About
1994 - Dreaming of a Community
Milagro began with four couples who met regularly to develop the vision of famlies of all ages living in balance with Nature and in a community of supportive and respectful relationships.
1995 - The Search for a Home
With membership growing, we wrote our Mission Statement, developed a policy manual and committee structure, and began the search for land. We visited 40 parcels.
1996 - The First Miracle
Meeting weekly, we formed the Community for Ecological Living, LLC, and filed our corporation papers with the State of Arizona. We found 43 acres in the Tucson Mountains, only 12 minutes from downtown Tucson - our first miracle!
1997 - The Second Miracle
The land lacked safe access from the curving Goret Road. For our second miracle, we arranged a land swap with the neighboring school district property owner to secure a safe entry road. We visited every Goret Road neighbor and hosted a "balloon Day" to assure fearful neighbors that our rooftops wouldn't block their views of the Catalina Mountains.
1998 - The Third Miracle
With twelve members and thousands of dollars in re-zoning costs, we finally won approval from the Tucson City Council to build 28 units in a cluster design. It took a super majority - our third miracle!
1999 - The Fourth Miracle
Our project management team consisted of Wayne Moody, architect and former city planner; David Confer, environmental engineer; Morton & Mackey, architects with green building experience; David Ollanik as the general contractor. A website designed by Aaron Tukey attracted new members from as far as Tanzania, East Africa, building the group to seventeen. Families chose their building lots in a long meeting of reflective listening and cooperation. Everyone was pleased with the results - the fourth miracle!
2000 - The Naming
Thousands of decisions were made about the site plan, building materials, shared amentities, building colors, time frames and costs. We wrote the Covenants, Codes and Restrictions for the property, and, given the miracles thus far, selected the name of Milagro for our community. We broke ground early in 2000.
2001 - Putting on our hard hats
Construction financing of $5.4 million was secured at the National Bank of Arizona with the support of Nova Financial services. As amateur developers, costs inevitable rose during the development and construction process. Another miracle was that the mortgage interest rate declined from 8% at the outset ot 5% at mortgage time. This balance between the rising cost of the development and the declining interest rate resulted in unchanged estimated monthy payment for our eventual home buyers.
2002 - We move in
The first home was occupied in April and the last home was occupied in the middle of 2003