The Superstition Mountains east of Phoenix, backdrop for Superstition Vistas, a 275-square-mile expanse of state land planned for eventual development.

Lindsay a. miller / arizona daily star

Other articles by Jim Kiser:

A deadly fight our desert cannot afford to loseGuest Opinion: Legislature must stop predatory payday lendersMy opinion Jim Kiser : I'm leaving, but not for retirement My opinion Jim Kiser: Before I go: Four reforms to enact, one to rejectMy opinion Jim Kiser: Report on Rainbow Bridge raises several concernsMy opinion Jim Kiser : Fund BLM to preserve our history My opinion Jim Kiser: Transportation OK signals new era of cooperationMy opinion Jim Kiser: Legislative leaders' budget would cause discord, harmMy opinion Jim Kiser : Cutting taxes is cynical move that ultimately costs us more My opinion Jim Kiser: Committee's inquisition a lesson in reckless civics

Trades/Construction
RANCHO RESORT
MAINTANANCE POSITION Finance and Accounting
Charles E. Gillman Company
Accounting Specialist Administrative & Professional
Tucson Urban League
CEO/President Administrative & Professional
Jorgensen Brooks Group
Counselor Mechanical
Komatsu Equipment Co
Resident Field Mechanic Sales and Marketing
Everready Glass
Sales Reps

It is a developer's dream come true: a 275-square mile expanse of developable land strategically located next to one of the nation's fastest-growing major metropolitan areas. A national forest borders it on one side, a conservation area on another.

And it is for sale.

The 176,000-acre tract — dubbed Superstition Vistas — is nearly as large as Mesa, Tempe, Gilbert and most of Chandler combined. It is expected to house nearly a million people. It is worth billions of dollars.

It is 10 times the size of the largest master planned community already in the Phoenix area.

And here's an interesting kicker: The state of Arizona owns the land.

The Arizona State Land Department manages the land and plans to sell it off over the years, most likely piece by piece. Plans are to first auction 1,650 acres to the highest bidder later this year. The rest will be sold as the land department puts it on the market.

How this area near the Superstition Mountains east of Phoenix is sold off and developed will influence the growth and character of eastern Phoenix and northern Pinal County. But the effects will ripple throughout the state. Tucson especially will feel the consequences. The state owns one-third of the land around metro Tucson — 1,280 square miles of land. Much, if not most, will be sold as Tucson continues to grow.

The Superstition Vistas land is so valuable and important it will influence the policies by which the state manages all of the 9.3 million acres of land it owns.

It will influence education financing because most of the money from the sale of state land goes to finance the public schools.

It will influence the state's water practices because of the size of the potential development. And it will influence growth policies that, over time, will help shape the remainder of Arizona.

Dream or nightmare?

In sum, this developer's dream at worst threatens to turn into a major public-policy nightmare, with clogged roads, endless seas of red-tile roofs, characterless developments and major infrastructure problems.

It could be more growth for growth's sake, more sprawl just because Arizona can sprawl. In short, it could become a scar on Arizona's face that likely would never heal.

Or, at best, this developer's dream has the ability to lead Arizona into a new era of enlightened land-use and growth policies.

Given such divergent possible outcomes, it is encouraging that experts and officials are talking about the challenges and opportunities Superstition Vistas presents now, before irreversible steps are taken.

Right now, this jewel of state trust land remains undeveloped. Nobody lives on it. And while it is used in some places for grazing and in others by the military, it has suffered no irreparable harm.

"The Treasure of the Superstitions," a report issued earlier this month by Arizona State University's Morrison Institute for Public Policy, is the latest, most important step in determining what will happen with this land. The report pointedly notes that the real Superstition Mountains treasure is not the famed Lost Dutchman's gold mine, but the land.

The report's principal author is Grady Gammage Jr., a senior fellow at Morrison and a Phoenix attorney. The $200,000 study was financed by Mesa, Apache Junction, Queen Creek, Pinal County, the Salt River Project, the Central Arizona Project and Tucson's Sonoran Institute. The report is available at www.morrisoninstitute.org online.

In its report, Morrison does not try to create a plan for Superstition Vistas. Instead, it offers three scenarios for the land's future — scenarios meant to evoke thinking about not just Superstition Vistas, but about how growth and development should proceed in Arizona.

It's an audacious intellectual undertaking, with the potential for significant, on-the-ground, real-world impacts.

But before anything can happen — before any of the scenarios, or any combination of the scenarios, can take shape — one immediate public-policy need is clear: Arizona must first reform its management of state lands.

Scenario one: Infrastructure

Superstition Vistas lies roughly between Apache Junction on the north and Florence on the south. It borders Mesa on the west and stretches miles eastward toward Superior.

In his report, Gammage outlines three possible futures for the land, each vision based on a different public-policy choice.

In the first scenario, the state would focus on infrastructure and preplan all of the area's utilities and roads. It would map out streets, transit routes and freeways. It would coordinate the location of drainage facilities with natural areas, including trails and open areas that would allow people and wildlife to move freely throughout. And it would carve out an 18,000-acre Superstition State Park.

Yet, with all this preplanning, the state land department would not try to enforce any type of development, believing instead that the private sector should react to market trends.

Consequently, according to this scenario, the area would grow in an orderly fashion, open space would be preserved, and by 2045 or so the trust would make a lot of money.

Scenario two: Standards

The second scenario takes a different approach: The land department would not try to preplan the infrastructure, but instead would set broad performance standards that developers would be required to meet.

The first standard would require that developments in the area use an aggregate of no more than 100 gallons of water per person per day — a standard 30 percent lower than the water use in Tucson, which is Arizona's most water-sensitive big city.

The second standard would require reversing the "heat island effect," in which the concrete, asphalt and buildings in large cities cause nighttime temperatures to rise. In Phoenix, this effect has already increased nighttime summer temperatures by as much as 10 degrees.

The proposed standard would require that developments not allow the temperature to increase by more than one degree. They could do this by altering roofing and building materials, eliminating unnecessary paving and making better use of landscaping.

And the third standard would require anything built in Superstition Vistas to use just half the state's current per-person energy consumption.

Scenario three: Governance

The third scenario takes another approach: The land department would "pre-incorporate" the area. Before allowing anybody to live there, the department would appoint a city council to create a development plan, review proposals and approve projects.

The council would find it easy to adopt a sweeping set of land- use plans, development ordinances and design-review guidelines, the report notes, because there would be nobody living there to battle the council's proposals.

Then, as the area grew, the appointed council members gradually would be replaced with elected members, eventually giving the area a popularly elected government to manage its orderly growth.

Guidelines for growth

As I hope is clear, these three scenarios are not truly alternative plans for Superstition Vistas, but an exploration of three possible methods the state could use to guide future growth.

In this sense, the Morrison Institute has turned Superstition Vistas into a case study that challenges leaders and citizens alike to think more deeply and clearly about the future they want for Arizona.

Reform land department

In addition to challenging Arizona's traditional approach to growth, Gammage and the Morrison Institute also are making a much more immediate challenge: Arizona must reform its land department.

Under current Arizona law, none of these Superstition Vistas scenarios is possible. That shouldn't be surprising. Few laws dating back to statehood nearly 100 years ago anticipated Arizona's growth.

Currently, the land department is required to sell or lease land to the highest bidders, with little regard as to who is buying it or what they intend to do with it. And the department is so underfinanced that it cannot always plan sales in a timely manner.

This is a huge problem for Arizona: With 9.3 million acres in its portfolio, the state owns more land in Arizona than anybody else. And as "The Treasure of the Superstitions" reveals, the state land department's actions profoundly affect cities and counties.

There is a solution: A consortium of environmental and educational organizations is backing an initiative for this November's ballot that would reform the laws under which the land department operates. It is called Conserving Arizona's Future. Voters should pass it.

Ultimately, the most immediate effect of "The Treasure of the Superstitions" is to make clear the urgent need to reform Arizona's land department.

After that, we can determine how best to plan Arizona's future.