Tucson Native Plant Preservation

Code recognizes the unique biological community in the Arizona Uplands and city-wide goals and policies to preserve the native plants found in the Sonoran Desert. Code encourages preservation-in-place through sensitive site design and sets requirements and ratios for replacement of plants that are removed for development; mitigation credits to encourage preservation in place; and revegetation to emphasize the natural character if plants are removed from the site. It also requires a native plant preservation plan for all applicable projects.

There are other regulations in the UDC, such as the Scenic Corridor Zone (SCZ) and the Environmental Resource Zone (ERZ), where native vegetation is required to be retained or where the property is required to be revegetated with native plant material. See Article 5: Overlay Zones of Unified Development Code for more information. The American Planning Association highlights the biophilic planning elements of this code: https://www.planning.org/knowledgebase/resource/7002469/