It isn’t every week a municipal planning commission has an hour-long, amicable discussion about a single structure.
That’s what the Buckeye Planning and Zoning Commission held Tuesday evening.
After that discussion, the board approved a site plan for the Crimson Canyon industrial building along Durango Road.
Randy Proch, a senior planner for the city of Buckeye, spent much of his initial presentation talking about the wall around the property, and the distance and trespassing deterrents between the proposed exterior wall and homes in the WestPark community.
There will only be about 20 feet between the 6-foot-tall screening wall and the back walls of many area homes.
There will also be rip-rap installed outside the screening wall, which will not sit on the property line. Proch said that and some regionally native vegetation will help discourage trespassers.
“We’ll plan some landscaping — some plants that are a little bit more pointy,” Proch said.
The 22-acre site is on the south side of Durango Road, about a half mile west of Miller Road, west of the Buckeye Elementary School District offices and bus parking facility and the new Five Below building.
Proch also said the industrial property owner is in talks with the WestPark HOA about contributing money for a second retaining wall at the end of 257th Avenue. That residential street, within WestPark, has a cul-de-sac with a small, open space at its north end.
The cul-de-sac is along the southern edge of the industrial building property.
No access points will connect the property to the WestPark community to the west and south of the site.
The site plan includes one freestanding industrial building in the center of the property, with employee and guest parking on the Durango side. There will be room for trucks on the east and west dock bay-doored sides.
The 324,000-square foot main building will be designed for an industrial tenant, rather than simply warehousing and distribution.
The applicant, Danny Macias of LGE Design Group, has addressed comments from neighboring residents and the HOA. He agreed to accept a list of more than 30 specific conditions.
Residents have been able to use off-highway vehicles along an open-space tract that abuts the Crimson Canyon southern property line. Macias has provided several updates and possible solutions to the HOA to help provide a resolution to what will be a change in use of space.
Because the change in finished grade and utility lines traversing the site from Durango to the adjacent WestPark community, the proposal did not place the perimeter wall along the shared property line.
Also on Tuesday, the board heard a presentation about a comprehensive plan for the State Route 85 corridor that runs down the southwest side of the city. Staff plan to bring back some changes for the board to approve at a later date.
Jason W. Brooks is a News editor for the Daily Independent and the Chandler Independent.
He covers the Chandler area for both yourvalley.net and the monthly print edition while writing for and assisting in the production of the Daily Independent.
Brooks is a well-traveled journalist who has documented life in small American communities in nearly all U.S. time zones.
Born in Washington, D.C. and raised there and in suburban Los Angeles, he has covered community news in California, New Mexico, Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska and northern Arizona.
By 
