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Council adopts zoning text amendments clarifying buffer-yard rules and allowing administrative landscape modifications
Summary
The Town Council unanimously adopted Ordinance 2025-180 to amend Title 18 (zoning) chapter 18.73, clarifying when buffer yards are required and creating an administrative modification process so minor landscaping adjustments can be handled by the planning director instead of the Board of Adjustment.
The Town of Sahuarita council unanimously adopted ordinance 2025-180 on Feb. 24 to amend the town's landscaping, buffering and screening standards in Title 18 of the zoning code.
Dylan Perry, the town's senior planner, told the council the amendment creates an administrative modification process so minor, site-specific landscaping adjustments can be decided by the planning director rather than requiring each change to go to the Board of Adjustment for a public hearing. "The idea behind this was to create a process to make it easier for the applicants for minor amendments," Perry said.
Perry also said the amendments fix a wording problem in the current code's buffer-yard table. Under the prior language the code used the term "zone" in a way that could be read to require buffers in broader circumstances than intended. Perry said the revised text clarifies that a buffer yard is required when a proposed nonresidential use is adjacent to either (1) a residential use or (2) a vacant parcel that is zoned rural or residential — rather than applying the buffer requirement in every case simply because the adjacent land lies in a residential zone.
The text amendment was advertised in the Green Valley News on Feb. 9, drew no public comments to date in the record, and the Planning and Zoning Commission had unanimously recommended approval on Jan. 6. Council members voted to adopt the ordinance by voice vote; the motion carried unanimously.
