The next time the city of Apache Junction updates its general plan, additional locations for commercial and retail businesses should be identified, a staff planner advised the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission recently.
Only 797 acres — or about 3% — of the total zoned land area in Apache Junction is commercial, Planner Nick Leftwich said during the commission’s April 9 meeting as part of a commercial land analysis presentation.
“(W)e have a lot of preexisting development where we’re looking at the northern core of the city and so we’re trying to fit in commercial. It’s very important for the city, both sales taxes as well as just employment opportunities. We don’t want to export all of our labor outside the city, for both quality of life but also just for the growth of the city itself. It’s important that we have both retail sales but also an employment core,” he said.
