Barney Farms has received approval to rezone more than 9 acres it owns from office/industrial park to general commercial.
The Queen Creek Town Council approved the change at its Wednesday, April 5, meeting. The rezoning was part of the council’s public hearing consent agenda.
Greg Davis of Iplan Consulting requested the rezoning of the land generally at the southwest corner of Germann and Meridian roads. Davis was representing landowner Barney Farms.
According to a project narrative, the site has frontage onto both Germann Road to the north with the CMC Steel factory nearby, and Meridian Road to the east with undeveloped land beyond. Germann Road is the municipal boundary between Mesa and Queen Creek. To the south is the Barney Farms neighborhood by Fulton Homes. To the west is the recently approved Thompson Thrift industrial project.
“As a hard corner on two major arterials, with Meridian Road recently opened to the new Arizona State Route 24 and with Meridian Road now being open to the south, this site has potential to attract retail and commercial users.
“(W)ith the new residential population growth in the area and the new transportation corridors opened up, we believe that commercial will be viable and attract users that will bring higher benefit to the site, to the area and to the town,” the narrative continued.
Staff recommended approving the proposal because it “increases the amount of commercial land to support the needs of the surrounding area,” according to a staff report.
A neighborhood meeting on the rezoning was held on Feb. 6. No members of the public were in attendance. The staff report stated that to date, staff has not received any input or questions from the public regarding the zoning change.
In October 2022, the council approved a similar rezoning application for Barney Farms-owned property at the southwest corner of Germann and Signal Butte roads about a mile west of the newly rezoned land.
That 20 acres of land was rezoned to 14 acres of employment and 6 acres of commercial due to market research that pointed to stronger employment-type uses, the staff report stated.
We’d like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.
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