Table of Contents

Built Environment and Health

The city’s comprehensive plan discusses health, wellness, and safety across the community in chapter 3 (Goal 4). The plan provides a parks need assessment and emphasizes a commitment to ensuring a park is accessible to all residents within a ten minute walk. It recognizes heat as the tenth leading cause of death in Arizona and discusses recreational improvements that provide cooling resources like splash pads. (p. 81). This goal references The Pedestrian Safety Action Plan focused on key areas to reduce pedestrian involved traffic accidents. The plan proposed several policies to promote health, wellness, and safety that focus on specific areas like wellness, environment, climate, land use, and transportation (p.89).

Climate Change

The city’s comprehensive plan discusses Goal 3: Be a Leader in Carbon Reductionand Resiliency to Extreme Heat and Climate Impacts in Chapter 3. This goal discusses reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mentions the Tuscon Resilient Together plan which provides guidance to attain carbon-neutral City operations by 2030 and community-wide by 2045. Goal 3 also discusses increasing tree inventory, transitioning to renewable energy, and initiatives to address heat islands as well as a list of 25 policies aimed to ensure residents' resilience and sustainability (p.78).

Comprehensive Planning

This city's comprehensive plan includes goals relating to climate change adaptation and carbon reduction, and focuses on other environmental areas including water conservation and renewable energy. The plan is also concerned with revitalizing distressed and disinvested neighborhoods and housing, and providing support for disadvantaged populations, including emergency preparedness efforts. It describes a robust and collaborative public outreach effort that fostered authentic participation, centered equality, and prioritized safety and accessibility. Tables, graphics, and images are used liberally to illustrate data and plan principles, making the plan easy to read and engaging.

Urban Heat Resilience

The city’s comprehensive plan addresses impacts related to extreme heat in Goal 3: Be a Leader in Carbon Reduction and Resiliency to Extreme Heat and Climate Impacts. It discusses the Heat Action Roadmap plan that provides a range of targeted actions to mitigate heat related impacts. In 2024, Tucson adopted the Heat Action Roadmap plan, enacted a heat protection ordinance for contractors and enhanced heat protections for city workers, increased the number of cooling and respite centers, and distributed heat relief kits to unhoused populations (p. 76). The plan recommends several policies aimed at urban heat resilience including: support resources for vulnerable communities from extreme heat, incentivize the use climate-resilient materials, expand opportunities for water-efficient urban green spaces and vegetation, and preserve and enhance riparian areas, shallow groundwater-dependent ecosystems, arroyos, creeks, and river ecosystems (p. 78).