guided project puts Tucsonans on front line of amphibian protection

General
Dismas Charities
Security Monitor Health Care
Carondelet Surgery Center
Operating Room RN's Mechanical
Pioneer Landscaping
Diesel Fleet Mechanics General
SOS Exterminating
Termite Tech FT Administrative & Professional
Oracle Controls
Office Assistant Health Care
Old Pueblo Practice Management
Surgical/Medical Biller/Coder General
Wasatch Property Management
Maintenance Tech

Why can't we all get along?

That theme ran through the talk by a panel of local and national growth experts at Friday's forum "Tucson Growth: Decision at the Crossroads."

The experts, including planners, a conservationist, economists and state officials, agreed that consensus is essential if Tucsonans are to find a future vision to guide growth from about a million people today to 1.5 million or more by the middle of the century.

But talking about cooperation is a lot easier than achieving it, agreed several people in the audience of more than 500, which included many city, county and regional officials.

The moderator, Arizona State University economics professor Dennis Hoffman, laid the groundwork for the growth discussion by showing two huge maps, one of Tucson's current urban area, the second of the same area bulging outward in all directions in 2032.

"This is a difficult place to get things done in the state. We deal with issues all over the state and it shouldn't be that hard. We only have one county (in the Tucson area) and not that many people," said State Land Commissioner Mark Winkelman.

Panelist Bill Roe, a longtime conservationist, chairs Pima County's Conservation Acquisition Commission, which ratifies open space purchases for the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. That plan, the product of five years of negotiation among interest groups, is a great cooperative success story, "but as I sit back and look at where we need to go now, I'm concerned about our inability to work together," Roe said.

Roe, who is also a committee member for Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities Inc., a nonprofit economic development group, said a consultant to the group told him Tucson is "the most fractious" of 60 places he has worked.

Roe took a trip sponsored by that group to Portland, Ore., to observe its redevelopment and found that the key to the area's growth-management successes was a conscious decision to get all interested parties involved from the start.

"Everyone said it took a lot longer to get to the end result, but when they got there and had their vision, their blueprint, everyone was happier," Roe said.

A home builder on the panel agreed that the community needs to erase "that line in the sand" separating factions.

"Builders are parents and grandparents of children who need a place to live," John Wesley Miller said. "I see a lot of people in the audience for whom I built your house or your parents' house. I want to ask us to think about, 'how do we come together the way we used to,' and think about what is good for our community."

But finding consensus on growth will be very difficult here because each local government bases decisions allowing new developments on its need for new tax revenue to finance government operations, said County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry, who attended the forum.

That's the model "we have to get away from," said Huckelberry, arguing that the area needs a cohesive, regional land-use policy.

With many competing interests at the table, it will require a professional facilitator or mediator to find a common interest, said audience member Paul Green, director of the Tucson Audubon Society.

"You have to have someone who is independent, with no interest in a particular outcome, to help this process," Green said.

When controversy swirls around an individual project, it's easier to find consensus on it than it is on a regional growth issue, which is "a never-ending sort of debate," said audience member Glenn Lyons, CEO for the Downtown Tucson Partnership. The group, representing city and county governments and the private sector, seeks to improve Downtown.

"A lot of people like to keep things the way that they were. We know cities change, and how to handle change in a way that people will be happy with, that's an emotional issue. The only way to do it is with continuing dialogue and finding things that people can agree on," Lyons said.

The forum was sponsored by the Arizona Daily Star, the University of Arizona, the Thomas R. Brown Foundation and the Communications Institute.