The Daily Agenda: Neighbors say housing project stinks
More affordable housing is coming to Tucson, and some residents aren’t happy about it… But it’s not for the reasons you may think … Snoop Dogg wants to lead by example.
Residents of the Barrio Ochoa and Santa Rita neighborhoods still remember the rancid smell of the trash dump on South 10th Avenue, years after its closure. They also remember the site being used to store city trucks, a nearby paint shop that dumped lead into the arroyo that ran through the lot — and the pollution that all of this contamination produced.
“After that, they decided to make it a transfer refuel station without the knowledge of the neighborhoods,” said longtime resident Beatriz Reyes. “They never came around and advised us that they were going to do that. They just went ahead and put it in there and gave us all the smell.”
Now, the very same lot, on South 10th Avenue between West 23rd and West 25th streets, is being considered for development into mixed-income affordable housing for up to 400 people.
And once again, residents have concerns about outreach — or what they say is a lack thereof.
The City of Tucson held a public meeting about the South 10th Project earlier this month, where longtime residents showed up to discuss the plan.
They say they’re concerned that digging at the site would unearth pollution into the neighborhood. They pointed to an Environmental Protection Agency report with six serious violations.
During the meeting, city officials said that Terracon, an engineering solutions company, conducted a surface-level environmental assessment and found that soils did not contain contaminates or soil vapors above established Arizona Department of Environmental Quality levels. The recommendation had been to monitor the site, observe and take action, if necessary, during development.
But what city officials didn’t mention during the meeting was that the soil did contain trace amounts of arsenic, barium, chromium and lead.
The city’s environmental assessment cited “several volatile constituents of concern,” but said they were below the threshold that would prompt further investigation or action.
Knowing what they know about the history of the land, residents worry that digging up even these small traces of dangerous contaminants could be risky for members of the mostly Mexican-American community nearby who have lived there for generations.
“The environmentalists, they looked at stuff from the top down. We’re looking at the bottom up, because what's down there is going to come into your house,” said longtime resident and environmental activist Linda Robles, who founded the Environmental Justice Task Force. “It's all the toxins that’ve been dumped there. They start smelling coming up through your vents, into your homes, into your water, wherever.”
These concerns were not met warmly during the meeting, with Ward 1 Council Member Lane Santa Cruz calling out residents for “hijacking” the limited time. Both Santa Cruz and Mayor Regina Romero ended up leaving before residents began speaking about their experiences and voicing concerns, including Tucson’s history of environmental racism that disproportionately impacts the Latino community.
“Any type of removal of that dirt is probably going to release all those contaminants into the air so that all of us residents can breathe them in,” Norma Reis said during the meeting. “(The city doesn’t) care. I developed cancer due to (Trichloroethylene) and (so did) three families in my little one-block area. The other day I counted eight people that I know died of cancer.”
Reis has lived in the barrio since she was eight years old. She’s now 80.
“I do not want anyone in that neighborhood to ever experience the TCE fiasco that I lived through. And now they want to open up the earth and poison us again,” she said.
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Residents are demanding an independent environmental survey that is not affiliated with the city, and want to receive the results themselves, rather than through the city.
They also have questions about what “affordable” means to the city, saying market rate is not affordable.
“This project is urban renewal. That's what it is. Gentrification is the new word for urban renewal, you don't want to say urban renewal to the city. You know what happened. They know what happened,” said a meeting attendee who asked not to be named.
They’re also accusing the city of purposefully excluding certain residents from their outreach. Many people say they only heard about the meeting at the last minute and other residents claim there was a whole strip of the neighborhood that the city skipped.
“We also know that the city has been meeting with some of the folks in this area, not the residents, not people who live right here, who live right across the street, who have a history here.” Reyes said.
Housing and Community Development public information officer Ernesto Portillo said during the meeting that the city went door-to-door, leaving postcards linking to a survey at the homes where no one answered. Data provided by the city shows that about 250 homes in the area were reached.
The survey –– which was open for two weeks –– received 50 responses from those 250 homes, a response rate of 20%.
The survey asked residents what they like about their neighborhood, what are the challenges of living in the area and what they’d like the city to know before starting the building process for the South 10th Project.
With that last question, 15% said they think the city should invest in and address areas around the site first, like improving roads and cleaning up.
We reached out to the city last week to ask about the neighbors' concerns and plans for moving forward, and we’ll report back on what we hear. We’re also waiting on a copy of the EPA report referenced during the meeting. Stay tuned for details.
Susan's work with the Tucson Agenda is supported by the Local News Initiative of Southern Arizona, a fund of the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona.
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Closing its doors?: The Republican National Committee’s Hispanic Community Center in Tucson is closed for what appears to be remodeling, Arizona Public Media’s Paola Rodriguez reports. The center opened in August 2022 as part of the RNC’s move to increase voter outreach to marginalized communities in advance of the 2022 General Election.
“Despite what you may have heard, we are not closing community centers,” Chairman Michael Whatley wrote in a March memo to the RNC . “We are aggressively pursuing programs to grow our base and maximize opportunities to engage with Americans, utilizing all existing tools for our voters to cast ballots.”
Literary lessons: The Tucson Sentinel’s Bianca Morales profiled Elaine Powers, a science-loving local author who is serving as the Pima County Public LIbrary’s writer in residence this summer. Powers, self-published author of more than 25 children’s books about science, will be hosting one-on-one meetings with community members through July 29, and will also hold three workshops covering self-publishing, writing about the moon and writing about facts for children.
Condo conundrum: New condominiums at the base of the Catalina Foothills are selling out as soon as they are completed, the Star’s Gabriela Rico writes. But despite Placita Escondida’s early success, they’re still the only brand-new condos under construction in the Tucson area. Originally a 73-unit apartment complex, Plaza Escondida was converted to condos for sale when residents’ leases expired. Prices range from $285,000 for a one-bedroom condo to $380,000 for a two-bedroom.
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Making history: The Arizona Republic’s Rafael Carranza sat down with U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton to talk about why Arizonans should care about Mexico’s upcoming presidential election. On Sunday, Mexican voters will choose a new president to lead the country for the next six years. Current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is termed out and the top two candidates are both women, meaning Mexico’s next leader is likely to become the country’s first-ever female president.
$130 million: That’s the total settlement amount paid in total to the 1,600 South Side residents who filed a lawsuit for the TCE pollution that contaminated water sources since 1952 when Hughes Aircraft started dumping chemicals there. Among other parties who had to pay the settlement were the City of Tucson and Raytheon Missile Systems Co.
I agree with the neighbors. I would be concerned about that old dump. Regarding the reference to an old paint store that dumped in the area, is that a reference to the old Pioneer Paints? If so, the environment state of that area has been in and out of the news for a long time. Thanks for the update.
I'm very interested to hear your future reporting on the S 10th housing project. Kudos to residents for speaking up and demanding the site be thoroughly evaluated and if necessary, cleaned up before building new housing. Still, the city should act quickly because new housing is desperately needed. Delays in environmental evaluation and cleanup only delay projects longer than needed, and both new and current residents would benefit from a clean, safe place to live.