Conservation group wants state trust land on ballot

  PHOENIX - Unable to work out a deal with homebuilders, a conservation group has decided to ask voters to put more than 570,000 acres of state trust land permanently off limits for development.

  The initiative drive, started Friday, follows the breakdown of talks among various interests to come up with a unified plan to conserve at least some of the 9.3 million acres of state land.

  The hope had been that a negotiated deal would allow lawmakers to put the issue on the November ballot for the required public approval.

  But the talks reached an impasse over the question of financing: Home builders wanted specific provisions to bar cities from imposing new "impact fees'' on new developments to buy the land for conservation.

  With no legislative action, the Nature Conservancy chose to go it alone. But time is running out: Backers have less than three months to gather the 230,047 signatures on petitions to qualify for the ballot.

  Voters could actually end up with a choice: Sen. Jake Flake, R-Snowflake, said late Friday he will push colleagues to put a competing measure on the November ballot, one that would preserve only the trust land that cities and others buy.

  That could set the stage for a repeat of 2006 when two competing measures, one by environmental groups and another by lawmakers, fought for voter approval. In the end, neither was approved.

  Flake said a compromise was possible but said Gov. Janet Napolitano decided to walk away from the negotiating table.'' The heart of the initiative is that list of 60 separate areas scattered throughout the state - much of that in Southern Arizona - which would be set aside for conservation. While there have been disputes in the past about exactly which lands should be off limits to development, there appears to be at least general agreement that some trust land should be preserved. Potentially more controversial, the initiative would allow state agencies, cities and counties to buy other parcels of trust lands for the fair market value.

  The Arizona Preserve Initiative, approved by voters in 1996, allows such purchases. But it left in place a constitutional requirement that lands be sold for the highest value, meaning cities had to compete for choice parcels with often better-financed private developers; this measure eliminates those auctions.
Spencer Kamps, lobbyist for the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona, said his organization wanted a ban on cities imposing new "impact fees'' on developers to purchase the land.

  Aside from raising the costs for new homes and offices, Kamps said the developers then would be willing to pay less for other parcels of state land, undermining the trust.

  Flake said he got the League of Arizona Cities and Towns to agree to forgo use of impact fees for these purchases. He said that's when Napolitano declared an impasse.

  Patrick Graham, executive director of the Nature Conservancy, said he does not know what occurred in the closed-door talks which involved just the governor and legislators.

  He said he would have preferred a negotiated solution, with all parties on board. But he said the breakdown of those talks - and the approaching deadline to qualify for the ballot - left his organization with no choice.

  "It was at that point that we felt that time was running out and this was too important an issue to delay to 2010,'' he said. The result, Graham said, was the language his group filed Friday with the Secretary of State's Office.

  Gubernatorial press aide Jeanine L'Ecuyer said Napolitano tried to come up with a deal with lawmakers but they couldn't get there.''

  She said the governor has not yet reviewed the initiative. But she said the goal is something the governor has been advocating for for a long time.''

  Central to the discussion is the nature of trust lands.

  When Arizona became a state in 1912 the federal government granted it about 10 million acres. These are lands held "in trust,'' with the main beneficiary being public education, with the Land Department mandated to get as much money as possible for either the lease or outright sale of property.

  Graham said he believes taking more than 570,000 acres out of the mix will not harm the trust. He also said the initiative gives the Land Department more money to manage and plan the remaining trust lands, potentially increasing the revenues that would be generated from their sale to developers.

  This isn't the first effort to preserve some trust lands.

  Two years ago environmental groups put a measure on the ballot that would have placed up to 694,000 acres of state land off limits to development. But that was a more complex measure in several ways.

  First, it would have guaranteed the preservation of only about 300,000 acres; the balance would have been set aside only if cities or conservation groups came up with the necessary cash for purchase. This initiative, if approved, guarantees preservation of those 570,000 acres and leaves the door open for others to identify and seek buy and preserve more at market value.

  The 2006 measure also would have allowed the state Land Department to partner with developers on projects on other state land parcels, a provision not included in this year's version.

  Complicating matters, the home builders convinced lawmakers to put a competing measure on the ballot. It clarified that 40,000 acres already earmarked for conservation could be sold to communities without auction and directed the Legislature to set up procedures to preserve another 400,000 acres, but only in rural areas.

  In the end, both went down to defeat.

  Whether other environmental groups will support the measure remains an open question.

  Two years ago the Sierra Club specifically refused to support the initiative by other environmental groups, saying it did guarantee enough land would be set aside for preservation.

  Sierra Club lobbyist Sandy Bahr said her organization is studying the new version. She said, though, this appears more acceptable for several reasons, including the open-ended ability to allow cities and others to buy and set aside trust lands above the 570,000 acres specified in the initiative.

  Graham said one of the reasons so much of the land identified for conservation is in Pima County is that, unlike Maricopa County, there are still areas relatively close to the metropolitan area that have not been developed. He said one goal was to identify trust lands that likely would be in the path of development in the foreseeable future.

  He also said Pima County also has "a lot of critical habitat for threatened species'' which the initiative wanted to protect.