Pinal County supervisors cancel proposed zoning-code rewrite after hours of rural opposition

The Pinal County Board of Supervisors voted Feb. 5 to cancel the county's Jan. 6, 2025 draft of a zoning-code update after lengthy public comment from rural residents who said the changes would restrict longtime practices such as keeping livestock and running small agricultural businesses.

Residents and community leaders packed the meeting to object to provisions they said were overly prescriptive, risked "weaponizing" code enforcement, and were drafted without adequate local input. The board approved a motion to remove the Jan. 6 draft from the active process and directed staff to restart outreach and work sessions before reintroducing revisions.

Why it matters: The county-wide zoning code shapes what property owners can do on unincorporated parcels across Pinal County. Opponents said the draft threatened widely held rural practices; supporters of an update said rules need modernization to reflect state law and clearer standards for the county's growth.

Public comment and key themes

Dozens of speakers, many from unincorporated parts of the county, urged supervisors to scrap the draft and start over with more local participation. Several recurring themes emerged during public comment: concern about limits on animals and backyard agriculture, requests to protect longstanding landowner rights and exemptions, complaints that the draft would empower neighbors or developers to bring enforcement against others, and calls for simpler, rural-friendly code structures.

Morris Miniga, chairman of the Pinal County Planning and Zoning Commission, who addressed the board as a member of the commission and a longtime private-sector developer, told supervisors: "It was never ever ever our intention to further regulate any of this stuff." Miniga said the commission spent more than a year on the document and that some proposed changes were required by state statutes.

Other speakers recounted personal or neighborhood experiences they said illustrated the risks of stricter rules. Wade Williams said the county's code enforcement process could be used as a punitive tool: "We don't want the county to come and be the police and be weaponized till each one of us has a dozen things we have to change," he said. Several speakers asked that the county adopt a simpler, point-based or rural-friendly model like Apache County or Apache Junction.

Board response and next steps

Chairman Steve Miller explained the process for the day and reminded attendees of meeting rules; he also noted the county must follow state law when updating local code. Miller said staff will extract budget and procurement information about how the draft was produced and that the…