Nov. 16, 2005 - Oro Valley voters approved the town's revised general plan in the Nov. 8 election. Preliminary results show that the plan was approved by a margin of 77 percent to 23 percent.
Following the vote, Mayor Paul Loomis said he was pleased with the outcome.
"Approval of the general plan allows us to move forward with very precise direction for future years," he stated in a prepared release.
In 2003, Oro Valley voters rejected a previous general plan revision.
The town council appointed a general plan revision committee last year that included citizens, business leaders, professional planners and members of the group that opposed the 2003 plan. The committee met over four months to consider and recommend the changes that were incorporated into the revised plan.
Bill Adler, one of the members of the revision committee who worked to defeat the 2003 plan, said that "the real work starts now" with the plan, because the policies laid out in it will need to be enforced as issues come before the council.
Adler said it is the responsibility of the people who are affected by different development projects to read the plan and to bring their objections before the council for consideration. He said that responsibility is spelled out in the newly adopted plan.
"It's phrased in a manner to motivate people to come forward as projects come forward. It's up to the citizen's to hold the elected officials to the plan," he said.
Updating of the General Plan has been a costly endeavor for the town, which spent about $700,000 in 2003 on the rejected plan and estimated it spent $150,000 on this latest revision. Town Clerk Kathi Cuvelier said $63,000 has been set aside to cover the cost of the election.
All towns and cities in Arizona are required to have voter-approved general plans. There are 13 elements of the general plan and only one of them is land use.
The other elements are growth areas, community design, economic development, cost of development, transportation circulation, public facilities, services and safety, housing, parks and recreation, arts and culture, archaeological and historic resources, open space and natural resource conservation, water resources, and environmental planning.
About 35 percent of Oro Valley's 25,000 voters returned a ballot in the all-mail election.
