General Plan changes before Mesa council in December
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We’ve actually had extensive discussion with the development community; we started a discussion with them last year. We had two meetings with them... All the discussions really went well. They received this really very well because it will remove the ambiguity and confusion that the lack of clarity has created.”
Mesa Planning Director Nana Appiah
Mesa City Council meeting
The Dec. 8 virtual meeting of the Mesa City Council, which includes the possible adoption of the citywide minor general plan amendment, is to begin at 5:45 p.m. It can be watched on local cable Mesa channel 11, at Mesa11.com/live, www.youtube.com/user/cityofmesa11/live or on Facebook @CityofMesa,
Public participation will be available electronically; to provide a written comment or speak telephonically at the meeting, submit an online comment card by going to Mesaaz.gov/bluecard at least one hour prior to the start of the meeting.
Source: City of Mesa
Mesa’s General Plan
The city of Mesa adopted the 2040 General Plan in 2014. The document is at mesaaz.gov/home/showdocument?id=12298.
Development of the plan included extensive public participation and reviews.
Overall, the plan has the following three interrelated functions:
• An expression of community goals and priorities;
• A decision-making guide;
• A fulfillment of a legal requirement of state law.
The 2040 Mesa General Plan requires a comprehensive review of the plan’s policies and strategies every three years at which time recommendations for amendments and updates to the plan and implementation tools can be presented to the city council. The periodic evaluation of the plan is also consistent with requirements of Arizona State law.
The Mesa City Council on Dec. 8 will vote on citywide minor general plan amendments repealing and replacing the chapters for “Community Character” and “Plan Implementation and Amendment.”
The amendments include but are not limited to clarifying permitted zoning districts and land uses for each character type, adding minimum primary land use and zoning districts within the community character areas, and revising the definition for major and minor character area map amendments.
The Mesa Planning and Zoning Board on Nov. 18 voted unanimously to recommend the council adopt the changes, with Jeffrey Crockett absent.
“I believe that our board, specifically, is very well aware of these adjustments and are excited about the clarifications and believe that they will be very positive,” Mesa Planning and Zoning Board Chair Dane Astle said prior to the vote.
General Plan changes
The General Plan directs the physical development and growth within the city of Mesa, Senior Planner Rachel Prelog told the planning and zoning board.
“This document is required to be updated every 10 years by state statute and as that it’s very important for us to evaluate the comprehensive general plan over time to identify areas that might need some refinement,” she said. “So we had done this during our comprehensive plan review that is required by the general plan itself to occur every three years and the two areas that we identified for improvement were ‘Chapter 7: Community Character’ and ‘Chapter 16: Plan Implementation and Amendment,’” she said.
Chapter 7 focuses on land-use guidance and creating a sense of place rather than being parcel-specific and focused on specific land uses, she said.
Character areas in the city of Mesa include neighborhoods, neighborhood village center, mixed-use activity districts, mixed use community, downtown, employment districts, specialty districts and parks/open space, according to her presentation.
“Several of these really are intended to support a mixed-use development. We’ve discussed how we’ve seen a trend over time for more residential development within the city and as staff how we have a little bit of a concern about some of the general plan amendments that have been coming forward — more rezonings that have come forward — that really don’t align with the intent of the character areas that are supposed to be supporting mixed-use,” Ms. Prelog said. “So we are proposing to refine the text in Chapter 7 to better describe the intent to these character areas and also to establish minimum percentages of primary zoning and land uses.”
Chapter 16 describes goals, policies and strategies, the process for reviewing and updating the general plan, and processing amendments, she said.
“Some of the challenges we’ve had with this is some vague criteria as far as it applies to general lpan amendments and some inefficient approval guidance within the general plan,” she said. “So as this, we are recommending to revise some of the benchmarks for what is considered a minor versus a major general plan amendment and with that we’d like to propose that there be some ... criteria specifically for the downtown and transit districts.”
Minor amendments would be 10 acres or less and major amendments would be more than 10 acres for the downtown and transit districts. For other character areas, minor is to be 160 acres or less and major would be more than 160 acres, according to the presentation.
City staff have made presentations on the proposed changes since early this year, including to city council in February and September, the planning and zoning board in March and August, to the Developers Advisory Forum in June, and at text-amendment open houses in August.
Chair Astle asked city staff members if there had been any public comments or concerns that had not been addressed.
“No. We’ve actually had extensive discussion with the development community; we started a discussion with them last year. We had two meetings with them,” Planning Director Nana Appiah said. “All the discussions really went well. They received this really very well because it will remove the ambiguity and confusion that the lack of clarity has created,” he said.
“And in addition to that, we’ve also had a couple of neighborhood meetings. We had one ... Aug. 18 and we had about 58 people in that neighborhood meeting — it was a Zoom call. And also we did receive good feedback, so there’s not been any issue that has some up that has not been addressed in the recommendation before you tonight,” Mr. Appiah said.
In other business, the board voted unanimously as part of a consent agenda to continue to the Dec. 16 meeting discussion on a site plan review for 1 acre within the 4200 block of South Signal Butte Road for the development of a car wash. Paul Devers of Cawley Architects Inc. is the applicant and Evergreen-Point 22 and Signal Butte LLC is the owner.
Richard Dyer Managing Editor | East Valley @RHDyer
Meet Richard Richard Dyer has worked at Independent Newsmedia Inc. USA since 1987, starting his career in Apache Junction as a copy editor and being promoted over the years to work as the editor of the Mesa Independent, news services editor for the East Valley office in Apache Junction, managing editor for the East Valley office, news services editor for the East Valley office and eventually also for the newspapers at INI’s then-Chandler office, managing editor again and as a news editor covering Apache Junction/Gold Canyon and Queen Creek. He helped start the Florence Independent while the news editor covering Apache Junction and Mesa news. In January 2023, he became associate managing editor for the East Valley newspapers and in August 2023 became managing editor for the East Valley newspapers of Chandler/Tempe, Gilbert, Queen Creek, Florence, Mesa and Apache Junction/Gold Canyon, while also reporting on Mesa and Apache Junction/Gold Canyon.
Community: Since 2009, he has worked as a volunteer to design The Blue Guitar Magazine, Blue Guitar Jr. magazine and Unstrung magazine, which are projects of The Arizona Consortium for the Arts; and since 2014, has been overseeing the art submissions.
Education: University of Arizona with a master of arts in journalism and a bachelor of science in agricultural communication. Also continuing education at Mesa Community College in welding in a metal art sculpture class.
Random fact: Saw his first tornado on May 31, 2010, which was classified as an EF-2, as part of a stormchasing tour group.
Hobbies: He is an artist of welded-steel sculptures, selling his artwork at juried and non-juried art shows.
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