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When Jeanna Hernandez moved her horse-boarding business to North La Cholla Boulevard five years ago, she could hardly see a house from her property.

Now Southwestern-style ranch homes line the ridge to the north of her stables, and their patios look out over her sparse, metal-roofed stables and hay barn, and the bare dirt of her riding pens.

Once again, suburban sprawl bumped into a vestige of Pima County's rural, ranching past. As in dozens of similar cases across the county, the encounter left both sides feeling bruised.

In the last five years, horse-related issues have made up about 20 percent of the Board of Adjustment cases for District 1, which stretches from River Road north to the county line; and for District 4, which includes Green Valley and southeast Pima County.

Typically, a neighbor complains about the horse property, a county inspector finds a violation and the owner appeals to the Board of Adjustment for a variance, excusing the owner from some part of the county code to keep from having to shut the stable down.

"It's really increased in the last five years as the urban areas have encroached into Catalina, into the Rincon Valley," said Pima County planner Greg Hitt. "Some of these people have been there forever, and nobody bothered them before because everything was horse property."

Pima County Zoning Enforcement doesn't keep track of how many animal structure-related cases it investigates.

Hitt said the most common complaints involve corrals or stables too close to the property line. Often the structures don't have permits and violate the setback requirements.

County law requires them to be 100 feet from the property line. But on just a few acres, that's either impossible or puts the corrals right next to the house.

"Generally, the owners request the variance because they don't want it right up against the house where they can smell it and there are flies," Hitt said. "Well, their neighbors don't want to smell it, either."

Other common violations include having too many buildings, like hay barns or shade structures, and grading without a permit.

Sometimes horse-property owners try to do the right thing and call the county before adding a stable or barn, and are told they don't need a building permit. What they aren't always told is that they do need a zoning permit to verify the setbacks. The permits aren't expensive — around $60 — but without one the structure is illegal.

Less often, but more seriously, horse owners run into trouble for operating commercial stables in residential zones.

Boarding horses that aren't yours or charging money for services like riding lessons would constitute a commercial stable, Hitt said. It requires a larger lot. How much larger depends on how close the neighbors might be.

It's the grading, not the horses, that have Kitty Wayne's neighbors up in arms. Wayne, who comes from a ranching background and had run a large ranch in Pinal County, bought 4.5 acres near North Camino de Oeste and Linda Vista Boulevard in September 2006.

The property is zoned for horses, but the previous owner left most of the property natural desert with saguaros and thick stands of ironwoods.

Her neighbors called the county when she graded most of the site, cut down ironwoods and put part of her arena in the path of the wash that runs to the west of the property.

A bin for manure is 10 feet from the property line.

From the size of the structures Wayne built and statements in a letter she wrote to the county, they also fear she plans to run a commercial stable.

"I know she'll try to say we bought horse property and now we hate horses, but that's not it," said Allyson Miller, who lives just to the north. "One, we were here first. Two, it's residential horse property, not commercial. Three, it's a protected riparian area."

Miller is surrounded by horse properties, including a few she suspects of being small-scale commercial operations — boarding a few horses or offering riding lessons. She has never complained about any of them because they are clean, quiet and respect the desert surroundings.

Michael Marino, another neighbor, agreed. He's lived in the area for 30 years and seen a lot of changes, but none that upset him as Wayne has.

"We always voted not to pave the roads because we have horses," he said. "For personal use, yes. For two to three horses, yes. But she's cleared the whole thing."

Wayne, who reached a settlement with the county after it sued her for violating the grading and native-plant-preservation ordinances, did not want to be interviewed because her request for variances to keep her hay barn, shade structures and corrals is still pending.

Patti Shirley, a horse trainer who runs a retirement program for racehorses, said she frequently hears from owners of small stables who run into problems with the county or their neighbors, though she's not personally worried because she's on 120 acres.

She knows not every horse owner is a good neighbor, but even in more extreme cases, she sees changing values more than callousness. The notion that the land is there to be used clashes with a more recent trend toward conservation.

"My hackles get up because I'm of the attitude (that) you can do with your land what you want," she said. "If you want to have horses, you can't have them with saguaros and mesquites. It definitely is a clash, not of culture so much, but of ideas and lifestyles."

Sometimes the threat to horse properties is not complaining neighbors but more traffic and people, which spook horses.

Brenda Young said she was really worried by a rezoning request to put the entrance to a subdivision right by her round pen. She has a yearling, a young horse still learning about cars and people.

"When I'm in my round pen working a young horse, I don't want someone doing something that could be dangerous, or even worse, when one of my grandchildren is riding in the round pen," she said.

Another neighbor had to move her corrals when a rezoning put an apartment complex just a few feet from the property line.

"It's growth," said Young, who lives on an acre near La Cholla and Magee Road. "I moved out here because it's horse property, and while I love my horses, I know a lot of people don't."

Young was able to work with the property owner and the county to put in a wall and screening, but she's still trying to get the county to install a flashing light or other signal to allow horses to cross La Cholla safely.

Hernandez has found herself in trouble just about every way she could since she moved Sunkist Stables, her boarding and training business, from almost 20 acres, north of Tangerine Road near the La Cholla Airpark, to a property half that size on North La Cholla between Overton and Lambert Lane.

She moved because her property had become landlocked by development and she had nowhere to ride, while the smaller property had a wash to the west, protecting her access to trails.

But not long after she bought the property, houses went in on a ridge that arcs north and west from her stables. When she expanded the stables to within 10 feet of the property line, neighbors complained about the smell and the grading.

In 2006, she was cited for grading without a permit and building without a permit or meeting setbacks.

She also was operating a commercial stable with 38 horses on just 10 acres.

Hernandez complied with a revegetation plan and asked for a variance for her stables and fences. Over the objections of county inspectors and neighbors, the Board of Adjustment allowed her to keep her business and her buildings, provided she apply for a conditional use permit.

In letters to the Board of Adjustment, neighbors said they didn't mind looking at the horses but wanted Hernandez in full compliance with county code — something she says would have put her out of business.

But she worries about dozens of other small stables she now knows are out of compliance with county code. Some of the horses she boards are refugees from properties that couldn't afford to comply with county rules.

Hernandez said she has identified nearly 100 other horse properties with some type of commercial activity, like boarding or training for a fee. Only four were on 20 acres and most were on three to eight acres, she said.

"If they were to enforce this across Pima County, you would wipe out the boarding stables," she said. And closing boarding stables would mean an end to horse culture for those who cannot afford their own horse property.

"Our kids get out of school for rodeo. We are steeped in the Old West. It would be a huge cultural loss," she said.

Hernandez said the county should take another look at its requirements. She said it's almost impossible to find 20 acres in the metro area anymore.

Hitt, the county planner, said the county has no plans anytime soon to revise the the rules for horse properties, but that could change.

"From a planning perspective, whenever you see a large number of requests for variances relating to the same use, it can be a sign that the code is outdated," he said.