Chandler Council could send general plan to voters in February
Courtesy of City of Chandler
Former Chandler mayor Boyd Dunn, who chaired a residential advisory committee on the city’s 10-year update to its General Plan, speaks at a Jan. 21 Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. The Commission unanimously voted to move a draft plan along to the City Council for its approval and to possibly send to voters to approve on the August primary ballot.
There isn’t much about data centers in the revised portions of Chandler’s proposed 10-year general plan.
But there is plenty else, and in February, the Chandler City Council should have the opportunity to send the general plan to voter for approval.
A Jan. 7 study session presentation of a draft of the plan, followed by a unanimous Jan. 21 regular-meeting vote to recommend approval of the general plan, were how the Chandler Planning and Zoning Commission moved the plan to council.
Council is set to vote, at its Feb. 5 meeting, on both a resolution to approve the plan, along with action to put the plan on the early-August primary election ballot for voters to approve.
Principal Planner Lauren Schumann pointed out, in her Jan. 7 presentation, that city assessed that the city is at 94% buildout, with an emphasis on how the city must carefully execute its small remaining undeveloped land in order to accommodate affordable housing and/or make progress toward another city goal.
No vote was taken at that meeting, though the commission had a few questions for Schumann. Commissioner Tom Bilsten said he feels there might be a “gray area” in some plan language about how transportation will be measured in the future, knowing work-from-home, rideshares and autonomous vehicles such as Waymos had become more prevalent.
Schumann said the city’s traffic engineer is part of every transportation measuring process.
The general plan revision is a massive, multiphase, multiyear process that involves a residential advisory committee, resident public feedback gathering and many other steps. Former Chandler mayor Boyd Dunn chaired the residential advisory committee.
An example of one of the substantive changes is that the draft shows the parameters of what the city calls “high density” and “urban residential” have changed. The 2016 general plan has 12 to 18 units per acre as high-density, with more than 18 as urban, while the 2026 plan changes those numbers to 13-to-25 and 26-and-more, respectively.
Commission Chair Rick Huemann, who was on council in 2015 and 2016 in the leadup to the general plan that voters approved by almost 86% of voters, said at the Jan. 21 meeting that the last plan was solid, as it never needed to be amended.
“A lot of our zoning standards have some wiggle room that allow a wide variety of developments to get built,” Schumann said.
She said the only developer that would have had to seek a general plan amendment was one that wanted to build housing within the Chandler Airpark planning area. City staff told the developer they couldn’t support such a proposed general plan amendment.
Bilsten asked if the city is at 94% buildout, if that means arterial streets are at about the same buildout.
Schumann replied that as the city was built in a sort of north-to-south direction, the most recently designed arterials tend to be in south Chandler, and tend to have three lanes, bike lanes, storm drains a turn lanes, per the city’s master transportation plan.
Lindsay Road is the site of one such south Chandler upgrade and widening, planned to begin this year.
Heumann said some of the older arterials on the north and/or west parts of Chandler, such as Warner Road, are due for widening or other major upgrades on planning documents, though such expensive projects weren’t even included in the $475 million bond voters approved in 2025.
A draft, timeline and comments about the plan can be found by clicking here.
Jason W. Brooks News Editor | Chandler Independent
Jason W. Brooks joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in July 2021 as an associate editor. After a year covering Buckeye, he has covered Chandler since the fall of 2022, in addition to assisting the Daily Independent throughout his time at INI.
Education: University of New Mexico, bachelor of arts in journalism and mass communication, print emphasis, English minor.
Random Fact: He and his siblings witnessed a Space Shuttle launch and landing in the same year in person, on opposite coasts.
Hobbies: Karaoke, bicycling and American Sign Language.
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