Log in

development

Board to hear scaled-back Waddell housing plan

Posted

PHOENIX — A housing development discussed more than once — by more than one Maricopa County statutory board — is due to go back before the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday.

At a hearing in December, Supervisor Clint Hickman asked for postponement to allow landowner Brennan Ray to tinker with a plan to build a 770-unit phase of the White Tanks Foothills master-planned community in the Waddell area.

Even after plans were scaled back in March to include only 654 homes in the

phase, Hickman asked the Board of Supervisors to send the request back to the county’s Planning and Zoning Commission for review, asking for the request to be placed on the supervisors’ June 8 agenda.

Ray’s revised plan, to be heard Wednesday as part of the board’s planning and zoning agenda, is now scaled back to 645 duplex units. That’s a density of 2.93 duplex units per acre on 245 acres at Northern and Citrus avenues, with 50 acres of open space.

“The applicant knows my concerns,” Hickman said during the December meeting. “I am great with growth, but the right kind of growth — where I can feel good about the amount and proximity of fire and police support in the area.”

Hickman said he believed the originally planned density of about 3.14 duplex units per acre was too high. The developer changed the density to 2.67 duplexes per acre in March by going with 654 homes.

“This is an important item to me,” Hickman said. “I’ve worked on it. Staff have worked very hard on this. The neighbors have worked hard on this. We’ll continue to work.”

White Tanks Foothills has a maximum buildout of 1,746 homes across all phases in its approved master plan. However, significant opposition arose when the developer wanted to put 770 units in Phase 3.

The phase is in an unincorporated Waddell area west of the Glendale city limits. It’s within Glendale’s municipal planning area.

Community meetings had taken place, Hickman said, but there is still more work to do.

The two White Tanks Foothills hearings — one for a major amendment to the master plan and one for rezoning — are the only two hearings on Wednesday’s planning and zoning agenda.

The board’s planning and zoning consent agenda includes a fast-food permit for a commercial parcel at 55th Avenue and Baseline Road, a boat and RV storage facility at 137th and Glendale avenues and a solar facility on 1,400 acres in the Arlington area that’s west of Buckeye.

The agenda also includes a request by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office to move $1.5 million from detention to its general fund to cover fuel expenses in this fiscal cycle.

Fuel costs have impacted many local Arizona governments; as of Tuesday morning, one Glendale location was selling 87-octane gasoline for $5.19 per gallon.