By Roland Murphy for AZBEX
In a rider amendment slipped quietly into a continuing budget resolution last week, both chambers of the Arizona State Legislature voted to effectively outlaw special interest opposition to proposed development projects around the state. The Governor then signed the bill into law in a guests-only, 3 a.m. ceremony March 28.
Following the signing, the Governor’s Office released the following statement: “This bill has some useful stuff and some bad stuff. Most importantly, it keeps Arizona’s $16.2B budget from flaming out. I’m going to catch (grief) from everybody anyway, so here it is. You guys figure it out.”
Bill Meant to Streamline Process and Input
The amendment to Senate Bill 3858, comprising three pages added in the final minutes of debate to the 1,146-page State budget continuing resolution (also known as a CR), has two primary points.
First, it amends State law and makes all zoning changes and development agreements administrative, rather than legislative, decisions. As such, those decisions would no longer be able to be overturned by special interest-influenced voter referenda, as happened with the Tempe Entertainment District and may still happen with VAI Resort in Glendale and the Axon Corporate Campus in Scottsdale.
Similar measures were blocked as freestanding bills earlier this year by leadership in both chambers following lobbying by cities using taxpayer funds for lobbyists to represent their concerns to legislators. SB 3858’s sponsor, Sen. Bob N. Frapples (R-Miracle Valley), called the failure of those efforts, “A back-room whinge-fest that undermined legislative supersession.” He added, “We’ve now shown the cities and towns there’s a new sheriff in town and we’re no longer putting up with their petty gamesmanship.”
Any development proposal on any land with any zoning other than single-family residential would be allowable by right unless the local jurisdiction requests and receives approval from a two-thirds majority in both houses of the Legislature. Municipalities would also be required to ensure not more than 15% of their total developable land, including land currently developed and occupied, is zoned exclusively for single-family residential use. This may lead to some parcels being rezoned from Single-Family to General Commercial retroactively.
Input Requirements Overview
The bill also limits public comments before boards, commissions and councils to only allow in-person input from designated experts. Project representatives—such as owner/developers, architects and engineers, consultants and land-use attorneys—qualify automatically as, “experts by right,” under the terms of the bill.
Outside parties, either in support or opposition, will be required to register and request certification as qualified experts with the yet-to-be-created State Office of Informed Public Input before being allowed to address any public hearing or meeting.
According to Frapples, certification will require full disclosure of all individual financial records, including the sources of funding for so-called “in-kind” donations and itemized receipts or invoices for all expenditures made by the person or group and paid to any source in the preceding five years.
There will also be a requirement for registrants to pass a 500-question test on Arizona history, micro- and macroeconomics, state and national housing policy dynamics since 1912, private development business administration, traffic engineering and municipal water system resource allocation and management.
There will be a $1,000 fee to administer the test, which will be given once a year and must be taken in person. The testing center will be located at the foot of the mule trail in Supai. To pass, an applicant will be required to answer 490 questions correctly.
Frapples refers to the certification process as, “The Know What The Heck You’re Talking About Before You Shoot Your Mouth Off,” provision.
Once successfully registered and approved, residents and groups in support of or opposition to a proposed development will be given a total of three minutes to present their concerns to the board, commission or council. Only one non-expert-by-right speaker from each side will be permitted per hearing.
“This is a means of ensuring collaboration and effective use of both time and resources,” Frapple said. “If all the people and groups who have some kind of opinion have to work together to get all their reasons into a three-minute presentation, that presentation has a better chance of being at least remotely relevant.”
He added, “One of the biggest drains on municipal resources, and a major hindrance to public engagement in the political process, is meeting length. Sure, some meetings are stupidly long because some board member wants to spend two hours crying about how he likes one tree on the approved plant list better than another. We can’t do much about that. What we can limit is having a parade of 50 chuckleheads spending three minutes each to say, ‘Apartments bad,’ or, ‘Progress good.’ We get it. Move on. Next!”
Is There a 1st Amendment Issue?
Phoenix-area sign maker and multi-issue activist Dalin Dahlas IV, who hosts the podcast Dalin 4 Dahlas to promote and raise funds for various causes, called SB 3858 “one of the most bad, like, things, like ever, bro.” He said, “The Constitution guarantees people have a right to talk about anything they want, anytime they want, for as long as they want, man. This is, like, some really fascist stuff, bro.”
Frapples said he has heard similar complaints, “again, from people who don’t know what the heck they’re talking about. The First Amendment enshrines the right to petition government for redress of grievances. While we’ve changed the methods and requirements for speaking live and in person, we haven’t done jack to prevent them from providing their special snowflake worldview. Anyone and everyone are free to write a letter or an email as to why another 100 apartments in a high-activity area will mean the end of civilization and the American way of life.”
He continued, “Most of the time, the complaints aren’t about the project. They’re about nostalgia and the loss of a local character that had already fallen by the wayside by the time Ronald Reagan left office. These letters and complaints would probably be better shared with a therapist who specializes in aging issues instead of a city council, but people can send things wherever they want.”
When reminded the complaints would, under the new law, fall on deaf ears since developments are now approved by-right and municipal bodies are effectively operationally powerless to stop them, Frapples said, “Look, residents aren’t the only ones harkening back to the sentimental days of yesteryear or whatever. I once heard a sitting city council member argue against a project that would have turned a failing 30-year-old strip mall into a 200-unit Class A apartment community that would have revitalized the entire surrounding square mile.
“You know why she said no? It wasn’t because the retail was needed. It wasn’t. It wasn’t because she was brokering a backroom deal to profit off a different development on the same site. She wasn’t. It was because the strip mall was built on the site of an old orange grove where she had her first kiss in 1968 and building new apartments would put yet another layer between the present and her happy memory.”
He concluded, “You can’t move that kind of thinking with reason, data or rational argument. You pretty much have to legislate around it. That’s what we’ve done with this CR. You can’t ban insanity outright, but you can empower common sense, especially when indulging the doddering has a potential price tag of $10B in lost development and economic impact.
Opponents Stage Protest
Development opponents are not taking the new law in stride. Feels, Not Facts, an umbrella group representing various opposition campaigns around the state, held a sit-in last week at the Capitol Grille food truck parking area on Adams Street and 18th Avenue.
Dahlas, one of the event organizers, was on site with protest signs and merchandise for sale.
The sit-in was planned as a semi-silent event. While no speakers addressed the crowd of 11 attendees, three members of the 24-piece Lithuanian hip-hop bagpipe ensemble Ne Ver’te Etomu played dirges in the background to mark the solemnity of the occasion.