Mesa City Council to introduce ordinance for housing development at Feb. 24 meeting

The Mesa City is set to introduce a housing ordinance at their Feb. 24 meeting and vote on whether or not to hold a public hearing at a later date.

The planned housing development, known as Lofts at 121, would be located at 121 and 128 N. Beverly, approximately 881 feet north of the northeast corner of East Main Street and North Beverly.

The request was made by Tim Boyle of Atmosphere Architects on behalf of Lofts at 121 LLC, the owner of the land containing the project site, according to council documents.

The Feb. 24 meeting takes place at 20 E. Main St. and starts at 5:45 p.m.

Boyle is requesting the area be rezoned from Single Residence-6 (RS-6) to Multiple Residence-4 with a Planned Area Development Overlay (RM-4-PAD) and Site Plan Review. The project would turn the 3-acre site into a 68-unit townhouse development, with vehicular access to the site provided via an access point on North Beverly.

According to a council presentation, nearby property owners were notified and a virtual meeting was held on Sept. 5 where attendees expressed concerns about population density and possible increase in traffic as well as overall congestion. At a January 22 Planning and Zoning Board meeting, a few residents also spoke in opposition to the project.

Michael Ziggler, who lives north of the project, said that the addition of more people in the area as a result of the townhomes would create too much traffic and population density.

“The density of it. We’re putting around 270 to 340 more people in the area if you are putting four to five people in each home. With 68 town homes and 161 parking places all on 34 acres, we’re going to be having 446 more traffic events daily as a result,” Ziggler said. “Our big problem is also the pollution. If you’re adding 161 cars in the area, we’re afraid it’s going to pollute the air.”

Linda Spy also expressed concerns about how the additional traffic could create safety concerns for nearby families walking their kids to school.

“We have easily 50 kids that walk from Legacy, through the park, to the school. They’re going to be bringing their kids over to the school ... it’s not safe because of the traffic, so please think about this,” Spy said. “If you had another 100 cars in your neighborhood every day, think about sitting on porch on a weekend and having another hundred cars in the neighborhood ... please consider cutting it in half.”

Boyle, who gave a presentation at the meeting, said that he doesn’t anticipate the increase in traffic or density being a big problem.

“With this units going in, that works out to about 25 or 26 more car trips per hour which doesn’t greatly increase the number of cars on the streets,” Boyle said. “Density always comes up when town houses come into an area ... for this one, because the park is right next to it, it’s almost like the density is half what it would be if you have units coming in all along both of these. It’s an R4 development but it’s quite a bit less dense than it could be if you maxed out the an R4 development, so I don’t see a huge challenge in that.”

The proposed public hearing would take place March 3.