By
The Associated Press
TUCSON, Ariz. - Residents who weighed in on a proposed Pima County conservation plan agree that something is needed to ensure the area's environmental and economic future.
But opinions vary widely on how the government should accomplish the different tasks that may fall under the plan, including regulating ranching and development, protecting the endangered Pygmy Owl and raising the hundreds of millions of dollars to buy or otherwise protect this land.
Pima County officials received 172 written public comments that will be used to shape the final version of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan for federal approval in December 2002.
Between now and then, five drafts will be released, and each will go through a separate round of public meetings and hearings.
County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry's preliminary plan would save ranch land, mountain park preserves and riparian areas from the Altar Valley to the San Pedro River Valley.
Besides trying to protect endangered species, the plan seeks to limit urban sprawl and reshape how and where growth occurs.
More details will emerge this spring and summer after a team of local scientists makes recommendations about which lands need the most preserving.
Huckelberry has touted his plan as a combined environmental-economic security blanket for the future.
By saving hundreds of thousands of acres and protecting endangered species, the plan is supposed to assure developers that enough growth can continue elsewhere to accommodate 1.2 million people expected to live in Pima County by 2025.
Some disagreements, particularly over the owl and raising money for the $300 million to $500 million plan, appear likely to pose problems.
Others, including those over ranching, regulations and procedures, seem to offer chances for compromise.
"People working together can and will come up with solutions that can work for everyone," wrote rancher Jim Chilton. "Just don't steal my land."
The majority of comments are positive, however.
"Tucson has the opportunity to become an example for the rest of the world by adopting and funding this plan in its strongest and most enforceable form," wrote Holly Hancock of Tucson. "The quality of life that a city can provide is where the competition will lie in the future."
Many respondents, including individuals and groups, would make the plan tougher by ordering the county to obey its own ordinances, by modifying road construction in sensitive areas and by extending the proposed limit on rezoning in riparian areas, ranches and critical owl habitats to all environmentally sensitive areas.
But some critics of the plan want regulations weakened or the removal of proposed fees that the plan would slap on home builders, developers and the sale of land.
Others complained that the plan lacks specifics.
