Valley cities turn to surveys to see resident opinions on real estate needs

By Richard Smith
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For the first time, various Valley cities are taking a team approach to determine the region’s affordable housing needs and resident feedback on the topic, partnering with the Maricopa HOME Consortium.

Surprise is offering a summer-long survey of residents to receive a needs assessment to collect feedback that will help to develop the city’s five-year consolidated plan (2025-29) and provide a regional analysis of impediments to fair housing choice.

Avondale, Glendale and Peoria are the other West Valley cities taking part in the consortium, which includes seven cities and unincorporated Maricopa County land.

Before joining the county group, Surprise conducted surveys several times, with the last one taking place five years ago.

“There was not one issue that stood out above others. The key concerns were affordability and rentals,” Surprise Neighborhood Services Supervisor Adam Lane said of the 2020 survey.

Surprise has received community development block grant funding since 2006 and began the surveys then. Those became more automated starting in 2015.

The consortium encourages residents to participate in the planning, implementation, and assessment of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-funded programs.

This includes the CDBG and HOME Investment Partnerships Program, which help address affordable housing and community development needs. This funding must benefit low- to moderate

income persons or households, prevent or eliminate slums or blight or address an emergency need that poses a serious and immediate threat to the health or welfare of the community.

One tool in a five-year consolidated plan is a resident survey. Lane said the 2015 survey results focused on a need for community and neighborhood centers.

“Need for public services was probably the biggest thing that came out of that survey,” Lane said.

The survey and the type of projects discussed in it are related to federally funded partnerships through HUD and CDBG funding.

They do not include developer-led affordable housing communities such as the controversial Truman Ranch Marketplace by Dominium south of Waddell Avenue and west of 171st Avenue.

Instead, the Heritage of Surprise project in the city’s Original Town Site had some federal funding. The National Housing Trust Fund supported the development of 30 of Heritage’s apartments, reserved for individuals or families earning up to 30% of local area median income.

According to a Surprise presentation on year three of the consolidated 2020-24 plan in 2022, the city provided more than $275,000 in development fee reduction in the Heritage at Surprise project.

The Surprise City Council on Dec. 5 agreed to a series of measures to help push along Heritage Senior, which will bring 99 new affordable senior housing units to the Original Town Site by summer 2025.

In March, Maricopa County approved a $16.7 million agreement with NAC El Mirage Housing LLC to fund The Flats at El Mirage, a 45-unit affordable housing project on El Mirage Road in Surprise.

Funding sources are $10.6 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds and more than $6 million in HUD’s HOME Investment Partnership Program.

Surprise plans to have its first public meeting in September, during a veterans committee hearing where the public first can talk about survey results. Later in the fall, a draft plan will advance to the city council.

Earlier in May, Lane said he was at a veterans’ roundtable. The purpose of the survey is to discover any unexpected gaps.

Funding on a national scale has to meet national objectives. The primary objective is that an affordable housing project has to benefit low income people and it is difficult to be specific and funnel benefits to a certain group.

“For example, in a hypothetical 10-unit complex, they could not put preference on veterans for those 10 units,” Lane said.

Heritage at Surprise developer HAMC and partner Gorman & Co. previously collaborated on several projects throughout Maricopa County, in cities like Avondale (Madison Heights), Phoenix (Coffelt-Lamereaux), Tempe (River at Eastline Village) and Mesa (Verde Vista).

Meanwhile at the May 28 Glendale City Council meeting, Mayor Jerry Weiers read a proclamation for May as affordable housing month.

The proclamation read by Weiers included a focus on low housing supply, finding affordable housing, and that Glendale is working with five private developers to create 1,300 new affordable units by 2025.

Glendale council member Lauren Tolmachoff said later in the meeting that along the same lines she was invited by Mercy Housing to speak at its Power of Home 2024 event.

She said Glendale Community Services Director Jean Moreno was the special honoree at this May 22 event for her work she’s done in community development.

“She’s done such an amazing job in this position. It’s incredible,” Tolmachoff said. “For Jean to be recognized by her peers and partners was incredible. She has a real heart for what she’s doing and it’s evident every day when she comes to work.”

Richard Smith
Senior News Editor | Glendale & West Valley Preps

rsmith@iniusa.org

Richard Smith has been with Independent Newsmedia since 2016, and worked at a Sun City-based news outfit covering the Northwest Valley for 22 consecutive years.

An NAU alum and lifelong Arizona resident, Richard began as a copy editor and page designer at Surprise Today and the Daily News-Sun, then rekindled his love of sports writing by taking the reins on West Valley Preps in 2008.

For most of the mid-2010s he was the Surprise editor and West Valley Preps reporter. Now he’s the West Valley Preps Editor and Surprise Associate Editor.

As COVID restrictions slowly lift, Richard is cautiously optimistic he will visit book stores, football fields and gyms again this fall.