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Tucson council shores up desert protection plan

Developers hoping to skirt the environmental protections of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan by being annexed by the City of Tucson are out of luck, after the Tucson city council voted unanimously to apply the conservation plan’s regulations to all county land annexed by the city.

Previously, when Tucson annexed county land, the protections of the SDCP were dropped in the process.

That had led some developers to pull for annexation for just that reason, according Ward 5 Councilman Steve Leal, who gave me the lowdown on the situation.

“Apparently, there were a whole lot of developers who wanted to annex into the city just to escape the Sonoran conservation plan,” he tells me. “It seemed to me that if we didn’t do anything, in a matter of time, this amazing plan would disappear.”

The city’s new water policy – which essentially puts the kibosh on outside developments hooking up to Tucson’s water supply – has created additional pressure for annexation. Leal estimates that up to 150,000 acres could eventually be swallowed up by the city.

Thanks to the council’s move, those annexed acres will keep their current environmental protections.

Good work, council.

John Collins Rudolf

Developer bankruptcies grip Arizona, HOAs

TUCSON — As the sun sets over the mountains far to the west, Aldea del Rey, a townhome complex about 30 minutes southeast of Tucson, takes on an otherworldly air.

The project’s developer, Michael Teufel, abandoned construction here last year when his company, Pathway Developments Inc., ran into financial difficulties.

Many months later, the uncompleted homes are returning to a state of nature.

Huge growths of sagebrush line both sides of what might otherwise be a quiet suburban street. Bees swarm noisily around a beehive hanging from the eaves of one unfinished home.

Other incongruities abound. On an otherwise empty lot, a child’s bicycle lies marooned at the bottom of a deep ditch. Birds flutter through wooden frames bleached by the sun.  Sprinklers churn on a well-manicured golf course only a few yards from houses scarred by broken windows and graffiti.

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This ghostly subdivision is a dramatic illustration of a much larger phenomenon taking place in Arizona: a rash of bankruptcies sweeping through the state’s home building and real estate development industry.

Earlier this year, builders were already reeling from the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and from home inventories swollen by overbuilding, both of which drove home prices relentlessly lower.

The recent financial crisis, however, which has robbed many businesses of their ability to borrow money, has administered the coup de grace to a number of developers.

As creditors come calling, many companies find themselves fatally overleveraged.

Pathway – which filed for liquidation bankruptcy in late September, with liabilities that may total as much as $150 million – is a perfect case in point.

Dozens of other developments are similarly troubled.

Their names are compiled in a list created by the Arizona Department of Real Estate to warn potential homebuyers from buying into distressed developments. Almost 60 developments throughout the state are listed. [Download the list here.]

The bankruptcies are retribution for the speculative fever that gripped the state’s real estate market between 2004 and 2006, says Arizona Real Estate Commissioner Sam Wercinski.

“The builders were selling to investors for quick money, and it bit them, it bit them in a bad way,” says Wercinski.

Thousands of homes ended up in the hands of overleveraged speculators, who took a beating when home prices began to crash.

“These were investors buying homes, not families,” says Wercinski. “They were just riding the market.”

Still, estimations of the overall health of the Arizona real estate development industry vary.

According to Wercinski, “most of our homebuilders in Arizona are still financially healthy.”

Others disagree. John Fioramonti, senior managing director with the nationally recognized real estate consulting firm Meyers Builder Advisors, believes that that the market forces now at work will fundamentally alter the makeup of the building trade over the next several years. Fioramonti has spent almost 35 years observing Arizona’s real estate industry.

“You’re going to see tons of consolidation, in the form of builders buying each other out,” Fioramonti says. “You’re going to see tons of builders going out of business altogether.”

Indeed, it is hard to see how many builders can remain in strong fiscal shape. Recent statistics show Metropolitan Phoenix leading the nation in home price depreciation, with existing homes shedding an average of almost 31 percent of their value between August 2007 and August 2008, according to a report by the Case-Shiller Home Price index.

Foreclosures continue to sweep through the state at record pace, bringing thousands of new homes into the market at rock-bottom prices, and presenting further competition for new offerings from homebuilders.

As unsold new homes sit on the market, increasing numbers of developers are simply walking away, leaving them to fall into disrepair.

Relief can be hard to come by for homeowners who live in or near these distressed developments.

Several years ago, Kyle Addington, a financial advisor, bought a home in Litchfield Park, on the western outskirts of Phoenix, in a development comprised of five separate neighborhoods. While his neighborhood remained solvent, the gated community across the street – built by Phoenix homebuilder Zacher Homes – went broke before it was completed.

“It looked like a ghost town,” Addington says. “It was disgusting. Palm trees were lying over dead. There were weeds three feet high.”

Unpaid subcontractors began pulling into the neighborhood in the middle of the night, stripping granite countertops and brass plumbing fixtures out of the unfinished homes. Building materials lay exposed on unfinished lots crisscrossed with open ditches.

“It was a nightmare,” Addington says. “We had kids playing in this stuff.”

Addington, president of his local homeowners’ association, organized a community response to the situation about a year ago after Zacher Homes stopped returning phone calls.

He pressured city and state officials to take action, and ultimately succeeded in compelling several banks to finance the completion of homes that had been abandoned in mid-construction. The weeds are gone, and contractors are just in the process of finishing the last of the incomplete homes.

“It looks like a normal neighborhood now,” Addington says.

Yet looks can be deceiving. While the most glaring cosmetic problems have been fixed, Addington estimated that at least 38 of the development’s 58 homes remain unoccupied.

The epidemic of bankruptcies is also hurting subcontractors, many of whom remain unpaid after homebuilders go broke.

Subcontractors are required to file complaints with the Arizona Registrar of Contractors, which can in turn suspend the contractor’s license of deadbeat developers.

Those complaints are on the rise, says Bill Albright, assistant director of the Arizona Registrar of Contractors.

“We have definitely seen an increase in no-pay complaints,” Albright says.

As foreclosures spread, and more neighborhoods fall into bankruptcy, blight – a phenomenon more traditionally associated with distressed inner-city areas – is spreading. Most troubling, the cycle of blight has a tendency of becoming self-reinforcing.

“It has that negative pressure on values. It starts feeding on itself,” says Wercinski. “It’s a very serious issue.”

Wercinski says the real estate department has been proactive in attempting to stem the tide of foreclosures, and thanks to recent federal legislation, it will have millions of dollars to devote to helping troubled homeowners.

Without strong government intervention, the problem may be difficult to arrest.

Already, many HOAs find themselves increasingly saddled with debt because the growing load of foreclosures only adds to each homeowner’s individual burden. With less money available for landscaping and other maintenance, and with vacant homes settling into disrepair, the appearance of a neighborhood can quickly decline.

Addington, for one, says his homeowner’s association is about $40,000 in the hole. And with foreclosures occurring at “an unusual rate,” he says, a quick fix is hard to see.

Broken promises by nearby commercial developers may ultimately make the homes a tough sell. Addington says that when he moved into Litchfield Park almost four years ago, he was told a shopping center was in the works near his subdivision’s entrance.

“There was supposed to be a high-end shopping center, but it all fell apart. They have developed nothing,” he says. “We have a 30-acre parcel of blank dirt at the entrance to our neighborhood.”

The Arizona Department of Real Estate has customer assistance teams available for consumers at 602-771-7730 or cat@azre.gov.

Problems with builders can also be taken to the Arizona Registrar of Contractors at www.azroc.gov or 1-877-692-0762.

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.

Religious leaders unite to oppose Prop 200

Whenever priests, ministers and rabbis find common ground, it makes sense to listen to what they have to say. In Arizona, members of all these groups have come together to renounce and oppose Proposition 200.

Prop 200 is labeled the Payday Loan Reform Act, but the “reforms” originate from the industry itself. What’s more, payday lenders have paid more than $13.3 million to convince you to approve the measure. This is the fox building, not just guarding, the henhouse. What’s more, the industry is trying to outfox you by creating the illusion that some public advocates somewhere are behind the measure.

The overarching intent of Prop 200 is to repeal a sunset provision in the current statute authorizing payday loans. Under the provision, payday lenders in 2010 will return to the 36 percent cap rate that applies to all other types of lenders in Arizona. If voters pass Prop 200, lenders will be permanently authorized to charge annualized percentage rates approaching 400 percent.

The religious community of Arizona is calling this practice for what it is – usury, the lending of money at an exorbitant rate of interest. Religious leaders oppose it because it victimizes the poor, who enter into these loans only to find themselves saddled with high interest rates and ongoing payments they can’t escape. The U.S. Congress made sure our soldiers would not fall victim to the practice by prohibiting payday lending to members of the military.

Through the Arizona Ecumenical Council, Christians of many persuasions, as well as the Board of Rabbis of Greater Phoenix, have spoken out in opposition to the measure. Learn more about what they have to say at www.200isnoreform.com .

In the spirit of this multifaith effort, make sure you study this initiative carefully, and help vote it down on election day.