A proposed amendment to the North Star Ranch Community Master Plan is one of the items on the agenda for Tuesday's Buckeye Planning and Zoning Commission meeting.
The meeting, set for 6 p.m. at Buckeye City Hall, 530 E. Monroe Ave., will include four action items —regarding three projects — and a continuance item.
Toni Bonar of HilgartWilson is the developer for Larry Yount of Festival Ranch North, LLC. The developer seeks approval of an amendment for a housing development formerly known as Spurlock Ranch.
Located about two miles north of Sun Valley Parkway, North Star Ranch would represent a major expansion northward of Sun City Festival.
Even though there are no grocery stores or other retail besides a gas station and mini-market at Festival, the buildout of North Star Ranch is expected to take several years. Spanning more than 2,800 acres, from Desert Oasis to Canyon Springs boulevards, the amended plan calls for almost 10,000 housing units, to be built in multiple phases.
The gross density would be about 3.4 dwelling units per acre.
The Buckeye City Council is set to hear the proposed amendment at a September meeting.
The development is located north of the Central Arizona Project Canal, which serves as a sort of northern boundary of most to-date Sun City Festival construction. One of the many conditions of the amendment is that completion of a Desert Oasis Boulevard bridge shall be completed prior to the building permits being issued for Phase 1A and 1B.
The project incorporates three 140-foot-wide major arterial streets: Canyon Springs and Desert Oasis boulevards and Pinnacle Peak Road.
Another item on Tuesday's agenda is site-plan approval for "OMP Yuma and 247th." The proposal calls for two industrial buildings totaling about 585,000 square feet to be built on about 32 acres just south of Interstate 10, near Jones Ford.
Shadow Canyon is a D.R. Horton development on about 92 acres along Watson Road, north of Interstate 10, at the Van Buren Street alignment. The developer is seeking both preliminary plat approval and re-zone (from SF-43 to SF-6), with a planned area development overlay) recommendations Tuesday.
D.R. Horton intends to build 275 single-family residential lots within the proposed Shadow Canyon Planned Area Development.
Staff documents show the proposal has been submitted to the City of Buckeye three times since October of last year.
Also on Tuesday's agenda is a continuance of the preliminary plat approval for the San Madera mixed-use planned housing development. The item has been left on the agenda for whenever the developer and city staff have worked out all well and water arrangements.
Jason W. Brooks is a News editor for the Daily Independent and the Chandler Independent.
He covers the Chandler area for both yourvalley.net and the monthly print edition while writing for and assisting in the production of the Daily Independent.
Brooks is a well-traveled journalist who has documented life in small American communities in nearly all U.S. time zones.
Born in Washington, D.C. and raised there and in suburban Los Angeles, he has covered community news in California, New Mexico, Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska and northern Arizona.
By 
