When physical therapist Adi Halili bought a three-acre parcel in the Tucson Mountains in 2007, he hadn’t anticipated it would take three years of battles with Pima County government and some of his new neighbors to try to get a house built.
He now has filed a civil rights complaint against Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry and county supervisor Sharon Bronson.
“There were continuous attempts by Sharon Bronson and the Tucson Mountain Association to sabotage us,” Halili, told Inside Tucson Business http://www.insidetucsonbusiness.com/news/after-years-of-battles-over-construction-of-house-owner-files/article_1d705f74-29dc-11e2-9471-001a4bcf887a.html
In his complaint with the attorney general, Halili said members of the Tucson Mountain Association, a neighborhood association, used their influence with Bronson to get county officials to delay construction of the home on El Camino del Cerro west of Camino de Oeste.
The delays, stop-work orders, additional planning and legal expenses cost Halili an estimated $250,000, he estimates.
The county issued three stop-work orders during construction following what officials said were violations of code or work done that was inconsistent with plans.
During the early stages of construction, for instance, workers had cleared an area larger than allowed under original plans.
Halili said it’s true that a larger area was graded, but that it was only done because pipelines from the house to a septic tank and leech field had to be installed.
“We restored it as we intended to all along,” he said.
To mitigate that and other issues, however, the matter was sent to the county’s development review committee (DRC) where Halili requested an exemption to the hillside development zone ordinance, which seeks to protect desert areas from excessive grading.
That’s when the battles with the county and neighbors began.
“The moment he went to the DRC, that’s when all hell hit,” said Peter Petrowski, an architect who designed Halili’s house and worked with him throughout much of the building.
