Investor-Developer Zimet Dies at 68
By Tony Davis, Arizona Daily Star

OBITUARY

Michael Zimet, an investor and developer who helped make peace between Tucson's development and conservation communities, died Tuesday.

Zimet, a property-rights activist whose views moved closer to those of environmentalists over time, died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, at a Northwest Side hospice. He was 68.

He had been active in the Tucson area from the late 1970s until he was stricken with the disease in spring 2006.

Over the years, Zimet and his Vanguard Companies, where he was a principal partner and investor, worked on projects across Arizona: in Marana and the Sahuarita area near Tucson, in the town of Quartzsite near the California line and in Pomerene in Cochise County.

A New York City native, he worked as a developer and investor in Southern California before moving here in 1978.

His most recent project, Ocotillo Ranch in the Santa Rita Mountains foothills, was the first development to seek approval under Pima County's conservation subdivision ordinance. The law tries to regulate the layouts of developments so the maximum number of homes allowed by their zoning can be built with the least possible effects on the desert.

Zimet sat on the county advisory committee that drafted that ordinance. He spent nine years securing a wide range of government approvals for his project of 42 four-acre lots on 174 acres at the extreme south end of South Houghton Road. Vanguard hopes to start formal land-clearing next year.

He was most publicly visible as one of a handful of property- rights activists who sat on a county advisory committee on the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, the proposed land preservation plan spanning more than 500,000 acres of environmentally valuable land.

He started as a strong skeptic if not outright opponent of the plan. Later, he negotiated closely with his philosophical opposites at the Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection and became a strong although still skeptical supporter of Pima County's land-saving efforts.

"He was a hard-driving businessman but he knew that you had to look at it from all sides," said Dennis Melin, one of his two partners at Vanguard.

Zimet grew and wasn't afraid to learn something new, said Christina McVie, a Northwest Side environmental activist.

"Michael wasn't your average-looking enviro. People listened to him when he spoke to the property-rights groups. He was very helpful in building a sense of trust and consensus in the community," McVie said.

Zimet is survived by his wife, Mona Hart of Tucson; his mother, Charlotte Zimet, and a sister, Beverly Sachs, both of Beverly Hills, Calif.; four sons: Jeffrey and Kenny, both of Tucson, Marc of Miami Beach, Fla., and Lynne of Miami, Fla.; and four grandchildren.

Services are at 11 a.m. Friday at East Lawn Palms Cemetery, 5801 E. Grant Road.

* Contact reporter Tony Davis at 806-7746 or tdavis@azstarnet.com.