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Residents Shape Superstition Vistas |
Nearly 400 Arizona residents provided feedback at two public meetings last month on four planning scenarios for the state's largest undeveloped state trust land parcel. Superstition Vistas is a 275-square-mile area situated in northeast Pinal County east of metropolitan Phoenix. The 175,000-acre swath of land owned entirely by the Arizona State Land Department is roughly the size of Mesa, Chandler, Tempe and Gilbert combined. The meetings culminated an 18-month effort by a steering committee of diverse stakeholders and consultants to visualize four potential scenarios for Superstition Vistas and share them with area residents. Each scenario included information about its economic development potential, housing and livability profile and environmental impacts.  Projected to have one million residents by 2050, Superstition Vistas represents an unprecedented opportunity to create a model desert community in the emerging Sun Corridor Megaregion. It borders thousands of acres of public lands, including the Superstition Mountains Wilderness Area. Estimates of the area's total value run into the billions of dollars. Residents used electronic voting devices to give instant feedback on the four scenarios. Based on the results, the steering committee will recommend a composite, preferred Superstition Vistas planning scenario in early 2010. |
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Congress Completes Utah Exchange |
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On August 19, President Obama signed the Utah Recreational Land Exchange Act of 2009, ending a four-year effort to enact a land exchange between the state of Utah and the United States. The House passed the legislation in July and the Senate in early August. 
The legislation provides for exchanging about 46,000 acres of environmentally sensitive school trust lands along or near the Colorado River corridor for approximately 36,000 acres of federal lands having the potential for oil and gas development in Grand and Uintah counties. The trade will result in federal protection for the sensitive lands acquired by the United States, and future mineral revenues for Utah's schoolchildren from lands acquired by the State of Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration. School trust lands to be conveyed in the exchange contain Morning Glory Arch and Corona Arch (see photo), a portion of the Slickrock bike trail, and the upper portion of Castle Valley.
Editor's Note: A special thank you from the Joint Venture to the state trust land managers and staff who provided a review of the working paper on state trust land exchanges by Alden Boetch and Susan Culp featured in the July 2009 Building Trust. We will advise you when the paper is published on the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Web site at http://www.lincolninst.edu/pubs/. |
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PHOTO CREDITS: Superstition Vistas public meeting photo courtesy of Ralph Freso, East Valley Tribune; SV map courtesy of DesignWorkshop; Corona Arch, UT photo courtesy Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration; OR school boy photo courtesy of Oregon Department of State Lands; Scout photo courtesy of Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration.
NEWS FROM THE FIELD: If your office has trust land management information and tools in asset management, collaborative planning, real estate development, and/or conservation use which you would like to share, please send us an email. Attach a news release, documents and photos.
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