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I have a question. can public land such as National forests,bureau of land management land,ect can they they be developed for housing and such?

Thanks

wrangler0 wrote:is there anyway i could read some of it?

I guess that depends. Are you a publisher or agent? ;)

Cool, man! I'd love to read it, too!

Hopefully anyone who wants to read it will be able to soon ;) . I'll see if there's a way to put up a little selection somewhere to give people an idea of the story.

If it involves torching a house in Pima canyon I'm suing!!! Just kidding...

Is there a chapter titled "Jeff and the Magic Bic"
(sorry, couldn't resist)

Didn't know if I should start a new thread on this topic or just add to this one...
Today's Arizona Republic has a long article about Cave Creek's attempt to "work the system" and preserve 4,000 acres of State Trust Land by annexing it and changing the zoning to prevent development, while allowing about 200 acres right along Carefree Highway be used for commercial development. It's a lengthy article, so instead of pasting, I'll attach a PDF for your reading. While it seems to be a good plan, my concern would be that zoning can be changed at any time. How does CC assure that what gets zoned for open land today doesn't get rezoned a few years from now when a deep pocketed developer dangles a golden carrot before the city council?

chumley wrote:Didn't know if I should start a new thread on this topic or just add to this one...
How does CC assure that what gets zoned for open land today doesn't get rezoned a few years from now when a deep pocketed developer dangles a golden carrot before the city council?

I think that's the $10k question in this particular issue - that and the fact that the town still has to purchase the land. The tenor of town councils and leadership change frequently between pro-development and pro-preservation - and often depending on the golden carrot you mentioned. Then you've got to get your voters to approve spending millions (or someday billions) of tax dollars on buying and managing the land. This creates an expectation of development for and improvement of public access - which is another expense. So, you re-zone it, can't afford to buy it, then what? State land still wants to sell it, your buyer puts in a re-zoning, and poof, you've lost your years of hard work.

This isn't, as some in this article seem to belive, a good "alternative" to State Trust reform. I just wish we could get everyone on the same page and fix this problem before the best and most valuable parcels have snowbird houses sitting on them (wow - I just crossed threads - I'm impressed with myself! )

Gotta put this soap box away. I get too used to standing on it...

The Nature Conservancy does a good job of creating a bridge-gap for this issue. If it were up to me, we would take huge pieces of federal and state trust land and classify them as permanent wilderness; no improvements by any mechanized means, no roads, no development, no going back...ever.