Hotels vs affordable housing

The Pima County Board of Supervisors met on Tuesday, marking the first meeting with Jennifer Allen acting as the new chair of the board.

Unlike the eight-hour slogs of the last few months, Tuesday’s meeting was mercifully short by comparison.

By that, we mean six hours (although several of those hours were spent in executive session).

As they geared back up after the holiday shutdown, the supervisors covered a long list of subjects, including water for Southern Arizona supplied by the Colorado River, cleaning up homeless camps and updates on high-profile lawsuits.

Here are a few things you need to know.

The board signed off on a long-term lease with Oregon-based Obie Companies for the county-owned 75 East Broadway parcel in downtown Tucson, clearing the way to redevelop the empty lot across the street from TEP’s headquarters into a hotel in coordination with the Rio Nuevo Board.

A few years ago, the plan for the site was to create a mixed-use concept, a mix of retail on the ground floor, office space above it and parking incorporated into the design.

That plan was abandoned several years ago — now they’re planning to build another downtown hotel.

When supervisors asked Rio Nuevo Chairman Fletcher McCusker why that plan had changed, and why affordable housing wasn’t being considered, McCusker told the board that financing is difficult for affordable housing, and that only mixed-use developments might be viable in today’s economic climate.

The proposed hotel is a reaction to what the market believes is financially viable, he said, adding that the county would need to consider donating land to incentivize affordable housing developers.

We’ll note that two other hotels downtown are moving forward.

On Sunday, the Arizona Daily Star noted the vacant Hotel Arizona next to the Tucson Convention Center will re-open in two years, and local developer Scott Stiteler wants to build a Moxy Hotel on a vacant lot next door to the MLK Apartments downtown.

Staff from the Central Arizona Water Conservation District reminded supervisors about the looming Feb. 14 deadline for states to cut a new deal on divvying up Colorado River water.

The 100-year-old compact with several western states manages water allocations for roughly 40 million people living in the Southwest. A member of the district told the supervisors they were discouraged by the failure to find consensus back at the last deadline in November, and vowed to remain committed to a better deal for Arizona.

If you’ve gotten this far and wondered whether the supervisors would discuss the homeless epidemic, the continuing opioid crisis on city streets, or talk about clean-up for former homeless camps — they did.

All three items are standing items on the agenda, with county staff offering updates to the Board of Supervisors. On Tuesday, the board learned county staff spent $37,000 in December to clean up 12 former homeless camps, removing 37 tons of trash as part of the clean-up.

The supervisors also discussed a settlement tied to the December 2016 assault against then-Pima County Sheriff's Sergeant Mark Bustamante, who lost his left eye when a DUI suspect kicked him in the face with her boot. The five-member board didn’t say much about the lawsuit after meeting behind closed doors with their attorneys, simply instructing them to proceed as directed.

Behind closed doors, the supervisors also continued to discuss the federal lawsuit brought by Louis Taylor, who spent 42 years in prison before his arson conviction tied to the 1970 Pioneer Hotel fire was overturned.

Taylor has been seeking compensation for the decades he spent behind bars, but the supervisors didn’t say much publicly following the executive session. Outside of Tuesday’s discussion, a status conference tied to the federal lawsuit is scheduled for next month.

The board agreed to hold a retreat on Feb. 9 from noon to 5:00 p.m. Supervisor Steve Christy skipped the last one, so it will be interesting to see if he attends.

The four Democrats and one Republican on the board also agreed to move the Tuesday, March 17 meeting to Tuesday, March 24, 2026. That will allow the board to certify the results of the RTA Next election, happening on March 17.

They also tweaked a few meeting dates later in the year to reflect their new meeting schedule, with the board now meeting on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month.

Supervisor Rex Scott has a new podcast, where the District 1 supervisor speaks with Pima County department heads about county business. We’ve been listening to Inside Pima County with Rex Scott for a few weeks and, while we welcome the longform nerdery about county programs, we remain skeptical about government-produced media.

Technically, Scott is interviewing staff who are indirectly subordinate to him as one of the county’s top elected officials.¹