In which we consider whether explosive growth could blast us right over the edge of the cliff

(Online editor's note: The online version of this story contains a section that did not appear in print: Growth Management Power Tools.)

The air is crystal. From Prescott Heights you can look northeast across the sweeping grasslands and the incredible Granite Dells, span the Verde Valley and the red rocks, gaze up over the Rim and all the way to the blown volcano hovering serene as Fuji over Flagstaff, some 90 miles away. You could say that the ranchers of the Central Arizona Highlands provide the rest of us with amenities that we love. Clean air, broad uncluttered vistas, a black night sky full of (drop into your best Carl Sagan here) billions and billions of stars—ranches keep the land empty, open, free of cars and car lots, paving and rooftops and electric lighting. But ranching is not the living it was. New generations don’t want that life, can’t pay the taxes, can’t afford not to sell to a developer. Besides, people really, really want to come here. And so, we grow. The question is, how do we grow? What drives the process? Who makes the decisions, and based on what?

Here, living off concealed, inscrutable groundwater reserves and forgetting what rain looks like, we feel an added edge in these questions—one that’s not so acute for, say, Pennsylvanians watching their farmland disappear. So new questions surface. How many showerheads and dishwashers can we add before the taps run dry, as in Payson and Pine? Is our growth machine a cartoon coyote racing toward the abyss, and will we wake up one day with our feet fanning midair, nowhere to go but down?

Backhoe Butte. RIH photo/Jason Bordonaro

The questions preoccupy local policymakers, developers and citizens. Reasonable, balanced, sustainable, responsible, smart—different interests have different descriptors to hitch to the word “growth.” They all have common goals, but you hear them rankling at each other. So growth is a hot topic, as you can gather by a little Google-trolling—or by counting the conference-hours flowing by each year, as groups convene to talk about it. Two such groups met in Prescott in the past year.

Last April Prescott hosted a statewide group, the Arizona Town Hall. Twice a year the nonprofit invites about 150 “prominent Arizona citizens” to discuss topics of concern, including, last spring, growth. The product of each Town Hall meeting is a report, and this one hits just about every downside to rapid growth you could think of. At its head is this five-alarm thought: “Explosive growth and development throughout the state is reshaping Arizona as it approaches the celebration of its first 100 years of statehood.”  

Nothing Exceeds Like Excess

The report’s unsmiling conclusions emphasize a statewide lack of preparedness for this explosion. “A growth rate that has far exceeded projections in the past decade has forced government leaders and planners into a reactive position,” hampered by inadequate funding and staffing for planning, the group wrote. Regional cooperation was scarce, competition between governmental entities common.

The catalog of hot-growth costs includes infrastructure impacts. When large crowds of new people come to your community, the impact is everywhere, not just in the newcomers’ home subdivision. Water mains and sewers citywide need replacement sooner and more often. Road construction and repair or alternative transportation systems are another growth cost. Schools bear the growth burden too, and Arizona is not keeping up, coming in dead last nationally in funding and with a 21.3:1 students-teacher ratio, the second highest in the nation, and one of the lowest teacher pay rates. Parks and recreational facilities get crowded, libraries need extra staff, or towns must build (and staff) new ones.

Detailing the more-people-more-cars formula’s familiar chain of consequences, the report states, “Traffic congestion diminishes quality of life as it contributes to air pollution, which in turn reduces the visibility of the state’s natural beauty.” A booming human population exerts pressure on all natural resources, including beauty, as well as the prized freedom from “hustle.” If a town or county doesn't prioritize keeping open space open, it won't happen. Quality of life also includes clean air and available, high-quality water (a report released last month indicated that Arizona’s 2005 releases of toxic substances into the environment were up 15%), as well as wildlife habitat and surrounding wilderness areas. How to monetize these benefits?

Finally, the Town Hall worried about what kind of housing growth happens: “While the price of real estate in Arizona has exploded in the past few years, the median income for Arizonans has not kept pace.” We’ve certainly seen in the Central Highlands a loss of “workforce affordable housing” accessible to police officers, nurses, retail and city workers—those who serve us all, but whose work the free market doesn’t value enough to support their purchase of a home in a hot real estate market. And when people can’t afford to live near their work, transportation systems are further strained.

Experts agree—no end in sight

The second conference considering growth brought together a group of Prescott-area businesspeople, preponderantly from the housing industries, at Prescott’s Quality Inn last month. Sponsored by APS and Prescott’s Fann Contracting, it was the first annual Economic Outlook Forum of the Central Arizona Partnership. This group, headed by Mike Fann and developer Brad Fain, models itself on the Valley Partnership of Phoenix. Maria Baier, backstage political mover and ex officio member of the Phoenix group, facilitated the local Partnership’s formation. The conference’s main course featured “economic predictions for growth mavens in Central Arizona,” as one speaker put it. Conferees heard from three Northern Arizona University College of Business Administration economists and a private economic consultant, and the outlook was cautiously upbeat.

This macroeconomic view framed growth data. NAU’s Ronald Gunderson joined those who foretell a “megapolis” stretching, someday, from Green Valley to Chino Valley, embracing Tucson, greater Phoenix, the Quad Cities and everything in between. He waved a caveat—that if the issues of water and transportation aren’t solved, “I don’t think that the growth can continue the way it is projected.” However, he added, when it comes to inventing fixes and continuing to grow, “we always find a way.” Consultant Elliott Pollack titled his talk “Slower Growth Ahead.” He projected a state population growth slightly less than the 2006 figure of about 200,000, at an annual increment of “170,000, 180,000, 190,000 in Arizona as far as the eye can see.”

The economists confirmed the Town Hall finding that many valuable workers in the community can’t afford to buy homes; some, even, to rent. “Regardless of the implications, the ongoing growth will continue to place pressures on housing—especially affordable housing—here as well as across Arizona,” Gunderson predicted.

How d’ya like your growth? The people weigh in

Before the economists’ talks, Prescott Chamber of Commerce CEO David Maurer presented results of a June 2006 telephone survey. Commissioned by publicist Al Bradshaw for the Partnership and administered by Dr. Bruce Merrill, Director of the ASU Survey Research Center, the poll sampled 706 registered voters in the greater Prescott area, with a margin of error of ±3.7%. The Partnership developed the questions, according to Maurer, with Dr. Merrill putting them into their final form. What follows is a sampling of the growth-related sections.

While the great majority of the survey respondents were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with where they live, 52% responded to the open-ended “What is the most important challenge to living here?” with growth-related or scarce-resource concerns: limited water, too much/too rapid growth, loss of rural areas, traffic congestion. The need for economic development was the primary worry of only 11%. Focusing in more closely, the pollsters posed a choice: “What concerns you most about growth—lack of water, too much growth, lack of roads/repairs?” Respondents chose the first two issues by 44%, while 9% mentioned roads. A related question weighed water management directly against transportation improvements, and 58% chose the water.

Two questions about growth management yielded a minor but classic polling discrepancy. Just as national polls routinely reflect distrust of government “in general” but satisfaction with “my local representative,” 55% of respondents didn’t like “how growth is being handled,” but 52% found their local government doing an excellent or good job managing growth.

Growth management power tools

It’s clear, then, that a majority of Prescott-area residents feel some concern about growth. So what to do about how we grow? Repeatedly, at meetings of water management groups, civic leaders declare there’s nothing you can do about the influx. County Supervisor Tom Thurman likes to break into an impassioned appeal to the Constitution and property rights; Supervisor Carol Springer and Chino Valley Mayor Karen Fann affirm the right of owners to do whatever they want with their property. They and others express a strikingly consistent, almost reflex passivity in the face of people moving in. People are coming, says Mayor Fann, whether we like it or not.

So, if growth is inevitable, do we have to just lie back enjoy it? In reality, of course not. Communities have tools—plans, zoning regulations, fee structures—for dealing with how they develop. Water policy serves as one limiting factor. Within the Prescott Active Management Area (AMA), developers must apply for water allocations doled out by a formula the AMA has worked out with the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR); thus the water provider assures the developer a 100-year water supply. Prescott now bans new golf course construction. Chino Valley recently received a state loan for an active effort to expand its water delivery and sewer system, allowing stronger management of the town’s “water portfolio.” All the towns’ General Plans expound principles and goals for development, and targets for rates of growth; all have Planning and Zoning Commissions, or the equivalent. Yavapai County has a Comprehensive Plan.

Still, in county areas outside the AMAs, the growth management tools are far fewer. Statewide this lack raises alarms. The Big Chino area, location of Prescott and Prescott Valley’s water ranch, will also support as many as 38,000 homes planned by developers SunCor and TriStar by 2030, in addition to the piecemeal development of separate new homes permitted as “wildcat” lot splits. A 2004 Yavapai County Water Advisory Committee report predicted 882 acre-feet of water annually committed to golf courses in the Big Chino by 2010. Recent research suggests that under the impact of such growth the Big Chino’s groundwater reserves may not be adequate to support the flow of the Verde River, and the cities’ planned Big Chino pipeline could also feel the competition.

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Under current state law, subdivision developers outside AMAs have no obligation to prove adequate water supplies. ADWR Director Herb Guenther calls this impotence of the law “dysfunctional.” New bills to address the issue trudge through the legislature. State Rep. Lucy Mason’s House Bill 2693, endorsed by local municipalities, would give counties the option to appeal to ADWR for water adequacy rulings and deny inadequate subdivision plans. However, an amendment requires the measure’s unanimous adoption by a county board, and since Supervisor Springer opposes the adequacy proposition, it’s unlikely Yavapai County will acquire this management tool during her tenure.

People talkin’

So we could be an insane coyote racing toward the canyon’s edge. But more likely, as Dr. Gunderson said, we’ll find a way. It probably will have to look quite different from the way we’ve followed up to now. All calculations of how we’ll find enough water end up with the same number on the calculator screen: EXPENSIVELY. But people are talking—about smart growth, reasonable growth, balanced growth; about getting growth to pay for itself. Developers take the lead, proposing mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly communities; experts provide ever clearer pictures of future scenarios and consequences of present actions. And the lawmakers… Well, the next issue will investigate all of these moves into our growing future.

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