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Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 07.02.2006
Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry wants to kill previously approved plans for up to seven new golf courses that would slurp groundwater.
His plan marks a significant policy shift for the county, which has encouraged new courses to use treated sewer water but never barred them from using groundwater.
The drought is a catalyst for the change, Huckelberry says. But the shift also reflects a new economic reality: Golf courses simply aren't as popular a marketing tool for new developments today.
Huckelberry wants the Board of Supervisors to:
● Kill some of four new courses in Diamond Ventures' Rocking K development near Saguaro National Park East.
● Delete golf courses planned for the Santa Rita Ranch development in Corona de Tucson and the Miraval resort development near Catalina.
● Prod Sahuarita into stopping developers of the big Quail Creek project from adding a second 18-hole course — a course the county had approved before Sahuarita annexed the land.
The county has repeatedly refused to ban groundwater use for new golf courses, although the courses are required to use effluent or Central Arizona Project water — if it's available.
But county officials have concluded that the water supply — not the amount of available land — is the biggest factor limiting growth, Huckelberry said.
"Golf courses take water away from people, and we want to go farther than before in protecting our water supply," he said.
Typically, golf course operators pour two to three times as much water onto an acre of turf as four families living on the same land would use, according to the Arizona Department of Water Resources.
But even before Huckelberry sent his proposal to the board in late June, some of these developments were apparently losing interest in golf.
Increasingly, the kind of large, master-planned developments that built golf courses in Tucson and Phoenix to lure home buyers are shunning them in favor of open-space preservation, trails and parks.
More than 30 major new developments, totaling about 150,000 homes, are now in the works for Tucson and its environs in three other counties. Only four of those plan new golf courses for their projects, while three haven't decided yet.
In the past five years, home-buyer tastes, as shown in three studies in the Phoenix area, have swung dramatically from golf courses to open space, trails, parks, "green buildings," and places to walk and hang out, said Grady Gammage Jr., a Phoenix land-use attorney.
Both nationally and in the Phoenix area, developers are even tearing out older golf courses — or trying to — to make way for more homes.
Homeowner Ivy Salacup can see why.
"I don't want a golf course here," said Salacup, who lives in the new Sycamore Canyon development that backs up to the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson.
Developers of the 2,400-home project pitched it to county officials as a boon for open space, since they're setting aside nearly 70 percent of their land.
"When I bought here, I was told there would be just family homes and places for walking — trails, parks and open space," said Salacup, who moved in April from the East Side.
"If there was golf here, there would be a whole lot of people going in and out of the development, and there would be more traffic," she said.
One of the projects named in Huckelberry's proposal, Santa Rita Ranch, had planned to put its additional nine holes on nearby state land. But another buyer got the state land and, in the past few years, bulldozed that course site to build houses, said Eric Abrams, vice president of the Stanley Group.
Diamond Ventures and Miraval officials couldn't be reached last week for comment. But Huckelberry said Diamond Ventures is interested in possibly getting rid of one to two of the four Rocking K courses and Miraval has shown no interest in building its course.
The Quail Creek course in Sahuarita may be too far along to stop. Sahuarita officials say the additional 18 holes already are well under construction.
Santa Rita Ranch already has 18 holes of golf, but Abrams said last week that his company would not build that course today if it could start the project from scratch. First, golf courses are expensive to build, costing $7 million to $8 million, he said. Others peg the price as high as $1 million per hole.
"More and more people realize that open space and other things of that nature, such as scenic beauty, work just as well in drawing home buyers as golf courses," Abrams said. "To some extent, you could get a higher lot premium if you had a golf course than if you had just a natural view. But when you enter into the equation the cost of the golf course, it becomes a situation where it's almost a break-even in the end, and then you save yourself the difficulties of golf-course construction."
Sycamore Canyon developer Alex Argueta said he left golf out of that project and his 4,600-home Willow Springs Ranch in Pinal County because golf isn't as profitable as it used to be and takes a lot of space, water and imported materials. The upkeep and maintenance is "horrific," Argueta said.
"If you go to any master-planned community, most of the premium lots face open space," Argueta said. "What changed? A lot of people have discovered that there's a limited number of golf players."
Sycamore Canyon resident JoAnn Hinchliffe said she likes to be able to walk every morning and see nothing but birds and cacti. She and her husband checked out several other developments but didn't like them, she said, because they were on a golf course.
The water used by golf is an important factor, she said, adding: "If you live in the desert, you should act like you live in the desert."
Real estate attorney Gammage said recent surveys found a fairly consistent pattern: that golf isn't among people's top five desires for their neighborhoods and in some cases not even their top 10 choices.
Baby boomers seem to have less interest than their parents, he said, in living in retirement communities featuring golf.
"Do you know anyone our age who wants to retire to an age-restricted golf community?" said Gammage, who is 54. "I don't know anyone."
● Contact reporter Tony Davis at 806-7746 or tdavis@azstarnet.com.
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