By Mark Carlisle

Independent Newsmedia

Glendale City Council decided last Tuesday to move forward in considering annexing an area that is projected to bring more than 21,000 jobs to the city.

The 1,340-acre area considered at the Nov. 7 City Council meeting would become the largest area the city has annexed since it added Luke Air Force Base in 1995. It contains the Woolf Logistics Center, an industrial and business complex currently in the planning stages of construction. The site is adjacent to Luke AFB on the north side.

The meeting in which Council will revisit the issue and cast the deciding vote on whether or not it will annex the site has been tentatively set for Tuesday Dec. 19, according to Assistant Planning Director Tabitha Perry.

Council is expected to approve the annexation, which is the recommendation of city staff. Though no vote was taken at the Nov. 7 meeting, Mayor Jerry Weiers and Councilwoman Joyce Clark voiced their approval of the annexation during the meeting. Councilman Bart Turner was the only councilmember to voice opposition to the annexation during the meeting.

Woolf Properties’ intended use of the land includes warehousing, goods and products, and possible manufacturing, Planning Director Jon Froke told Glendale Today in August. The land is located north of Northern Avenue, south of Peoria Avenue, west of 143rd Avenue and east of Reems Road.

A third-party analysis conducted by Applied Economics found that, should the site be annexed, revenue received from the area at buildout would offset the cost of providing services to the area and provide direct annual revenue to the city.

Mr. Turner was not convinced that the area would bear fruit for Glendale.

“I am and remain very concerned that if we proceed with this, we’re making a decision in which the revenues that are produced out there for us are not going to pay for what we have to put in for it, which means that all of the residents in the rest of the city are going to have to be subsidizing that area,” he said.

Should the annexation be completed, building construction is expected in 2018 with businesses opening in 2019, Mr. Froke said in August. After annexation is completed, the site would be added into Glendale city limits 30 days after the vote.

Annexing this property into Glendale has been discussed as far back as 2005. In 2012, the city entered into Pre-Annexation Development Agreement with Woolf Logistics saying that, upon annexation, Glendale would provide the area with municipal services, such as water and wastewater, street upkeep, police and fire.

Though the agreement says that it is the intent of both parties to annex the property into the city in the future, it explicitly states that City Council is not required to approve the annexation. None of the current council was serving at the time of the agreement.

Ms. Clark said she hopes the city sticks to its agreement that she says dates beyond the 2012 document, back to 2005 when the city first began discussions with Woolf Logistics to annex the property. Ms. Clark was serving on City Council at that time.

“This is a 12-year commitment folks,” she said. “Do we honor that 12-year commitment? I would hope so.”

Mr. Turner, who seems all but certain to be a “no” vote in next month’s meeting, disagrees.

“I don’t feel overly bound by previous councils to make a bad decision on behalf of Glendale today and in the future,” he said. “I’m not certain this would be a bad decision, but I’m certain I’m not ready to go forward with it myself.”

The costliest services to be provided to the area would be police and fire, which could include building new police and fire stations near the Woolf Logistics site.

“The most important piece of all this is that we feel that it is about customer safety,” said Fire Chief Terry Garrison at the meeting. “It’s about the moment that the customers show up, our citizens show up and start building on that property site or traveling to that property site, they should have the same public safety support as 59th Avenue and Glendale (Avenue).”

Mr. Garrison says the department realizes it will take time to build a new station, if one is in fact needed to service the projected 21,421 workers at the site, and has discussed options for servicing the area in the meantime. Glendale FD officials have spoken with fire officials from neighboring Surprise about the possibility of a partnership in servicing the area, which might include Glendale contracting Surprise FD while a station is built or Glendale FD co-staffing a fire engine at a Surprise fire station.

City Manager Kevin Phelps said that the challenge for servicing the area for police and fire will depend on the exact use of the site and how many people are working there.

“We know the response times we want to have, and we want to look at the model for how we deliver that,” he said.

The land is currently zoned RU-43 for agriculture use by Maricopa County. It also has a Military Compatibility Permit because it is just north of Luke Air Force Base. City staff is processing a rezoning request simultaneously with the annexation request. The rezoning request proposes to rezone the property to Planned Area Development to permit industrial development that is compatible to the Military Compatibility Permit, which regulates permitted land uses that are compatible with the adjacent Luke Air Force Base operations. The rezoning request will be brought before Council after the annexation request is completed.

A neighborhood meeting was held at Falcons Dunes Golf Course Oct. 4 to introduce Woolf Logistics to the surrounding neighborhood. The city says those in attendance were supportive of Woolf Logistics Center.

According to Arizona state law, for an area to be annexed, a majority of the property owners must approve the annexation, but that should not be an obstacle as all the property owners are part of the Woolf family, who have been trying to annex this land for over a decade.

Mr. Phelps suggested other possible future annexations should be taken into account when considering this one, as to not leave the city disjointed.

“One could argue if you’re not planning on annexing farther to the west, that changes the economics a little bit,” he said, “but as you do look at doing full build out within our MPA (Municipal Planning Area), to have a hole there that we’re having to go around is inefficient for service delivery.”

Mayor Weiers likewise that said this isn’t as much a matter of annexing this specific piece of land, but a matter of the city’s approach toward annexation in general. He imagined if Glendale had chosen to forgo past annexation projects.

“If the city hadn’t annexed when they did, a lot of the growth we’re experiencing right now wouldn’t be in our city, it would be somewhere else,” Mayor Weiers said. “Personally, I think the bigger question is, ‘Do we want to annex at all?’ If we want to keep growing, I think we have to.”

The mayor added that the site will have great access to rail service, which would help industrial businesses flourish.

Ms. Clark pointed out that annexing the property will include Development Impact Fees, which she said are a much-needed stream of revenue for the city. She also mentioned that the Woolf Logistics Center is in a noise contour of Luke AFB and annexing it would give the city control over what the land is used for, which Ms. Clark said is important for the future of Luke AFB.

After the council directed city staff to move forward with the annexation request, which will culminate in the planned Dec. 19 vote, Mayor Weiers requested staff report on future growth prospects of the areas surrounding the Woolf Logistics Center for next month’s meeting.

Mr. Turner requested that those surrounding areas be included on the maps in the presentation to show to full impact the site would have on the city. The mayor requested that the contour lines of Luke AFB be included in a map as well.

Mr. Turner also pointed out there’s nothing to stop these jobs from coming into the area should Glendale not annex it and it remain a part of the county. Mr. Froke said at last Tuesday’s meeting that should it remain part of the county, Glendale would miss out on development impact fees, property taxes and would not have control over land use and what the buildings look like.

Editor’s note: Cecilia Chan contributed to this report. Mark Carlisle can be reached at 623-876-2518 or mcarlisle@newszap.com.