What do solar power, playgrounds and bike lanes have in common? The seeds for how those show up in Tucson are planned, in part, in an important but rarely discussed document called the city master plan.
Now, Tucson is giving its 20-year plan a 10-year face lift, and city planners want Tucsonans to weigh in on the draft document by the end of January.
The goal, says Principal Planner Cesar Acosta, is for residents to give input on what’s missing or what they’d like to see in the plan now, and how they’d like to frame policies for the future.
Get involved
- Attend the last Plan Tucson community forum on Jan. 16 from 5-7 p.m. at El Pueblo Community Center
- Read through the plan with friends through the city’s “meeting in a box” materials
- Take the online survey.
The last day to give comments is Jan. 31 at 5 p.m.
“One key reason to give input is because what’s in this plan impacts what policies the city can pass,” Acosta said. “If you care about any other project, any other initiative, you want to know: does it comply with the general plan?”
State statute requires municipalities of a certain size to create a city plan, which must have a public engagement component. The last general plan was passed by voters in 2013, but the idea of a city plan has been part of American urban development since 1909, when the first city plan was introduced to create a vision for a booming Chicago.
Tucson also bears the scars of an urban redevelopment project that demolished a historic Mexican-American neighborhood to build the Tucson Convention Center.
The document in circulation now will go to the mayor and city council for approval in the spring. If passed, it will head to voters in November.
That makes this the last opportunity for members of the general public to weigh in on what’s included. “It’s important to be involved because this is the one we get to vote on,” said Acosta. “If you can be involved, please be involved.”
The preliminary draft is a heady, 265-page document. Here is a breakdown of some of the interesting highlights:
A snapshot of a changing city
A significant part of the document looks at where Tucson stands right now — as a city to live, work and play in.
A few graphics offer a particularly interesting snapshot on who lives here, and the challenges they face.
The population of Tucson has changed significantly since the last plan in 2013, the current draft says. In particular, the Latino population has grown in both numbers and as a percentage of the population, making that community 43% of all residents — an increase from 42.8% as noted in the 2013 plan.
Tucson has grown 4% over the past decade, to approximately 543,348 residents in 2023, the report notes. The city’s median age is 34 years old.
The plan also shows a sobering snapshot of Tucson’s housing market, highlighting stark growth in rent prices that continue to impact residents:
Mixed-use development
From access to light rail and bike lanes to the number of parking spaces grocery stores get and whether houses have a backyard — city planning decisions create the lived environment for residents.
In Tucson, as in many cities across the country, a general trend in post-World War II planning has put access for cars at the center of how cities are built, says University of Arizona architecture and planning lecturer Kenny Wong.
The plan put forward by the city, Wong said, reflects a new way of thinking about what cities should look like that takes into consideration sustainability and walkability.
“The general plan helps to set our community goals so appropriate “carrots and sticks” through programs and regulations can be created to move us toward those goals,” he said. “Give and take will come from implementing the plan over a number of years, such as both increasing housing supply and creating protections for cost-burdened residents.”
The plan notes some broad trends that are shaping city life: a growing interest in multistory, multifamily developments; alley-facing garage entries; and smaller retail spaces as more people shop online.
Acosta, the principal planner on the project, says the plan puts forward more mixed-use development because it allowed more flexible use for the future. That means moving toward a city where most areas have a mix of commercial and residential space, rather than just housing or just stores.
“What we’ve heard is that [residents] want to have more walkability, they want to see more vibrancy, no matter where they live,” he said, pointing to downtown and midtown as desirable areas. “We want to have those kind of amenities across the board in different parts of the community where they don’t exist currently.”
He also notes that any major decisions about zoning or building projects aren’t made in the plan, though they must broadly comply with it to go forward in the future.
Acosta recognizes that mixed-use development areas in Tucson, such as the Mercado area, are expensive places to live. “That is in part because they are highly desirable,” he said, noting the cost of amenities at places like the Mercado reflect the high value of the land. “If we can create those conditions across the board, they won’t be as expensive because there’s more of it that exists.”
Climate resiliency
A significant chunk of the document looks directly at Tucson’s climate future and considers both what has been done so far, and what values could guide it in the future.
It celebrates what the region has done historically, noting that “the Sonoran Desert climate has fostered a 4,000-year-long legacy of water stewardship by using every drop of water more than once,” the document said.
And it draws on that to celebrate what the city of Tucson is doing now, including lower per capita daily water usage despite a growing population and an increase in the use of solar power.
Looking ahead, the plan proposes that the city lead in carbon reduction and heat resiliency by reducing energy use, transitioning city-owned buildings to renewable energy and incorporating heat mitigation into Tucson’s built environment. Advanced water metering technology, better diverting green waste, and other ongoing projects would support these goals.
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