Let’s look at these projects that are proposed to be built on owl habitat:
The Tucson Daily Star said these projects would bring in 1200 new housing units.
It is my opinion this population increase would create water demand that might be difficult to meet these days. If you use the average of 3 residents per housing unit average and water consumption at 125 gallons per day, per individual, 450,000 more gallons of water per day would be demanded and that does not count business and school consumption.
I wonder if good old Tucson Water is ready to up water production for these new local developments? How is the water table? Is it falling or what? What is the official word on this?
How secure is the Lake Mead water supply to the Central Arizona Project? What is the relationship between Lake Powell and Lake Mead water extraction?
In short, can we afford to ‘develop’ these new lands? There are so many reasons not to develop this owl habitat. The encroaching drought is impacting our water supply and the wisdom of adding to the water burden at this time is questionable. Deny building permits and give our water infrastructure time to recover. Let the owl live a little longer.
We are experiencing a slowdown in real estate and a surfeit of houses for sale, fewer buyers and falling prices. So I ask you, is this the time to invest in more houses? Why destroy habitat, deplete our water system and then lose your ass when the homes don’t sell? What about the bad press the Homebuilders get when they stomp owls to make money?
So let’s list 3 of the projects that are determined to add to the housing glut by wiping out habitat of one of God’s creatures, leaving the conservation of this scarce owl to others.
These must be projects of huge importance:
Summit Vistas (Tucson, NW side)
Mission Peaks (Sahuarita)
Cahanza Springs (Apache Junction)
The Southern Arizona Homebuilders Association is pushing to cheapen this precious land inhabited by tiny owls. Some highrollers would pay good money to have a pad in the midst of that but the bulldozing fools can’t envision fitting a home into a beautiful landscape. They can only envision changing the environment to enable them to use heavy machinery…for ease of building and their preconceived notions of what it ought to look like. A real artist would design to fit the landscape, not alter the landscape to fit the design.
The price of gas does not encourage long commutes and houses far out from employment are not going to be as salable. White elephants eat a lot, don’t they?
