Neighborhood Plans

Different types of Neighborhood Plans

General Plan (GP)

A plan for the City of Tucson (COT), developed by the City and approved by voters. Tucson's newest GP, called Plan Tucson, was approved by voters in November, 2013. A copy is available here. A new plan will be completed in 2023.

Informal Neighborhood Plan (INP)

A plan developed by a neighborhood for it's own use. RHE has two INPs. The first was developed for Richland Heights (East & West) with a group of UofA graduate students in 1976. This INP was used as a starting point for the Specific Neighborhood Plan registered with the City of Tucson in 1977. The INP second was developed for RHE in 2007 with the assistance of the Comprehensive & Strategic Planning class at the UofA, under the direction of Dr Barbara Becker. If you are interested, the process involved in developing the 2007 Plan, as it was recorded on the old RHENA blog, is included below.

Specific Neighborhood Plan (SNP)

A plan developed by a neighborhood and approved by the City. It is used by the City as an advisory document for rezoning rulings. It is also useful to a neighborhood when applying for grants, and as guidance to determine what issues to address. A SNP should include goals, objectives and strategies for the neighborhood. It should include a land use map and land use goals. A SNP is developed under the umbrella of the General Plan and cannot be in conflict with it. Richland Heights has a SNP, developed in 1977 when RHE & RHW were one neighborhood. Developing a SNP involves working with the Planning Department of the COT. In February 2015, a committee of board members and neighbors reviewed the 1977 SNP Plan and, after discussion, agreed that the minor updates needed were not enough to justify the required process.

Area Plan (AP)

Similar to a SNP, but covering a larger area. The City is considering having only APs now that the 2013 General Plan has been approved, because developing, storing and referencing SNPs for each neighborhood in Tucson is an onerous process. The Northside Area Plan from 1987 includes RHE.


Copies of all the plans for Richland Heights, Richland Heights East and the Northside Area are available below.

1977 Richland Heights Plan.pdf

2007 RHE Neighborhood Plan process

In 2007, residents of RHE worked with Dr Barbara Becker and students from her Comprehensive and Strategic Planning class at the University of Arizona to create a Neighborhood Plan for Richland Heights East. Here are the progress postings that appeared on the old RHENA blog.

May 5, 2007

Students in the UofA Planning Department spent 3 months in the Spring of 2007 working with the RHE board and neighbors to come up with the attached neighborhood plan. Neighbors will use the draft plan as a starting point to develop a Neighborhood Plan that the entire neighborhood can live with. THIS PLAN IS A DRAFT, none of the items in it have been agreed to by the neighborhood. It represents the result of a neighborhood survey and multiple meetings between RHENA neighbors and the students.

May 6, 2007

We are having a final, hard core, page-by-page analysis of the Richland Heights East Neighborhood Plan so that we can recommend final document changes to the UofA Students and Dr Becker. Come prepared to suggest changes based what the students think would work well for our neighborhood AND on comments from the 3 meetings they held with neighbors. We want to spend 3 hours in informed discussion, and to make final changes to the document. So please have your thinking caps on.

July 14, 2007

Come join your neighbors for lively discussion and delicious ice cream to help us all beat the heat! The purpose of this meeting is to start the actions/activities based on the final Neighborhood Plan, prepared for us by the UofA students. We want individuals to form groups based on the sections of the plan, and to determine what part(s) of any section they want to tackle as first projects. See you there!

July 18, 2007

On Saturday, July 14, 2007, at least 34 neighbors turned out to form committees and begin activities based on ideas from the final planning document prepared by the UofA students. The committees are: Land Use, Public Infrastructure, Circulation, Parks & Conservation, and Neighborhood Resources. Neighbors chose a committee to join (or more than one), then each group discussed issues they would like to start working on, and when to meet again. If you were not able to attend but would like to participate, contact a RHENA board member for more information.

Many thanks to all the people who contributed the ice cream and toppings at the meeting!

October 26, 2007

To help our neighborhood proceed with long-range planning and project implementation, we're using a simple three-level organizing structure to keep us moving forward: