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PHOENIX — Unable to work out a deal with home builders, a conservation group has decided to ask voters to put more than 570,000 acres of state trust land permanently off-limits for development.

The initiative drive, started Friday, follows the breakdown of talks among various interests to come up with a unified plan to conserve at least some of the 9.3 million acres of state land. The hope had been that a negotiated deal would allow lawmakers to put the issue on the November ballot for the required public approval.

But the talks reached an impasse over the question of financing: Home builders wanted specific provisions to bar cities from imposing new "impact fees" on new developments to buy the land for conservation.

With no legislative action, The Nature Conservancy chose to go it alone, even though time is running out: Backers have less than three months to gather the 230,047 signatures on petitions to qualify for the ballot.

Voters could actually end up with a choice: Sen. Jake Flake, R-Snowflake, said Friday he will push colleagues to put a competing measure on the November ballot, one that would preserve only the trust land that cities and others buy.

That could set the stage for a repeat of 2006 when two competing measures, one by environmental groups and another by lawmakers, fought for voter approval. In the end, neither was approved.

Flake said a compromise was possible but said Gov. Janet Napolitano decided to "walk away from the negotiating table."

The heart of the initiative is that list of 60 separate areas scattered throughout the state — much of that in Southern Arizona — that would be set aside for conservation. While there have been disputes in the past about exactly which lands should be off-limits to development, there appears to be at least general agreement that some trust land should be preserved.

Potentially more controversial, the initiative would allow state agencies, cities and counties to buy other parcels of trust lands for the fair market value.

The Arizona Preserve Initiative, approved by voters in 1996, allows such purchases. But it left in place a constitutional requirement that lands be sold for the highest value, meaning cities had to compete for choice parcels with often better-financed private developers; this measure eliminates those auctions.

Spencer Kamps, lobbyist for the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona, said his organization wanted a ban on cities imposing new "impact fees" on developers to purchase the land.

Aside from raising the costs for new homes and offices, Kamps said the developers then would be willing to pay less for other parcels of state land, undermining the trust.

Flake said he got the League of Arizona Cities and Towns to agree to forgo use of impact fees for these purchases. He said that's when Napolitano declared an impasse.

Patrick Graham, executive director of The Nature Conservancy, said he does not know what occurred in the closed-door talks that involved just the governor and legislators.

He said he would have preferred a negotiated solution, with all parties on board. But he said the breakdown of those talks — and the approaching deadline to qualify for the ballot — left his organization with no choice.