By Erica Meltzer of the Arizona Daily Star

When Jeanna Hernandez moved her horse-boarding business to North La Cholla Boulevard five years ago, she could hardly see a house from her property.

Now Southwestern-style ranch homes line the ridge to the north of her stables, and their patios look out over her sparse, metal-roofed stables and hay barn, and the bare dirt of her riding pens.

Once again, suburban sprawl bumped into a vestige of Pima County's rural, ranching past. As in dozens of similar cases across the county, the encounter left both sides feeling bruised.

In the last five years, horse-related issues have made up about 20 percent of the Board of Adjustment cases for District 1, which stretches from River Road north to the county line; and for District 4, which includes Green Valley and southeast Pima County.

Typically, a neighbor complains about the horse property, a county inspector finds a violation and the owner appeals to the Board of Adjustment for a variance, excusing the owner from some part of the county code to keep from having to shut the stable down.

"It's really increased in the last five years as the urban areas have encroached into Catalina, into the Rincon Valley," said Pima County planner Greg Hitt. "Some of these people have been there forever, and nobody bothered them before because everything was horse property."

Pima County Zoning Enforcement doesn't keep track of how many animal structure-related cases it investigates.

Hitt said the most common complaints involve corrals or stables too close to the property line. Often the structures don't have permits and violate the setback requirements.

County law requires them to be 100 feet from the property line. But on just a few acres, that's either impossible or puts the corrals right next to the house.

"Generally, the owners request the variance because they don't want it right up against the house where they can smell it and there are flies," Hitt said. "Well, their neighbors don't want to smell it, either."

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