Log in

Busy project agendas for county board

Posted

PHOENIX — After a stretch of meetings with relatively light planning and zoning agendas, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors has a full slate of projects up for approval at Wednesday’s meeting.

Three regular hearings and five planning and zoning consent agenda items are listed for Wednesday’s 9:30 a.m. meeting.

Two of the hearings are zoning change requests for the third and 770-unit of the White Tanks Foothills master-planned community, which has a 1,746-unit maximum and is near the Northern Parkway-Loop 303 interchange.

The other hearing is for a major comprehensive plan amendment to allow 3.5 duplex units per acre at Santa Barbara Ranch, a development between U.S. 60 and State Route 74 in the Morristown area.

The planning and zoning consent agenda is often approved with little or no discussion. That consent agenda for Wednesday’s meeting includes five items. There are three solar facility plans on the consent agenda.

Phoenix Materials Inc. wants a special-use permit for a 2,700-square-foot lot near the southwest corner of West Hatfield Road and 107th Avenue, near Happy Valley Parkway, on a county island in the northern Peoria area.

A landscape materials storage and sales facility already exists in a Rural-43 zoning district, where the operator wants to expand.

The features proposed for the facility include a vehicle scale, a 24- by 40-foot office, canopies to cover vehicles in storage, a vehicle wash bay is proposed with water provided by an on-site well, a vehicle maintenance and service area and five 8- by 40-foot and two 8- by 20-foot shipping containers.

High-voltage power lines run overhead through the property, with two lattice towers present in the middle.

Another proposed major comprehensive plan amendment is for a solar installation in Gila Bend, off of State Route 85, near Watermelon Road. The Yellow Bell Solar Project is 1,787 acres that would include solar panels, a battery energy storage system, collection and transmission lines, an on-site switch yard, and potentially an operations and maintenance building.

The Hyder Solar and Storage Project is proposed for an area around Hyder Road and West Gila Mountain Road, northwest of Gila Bend, in the southwest part of Maricopa County. It’s a 3,600-acre facility with a substation, storage facility and a operations and maintenance building.

The Harquahala Sun solar project is on 700 acres at 491st Avenue and Courthouse Road in the Tonopah area. There are no proposed structures; any structures needed will be proposed during site plan review.

The Villages at Pleasant River is a 246-unit multifamily housing development on the southeast corner of 115th Avenue and Happy Valley Parkway. It’s on a county island in the northern Peoria area.

The developer is requesting a zoning change from rural to planned-development zoning. The planned density is about 10 duplex units per acre on the 25-acre property.

At its Nov. 14 meeting, the Maricopa County Planning and Zoning Commission approved the Phoenix Materials and The Villages at Pleasant River change requests by 7-0 votes. The White Tanks changes were approved by 5-1 votes.

However, Yellow Bell, the Hyder Solar and the Harquahala Sun projects were approved by 4-3 votes.

The Santa Barbara Ranch was recommended for denial by the Planning and Zoning Commission. It has one letter of support and 53 documents of opposition.