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Planning staff, consultant brief council and commission on Parcel 30 specific plan; environmental restrictions, buffers discussed
Summary
Planning staff and the WLB Group presented a Parcel 30 specific plan study session that outlines mixed‑use vision, buffering to adjacent neighborhoods, a Declaration of Environmental Use Restriction over part of the site, and next steps (secondary planning, neighborhood outreach, P&Z hearing in March).
Sahuarita — Town planning staff and consultant WLB Group led a study session with the Planning and Zoning Commission and council Monday on the proposed Parcel 30 Specific Plan, a rezoning and master plan for roughly 233 acres directly south of the town center.
Orlentia Henderson, the town’s planning and zoning manager, and Rob Longacre of WLB Group described the specific plan as a flexible zoning entitlement intended to guide development where an end user or master developer is not yet identified. Longacre said the plan focuses on the town’s mixed‑use zoning district and seeks to create a regional town core with commercial and recreational uses supported by ancillary retail, office and multi‑dwelling residential where appropriate.
Longacre said about 87 acres north of the railroad spur had been the site of a historic mill and tailings deposition area; that portion was remediated decades ago and is governed by a Declaration of Environmental Use Restriction (the transcript refers to a DUER/DOER). The remediation includes a soil cap across the former tailings area, and the town said the capped area limits certain types of ground disturbance; staff said the capped acreage currently contains the Man in the Maze park and related recreational uses.
The preliminary development plan shown to commissioners divides the property into development areas, identifies power‑line corridors and a conceptual roadway alignment and proposes buffers to protect adjacent neighborhoods, including a 40‑foot landscape buffer on the west and a 60‑foot buffer within the El Toro Road right‑of‑way on the south. Staff emphasized that the railroad corridor functions as a natural separation between the northern park/recreation areas and the southern development areas.
Longacre described “secondary planning” requirements that will be required as future developers come forward. Those steps include circulation and pedestrian plans, drainage and grading studies, utility plans, design standards and geotechnical analysis (the latter emphasized because of the site’s historic industrial use). The specific plan relies on the town code for many development standards, but it includes supplemental regulations and performance standards to ensure compatibility with adjacent uses.
Commissioners asked about remediation status, buffering and what a specific plan provides that a standard rezoning would not. Staff and the consultant said the remediated portion of the site is usable under the existing restriction, that the specific plan allows staff to tailor performance standards and permitted uses, and that a developer‑level development agreement and secondary planning steps would specify exactions, public improvements and other conditions at the time a developer is identified.
Staff said the project will return to the Planning and Zoning Commission for formal hearings (scheduled) and then to council for final action; staff also indicated they will provide the commission with the neighborhood‑meeting summaries and technical materials before that hearing. The session closed with commissioners and councilmembers asking staff to circulate the neighborhood meeting notes and environmental documentation ahead of the formal P&Z hearings.
