Promoting for Scenic Setbacks
and
Responsible Development
Friends has sought to reduce the impact of growth on the Scenic Drive. Our focus has been on obtaining scenic setbacks and reducing the visual impact of development. Here are several letters related to this topic.
August, 2000: Mall Town Chinese Water Torture
Mall Town
August 14, 2000
It’s Time for Mall Town!
Much has been written about urban sprawl’s impact on our quality of life. The time has come for you to act, and embrace an exciting new life style … Mall Town!
It’s time to give up our individual houses, apartments and cars and move together into a massive, all-encompassing, ever-expanding shopping mall. A place with all the merchandise, services and jobs that you can imagine, and all the people too.
Aisle #1 is where the newborn come into the world. Here you will find baby food, diapers and all the other products that an infant Mall Towner needs. Aisle #2 is where Day Care and related merchandise are located. Kids start grade school and buy school supplies in Aisle #5. How easy can life get? You simply shop your way through life until you reach the Final aisle, Aisle #1000, the cemetery.
No need for houses, and cars. When you arrive at Mall Town you’ll gleefully turn them in. In return, you will receive Mall Town money, and a shopping cart. A free high-speed conveyor belt will whisk you around Mall Town. No more traffic. No more pollution. No more unsightly natural scenery. Just row after row of merchandise. Can we withstand the unimaginable beauty?
Mall Towners with the most Mall Town money will get sleeping space on the water-cooled roof. There will be no homeless people in Mall Town. Even the least fortunate person will be provided affordable housing; they will sleep in the lowest storage shelves. No matter what your station in life, prince or pauper, you will get to shop all day, every day. Can life get any better?
As more and more fortunate people rush to live in Mall Town, their unwanted houses and open space will be bulldozed to lengthen Mall Town’s aisles. Just think, no more NIMBYs, no more arguments over preserving pristine desert and mountains, no more griping about traffic and pollution. Just one joyous community, enjoying the ultimate shopping experience.
Sure, Mall Town is a crazy idea, but is it any more insane than clearing mile after mile of land to build new shopping centers while others slip into disuse and decay? You’ll find the answer in Aisle #97 (City Hall) and Aisle #98 (State Capitol).
Les Conklin
Chinese Water Torture
Friends of the Scenic Drive, Inc.
Scottsdale, Arizona 85255
Email: friends@scenicdrive.org
October 6, 2000
Water Torture can be Devastating!
Friends of the Scenic Drive opposes to the granting of a use permit to the Foothills Academy to construct a school on the southwest corner of Ashler Hills Road and the Scottsdale Road Scenic Corridor. Kids must be educated, and communities must have schools. But, this school is in the wrong place for both the kids and the community.
"Water Torture" Urbanization
One drip has little impact. The cumulative effect of many drips is devastating! It is the individual, relatively small events – a cell tower here, a few more cars there - that are incrementally urbanizing the Scenic Corridor and the Scenic Drive.
The northern part of Scottsdale Road is special because of the thousands of hours that residents have devoted over four decades in an attempt to save it from becoming "Any-Road-USA". Why? Because elevation, location, climate and time have combined to blanket the land with a profusion of native plants that create a special gift.
How does putting a school on Scottsdale Road equate to water torture urbanization?
- There are many homes along the Scenic Drive but by effectively rezoning property from residential to commercial, the City is discouraging future residential development and encouraging commercial development. All four corners at that location are zoned large-lot residential. If this use permit is approved, without question the adjacent landowners would claim that they need commercial use because their properties are un-salable for houses. And, eventually roadside lots near those properties would come under the same pressure. There is ample evidence of this process up and down Scottsdale’s roads. Is this what we want for the Scenic Corridor?
- If the land were developed as zoned, there would be 4 houses with approximately 8 cars. The Academy will have 250 students. Even with carpooling, how many additional cars will that add to Scottsdale Road and Ashler Hills daily traffic -100? 200? 500? To make matters worse, much of the traffic for Cave Creek Schools already use Ashler Hills Road. Throw in the nearby Summit and you have congestion, frustration and danger.
- And, despite a good effort to make the school, parking lot and ball field blend in to the environment, they don’t. The desire is there, but the property isn’t. There just isn’t enough room to provide natural buffering from Scottsdale Road and adjacent homes. So much for desert views!
Finally, this issue is very much about children. We have an obligation to educate our children in a safe place. Schools belong at locations where traffic is minimal so that kids can safely walk and ride bicycles and parents can safely pick them up. This location asks for an accident. We also have an obligation to preserve as much of the natural beauty of the area as possible for residents, visitors, children and their children’s children. We only get one opportunity to preserve the beauty and heritage of our area. Over-and-over again, residents have demonstrated through word and deed that they want preservation.
Thousands of hours invested
Over the decades, how many of hours have residents donated to create the Scenic Drive, maintain it, enhance it, serve on committees, draft studies, and fight out-of-place development? Many thousands! Consider this!
Almost 40 years ago residents created Scenic Drive to preserve the rural character of roadsides, showcase native plants, and minimize commercial development. Maricopa County also thought the area to be special and it was zoned residential with a few pockets of commercial zoning for neighborhood stores. For the next 30 years residents worked to preserve the Scenic Drive.
In 1986, Scottsdale classified the road as a Scenic Corridor. In 1994 Scottsdale residents began preserving the Scenic Drive. Residents, local businesses, and the City of Scottsdale began restoring plant identification signs, and installing enhancements: visitors exhibit, drive entry signs, burying plants and poles, reducing signage, painting traffic signals, picking up litter, and more.
In 1998 the City of Scottsdale with the assistance of many residents began work on the Desert Foothills Character Area Study, the Boulders Character Area Study, Scenic Corridor Recommendations, and the Desert Foothills Overlay. Recently, residents passed a bond issue that includes money to enhance the Scottsdale Road Scenic Corridor.
The studies are finished. The recommendations have been made. The bond proposal has been passed. Once again, the residents have spoken. It’s time for Scottsdale to stop water torture urbanization and commit itself to preserving the scenic corridor’s natural beauty and heritage. The Academy has to be placed somewhere else. We cannot change the location of the gift that we have inherited and we certainly don't want to destroy it one drip at a time. .
Sincerely,
Les Conklin
PS. The school was built and they did a terrific job of minimizing its visual impact and other concerns. We're glad they are here.