good afternoon and welcome to the september 14 2022 uh mesa planning and zoning public hearing i am jeff crockett and uh we will begin with a roll call of our members okay board member crockett is present a vice chair ayers is absent board member alan here board member sarkissian here board member peterson here board member pitcher here and our brand new board member montez here okay it looks like we have a quorum uh we have a consent agenda that we will be reading into the record today and voting on that as a block if you are here for an item that's on the agenda and you would like to speak we'll need to get a speaker slip from you to do that we have i have two speaker slips that have come in on agenda item 4e which is just make sure we're clear on the record case zon22-00431 so that item is off consent and we will have a presentation on that but if you're here for any other item and you would like to speak we need to get quickly a speaker slip for you the other thing i will do is quickly read into the record a comment we have on one of the uh consent item agendas it's case zon21-00080 from art jordan 4018 north pinnacle hills circle he supports this item his comment is i have design concerns and requests for improved design elements primary concerns or wall screening landscape quality to resemble arterial landscape landscaping at blantford development nearby clean up and landscaping a buffer property to the west owned by the city of mesa landscaping and screening on west property line and south property line and a few other issues but again he is uh in support does not wish to speak so board member sarkissian will you proceed with our consent agenda okay seeing no other items being pulled off the consent agenda for wednesday september 14th 2022 is as follows approval of meeting minutes from the august 24th 2022 study session and regular meeting item 3a zon 22-00247 district 6 with an 8 100 to 8 200 blocks of easter main road located west of haws road on the north side germain road site plan review to allow for industrial development staff recommendation is approval conditions item 3b 0122-0603 district 6 within the 9 800 to 10 000 blocks of east elliott road within the 3 3 600 and 3 900 blocks of south everton terrace and within 3 600 to 39 100 blocks of east south east mark parkway located east of ellsworth road and south side of elliott road site planner view to allow for industrial development staff recommendation is approval conditions item 4a zon 21-0080 district 5 within thirty six hundred to thirty eight hundred blocks of north hagley road and the fifty two hundred to fifty five hundred blocks of east thomas road located east of higley around the south side of thomas rezoned from single residence 90 rs 92 light industrial with a planned area development overlay lipad cancel use permit and a site plan review this request will allow for a boat and recreational vehicle storage facility staff recommendation is approval with conditions item 4b zon 21-00995 district 6 within the 8 900 block of east pecos road and with the 7200 block of south 89th place and with an 8900 block of east waltham avenue located west of ellsworth on the south side of pecos road rezoned from light industrial with a planned area development overlay lipid two light industrial the plant area development overlay and bonus intensity zone overlay li pad biz and site plant in review to allow for the industrial development staff recommendation is approval conditions item 4c 0121-0121271 district 4. um this is actually being staff recommendation is continuing to september 28 2022 planning and zoning board meeting item 4d 0122-0263 district 2. this item is also being continued to september 28th 2022 planning and zoning board meeting item 4f zon 22-0607 district 6 within the 7 600 to 8 000 blocks of east elliott road and within the 3 300 to 3 600 blocks of south 80th street located east of south road and north of elliott road rezoned from agricultural a.g limited commercial lc and single residence 43 rs-43 to light industrial the plan area development overlay lipid and site plan review to allow for industrial development staff recommendation is approval conditions item 4g 0122.00669 district 5 from the 1200 to 1300 blocks of north power road located north of brown road on the east side of power road rezoned from single residents 35 rs 35 to public and semi-public districts with a planned area development overlay pspid and site plan review to allow for a public safety facility staff recommendation is approval conditions item 4h 0122-067 district 1 with the 3900 block of east oasis circle and within the 2800 to 2900 blocks of north nokia located north of mcdowell road and west of greenfield road for site plan review to allow for industrial development staff recommendation is approval of conditions item 4i 0122-0682 district 6 with the 3 700 3 900 blocks of south southman road located south of elliott road on the east side of sussman road rezone from light industrial li to light industrial with a plenary development overlay lipadd cancel use permit and site plan review allow for the expansion of an existing mini storage facility with boat and recreational vehicle storage staff recommendation of approval conditions item 4j z0122-0 district 6 within the 37 to 3900 blocks of south hawks road and within the 7800 block of east elliott road located east of southman road and north of warner road rezoned from small lot single residence 4.0 with a planned area development overlay rsl 4.0 pad two small lot single residence 4.0 with a planned area development overlay rsl 4.0 pidpid this request will allow for development a single resident subdivision staff formulation is approvable conditions and p p 5a item 5a grove on main street district 4 within the zero to 100 blocks of south mesa drive to the zero to 100 block of south yala to the zero to 100 block of southwest where located east of mesa drive and south of main street plummering plot staff recommendation is approval conditions item 5b baseline logistics park district 2 within 5600 to 5800 blocks of east ireland esro this item is actually being continued to the september 28th 2022 planning and zoning board meeting and item five c p uh wentworth mesa district six companion case to z0122-0607 um within the seventy six hundred eight thousand blocks of east elliott road and within three thousand thirty three hundred thirty six hundred blocks of south 80th street located east of sussman road north of elliott road primary platte dual for industrial development staff recommendation is approval with conditions and that is the consent agenda for today thank you you may have set a new record on that indiana would be perfect yeah uh okay you've heard the consent agenda do i have a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved second i have a first and a second let's vote okay board member alan yes okay by your vote of six eyes with one absent you have passed the consent agenda today thank you rachel i'll turn it over to you for staff presentations now all right chair board members we have item 4e which is 010431 and cassidy will be making a presentation on this item how can i put them thank you chairs members of the board um the case before you this afternoon is kcon 22-00431 this is a request to rezone the property from planned employment park with the planned area development overlay and council use permit to multiple residence five with a planned area development overlay and site plan review that request will allow for a multiple residence development the site is located on the north side of baseline road and the west side of sun view road and west of power road so the general plan designation for this property is currently specialty with a medical campus subtype the intent behind the specialty medical campus is for large areas uh with a single use so because of this medical campus subtype the intent is to provide a large area that's supportive of medical campus and educational medical campus uses so per the the 2040 mesa general plan there are primary zoning and land uses and secondary zoning and land uses that must be met um so within the the specialty district a minimum eighty percent of the primary zoning and uh land uses must be met before secondary land uses can be met so hospitals medical offices clinics supportive hotel as well as nclcgc pep and li are all identified within that primary classification multiple residents in support of commercial and retail is identify identified as a secondary classification but the only zoning district within that is the rm4 this request is for an rm5 which is not identified as a secondary land use within the specialty general plan character area designation when you look at this area in total there's approximately 254 acres within the specialty classification approximately 71 acres are currently developed for those primary land uses and so that minimum 80 percent has not been met and therefore staff is unable to support the request so the specific zoning that the applicant is requesting is multiple residents five the intent behind that multiple residence zoning district is to provide areas for a variety of housing again the the requested multiple residence zoning is not consistent with the general plan nor is it compatible with the surrounding area and staff is not in support the site is currently vacant as we get into the planned area development overlay request the applicant is requesting some deviations from the rm5 development standards those include an increase in the maximum building height an increase in the maximum building setbacks some modifications to the landscape yards a reduction in the required parking ratio and a reduction in the drive aisle setback staff has particular concerns with the reduction of the interior landscape yard setback the the requirement is 15 feet for non-single residents uses adjacent to other non-single residents uses the proposed site plan shows a reduction down to 10 feet as well as the reduced parking ratio however the applicant has provided a parking study that supports their requested ratio so the site plan is for 394 units and four buildings that are four stories each uh primary access to the site will be from baseline road with the secondary access off of inverness avenue uh there is a centralized amenity space uh in the central area of the the site surrounded by those buildings the applicant did attend design review board work session on september 13th yesterday evening the design review board was supportive of the proposed elevations however they were made aware of staff's recommendation of denial for the proposed site plan and land use the applicant did conduct a citizen participation process which included a notification to property owners within a thousand feet as well as hoas and registered neighborhoods they did conduct two neighborhood meetings at the time this presentation was made and the staff report was written we did not have the additional letter of support from a.t still university that is included in the planning and zoning board packet so in summary we find that the proposed development does not comply with the 2040 mesa general plan nor does it meet the criteria for uh a planned air development overlay and site plan review outlined in chapters 22 and 69 and therefore staff is recommending denial and i'd be happy to answer any questions thank you uh board members are there questions on this item for cassidy board member peterson chair crockett and cassidy on the can you drill down onto the numbers a little bit just because the percentages are critical here for the for the the land the primary and secondary land uses right what is the the the 254 egg acres and and maybe that's part of the the history of of what what what's the denominator we're dealing with is is it 254 or is it part of a previous pad and when was that pad approved chair board member peterson so um the 254 acres accounts for the total area within the specialty character area designation okay so that's a general plan uh especially character it's not a it's not a pad then that's correct it's not a pd it's the entire area within the blue that you're seeing on the map okay gotcha and uh and so of that 71 acres has been developed for the primary use to today is that correct chair board member peterson that is correct 71 acres has been developed for the primary land uses as defined in the mesa 2040 general plan an additional 54 acres is anticipated to the north of the subject site and that 54 is uh one of the cases that got continued that you're referring to and that fits within the primary uses that's correct okay so then on the the trigger for the minimum 80 for primary before you can so so the other the other multi-family uses within that blue zone that have developed already those are that those those were part of that 20 allowance or is that maybe give some history on that chair board members peterson um so the percentages were a part of a recent amendment that was made to the the 2040 mesa general plan amendment these uh multiple residences were actually developed prior to that 2040 mesa general plan in 2014. okay so so the the the criteria for the 80 threshold was part of the 2040 um general plan it was a part of a recent amendment that was made in 2020 okay i i i guess what i'm trying to get is is the the 254 that includes these things that were before the rule got put into place what what how how do those fit if they're part of the 254 but now they're not part of it i guess i'm just trying to to cut to what what acreage that there is and and what's left because it is the 254 left to be developed or those those multi-family parcels are part of the 254 right the multiple residence developments that exist would be inclusive in the 254 acres so they if you're looking at total percentages they would count towards that 20 of secondary land uses even though they're approved before the rule that restricts the 20 percent that's correct yeah and i think it's important to note that um you know while the the percentages are are critical um as discussed in the study session chapter five of the general plan is identifies the the maintenance and preservation of commercial areas and so these areas are currently zoned planned employment park so they could develop for commercial and employment uses and it's the goal of the general plan to support those those employment uses uh within the city and so when you take into account the existing multiple residents that's already been there we want to make sure that we're maintaining and preserving any additional viable areas for uh those commercial and employment uses okay well sir and then just to clarify that the case that was continued the additional 54 acres what types of uses are proposed on that that fit within this that's within the primary category like specifically what chair board member peterson so there is a request to rezone that property from p e p p d to l i p e d p a d and p e p p d so it's a mixture of large scale and small-scale industrial buildings and the applicant is actually working with staff to on a development agreement that would place some limitations on land uses to encourage medical manufacturing uses that are more consistent with the medical campus subtype okay so it's industrial type uses that uh but but they're trying to target those to the medical and board members as well as research and development space okay thank you okay any other questions for cassidy don't see any so i'd like to invite the applicant up now and if you would please state yours uh let's she voted that first of all yeah give me one second please no take your time we saved some time with uh board member kissian's uh quick reading of the consent agenda it's impressive yeah if you please state your name charles for the record i appreciate the opportunity to be here it's good to see most of you again and welcome uh as a new member you may regret by the end of this evening having accepted those responsibilities but until then welcome i i think you pointed out the the first point which is that these cases are gone and this is the reason for the commission to decide the cases that aren't so easy this is one of those cases that we've we've had an opportunity to work with your staff for quite some time and frankly we respectfully disagree and so you'll hear a very different presentation from us than you did from staff i have a presentation prepared as these things go they change a bit because we have the advantage of hearing what you discussed in the study session which likewise is the purpose for the study session so i may jump around a little bit based on hearing uh some of the things in the study session the thing that i heard that i think was probably most relevant is staff's acknowledgement the real issue is that they don't like multi-family i guess that doesn't really come as a surprise but i'm going to spend a lot of time talking about that because it's important to the core of the case really i suspect everyone knows well the site you've heard at least twice from staff i'd like to talk a little bit about the site a big part of our case relies on the fact that to the right of us on the screen is a a.t still campus and they have been in mesa for a long time i think some of the discussion one of the questions earlier was what are the buildings to the east of us and that entire area is the a.t still campus and we have spent quite a bit of time talking with them i hope that you've had a chance to see the letter in the packet they come in strong support of of housing and they do so very clearly because when they came to mesa they came because it was going to be a campus it came a long time ago somebody mentioned earlier in the hearing or the study session you know what was this case it was 2008 and every morning i like to think that i'm every bit the same person i was in 2008 and then i get up and i go for a run and i realize i'm not a lot has happened since 2008 and times change things have changed dramatically since then and that's one of the things i'm going to talk about one of the dreams that mesa had in 2008 and one of the reasons we come here with this zoning is because at that point in time mesa wanted a hospital campus and the simple reality is they have one and they don't they have one but it's not the one that they had hoped for banner has built a significant campus and tenant healthcare uh is not in the business of competing against a business that's already serving its patient base there isn't room for another campus and tenant has been very clear about that and i'll talk about that as we go through the presentation but at still came because it was going to be a medical campus and they have fulfilled their portion of that dream they have brought many students as well as faculty to mesa and and their letter uh clearly indicates in all of their conversations with us that they they plan to have that campus in fact you may or may not know i didn't know before the start of this case that's why the y is there rather than building their own separate piece they work together to build the y because they wanted it to be a campus field and it works for everyone the y gets the opportunity to have a good place to be and a.t still doesn't have to repeat those amenities if you go to for example arizona state you're going to find a student rec center and that serves just the students and the faculty and just down the block there are several gyms because this was a campus that's not the way a.t still proceeded one of their dreams always was to build residential and in our first meeting with a.t still we showed them some renderings and they said my god that's almost exactly what we wanted to build but we weren't able to do it this is really exciting we're super excited that you'll be there and so we've worked with them on the site plan and on elevations it's worth noting and i'm going to show you some elevations that the design review board was not silent as you heard first but actually very favorable about the project and um we take great pride in the fact that it is a good project and we're discussing whether or not this is the appropriate place for it and i know this is not the place for design review but but it's nice to come with such a warm welcome from design review we would argue that it's exactly the right place not just because of a.t still but there's a significant need in this area for housing and i'm kind of kind of bounce around for my original presentation just because i know some of the things that that you've talked about but but frankly the fact that we don't have neighborhood opposition is a really important point we're going to spend a bunch of time today talking about why we think housing is important it's important because while mesa has spent time talking today about the need for preserving employment base a lot has changed again since 2008 and in 2008 people were happy to take long commutes and uh people were happy to go into work every day in fact the idea that they wouldn't go into work every day was sort of uh an anomaly and we're not in 2008 we are where we are and since that time the campus the medical campus has occurred again much of it is in gilbert not in mesa but the theory of the general plan was we would have these uses and that's why housing is allowed as a secondary use because quite simply if you're going to continue to bring new jobs you have to find places for people to live and it's hard to find places i was i was in a study session in the actual drb last night and there was a another apartment deal and there was a lot of friction in that case and the reason the friction was there in part because they wanted to put apartments in an area that had previously been focused more on single-family homes and that brings out lots of folks but you don't see folks like that here today there's no one here in opposition except staff and we've had not one but two meetings and we have a.t still the nearest university the nearest neighbor here is is in strong support because they need what we're offering which is a place for their students to live their students are there for a while especially the good ones are there for only a short period of time and then they move on many of them will move on to this same neighborhood because they'll move towards the campus that banner has built yes it's in gilbert but they're still going to be in the neighborhood they're still going to use the streets and there aren't places for them to live the cost and the vacancy of apartments has been dramatic over the last several years in this area if you wanted to live and that's probably one exception one of the other projects that is in this planning area is is a income restricted project which means you have to qualify to live there it's not available to everyone but if you take the market right product within miles of this site it's 97 percent occupied and that means it's 100 occupied except for people moving in and out there are no places for people to rent there are no places for people to live this is not a site for single-family homes it's not a site for hospital uses and i'll get to that in just a second but this is a place and and i've since i showed the slide let me cut to that piece in 2008 this is another thing that mesa was talking about they were talking about the heat initiative the first two parts of heat initiative are healthcare and education that's why at still ended up here because that's what mesa was talking about that was the dream they believed in and we're helping fulfill that dream by letting it be a campus by letting people live near the school they go to by letting people work near the place they live it one of the tremendous expenses over the last several years with healthcare has been the need for hospitals to hire people temporarily because people don't want to move there because there aren't places for them to live and again as the the area again i understand the sensitivity of of talking about some of it being in gilbert but that's the reality that hospital is built they spent millions and millions of dollars building it it's there and it serves the public it people are not going to just have to go to another hospital across the street because because mesa would rather it be in mesa um i'm going to jump around here for a second and find a tenant has been very clear this is a letter from tenant healthcare you asked this question earlier and you're absolutely right attendant is selling pieces of the land and as i've sold it including deity still at still has restrictions uh theirs are different than all the others because they're education based and they're allowed to do the educational uses that are aligned with health care no surprise because that helps the healthcare industry they want those future trained employees but the other uses are not going to be healthcare they're simply not the idea that they're going to be is gone it's not a it's not a public policy issue it's not something that you can discuss as a city because it's a private property right but every one of those properties has deed restrictions on it and i can probably find them these are some of the deed restrictions and i'll leave them up but the deed restrictions that are prohibited on this property are basically everything that would be a competing hospital tenant is not going to sell the land and allow someone to come in and use the uses that would compete against what they do they will build somewhere else in the valley they're not in the business of creating competition for themselves so we can pretend to have a discussion about that but it's not very realistic and i'm going to move to the next page it also limits you to sell from selling to anyone who has interest in those kinds of businesses so it's not going to be health care so now you're left with the discussion uh about what else can go there and some of it is light industrial and you had a discussion even earlier today about that well you probably know a.t still is opposed or has been opposed to having industrial and i don't speak for that issue it does sort of bring up the issue that they have brought up with us which is we want things that are campus oriented and they've been clear that they don't think light industrial is campus oriented this is this helps them get to the thing that they're looking for which is housing one of the issues and i'm going to cover a few things just to make sure that i have an opportunity to address the comments you've made one of the things that staff brought was parking too and i would like to point out you know parking is something we could work on it isn't really the issue we know the real issue is multi-family but the way that mesa calculates its code is similar to many cities but frankly a bit antiquated which is it's by unit so we have three unit three bedroom units and we have one bedroom units and so depending on what that mix is your parking ratio can sound great or terrible we're at 0.99 per bedroom so think forget the code for a second and just think practically please and that means that every bedroom has a parking space which is more than fair given what real parking ratios are throughout the valley in terms of what what people do in terms of having vehicles and having units if that were the real issue if parking were the real issue certainly we would get to the table and try to work through that as staff pointed out we have a report that says this is consistent with what happens in the industry and that it works well can i have one minute to come forth my client i don't want to take too much time i know you've seen lots and i wanted to make sure my client had an opportunity to make sure i covered what was necessary be happy to answer questions as you have them sure thank you for that and charles your last name pronounced that for me i pronounce it heal mantle almost no one else does human heal mantle mantle h-u-e-l-l-m-a-n-t-e-l and i did not pick it i was born with it i would have picked something easier no that's great i just didn't want to didn't want to you say it's great but you're the last person in school to spell your own name it's terrible all right so any questions for charles we're going to go with your first name on this i think that's a wonderful idea i wouldn't blame you a bit questions from board members on this one for charles board member pitcher please i'll uh quiz you on the the legal side of it can you put that slide back up about the restrictions this one or the second one so who's the hospital owner that has the uh the approval right here tenant healthcare okay okay if you can leave that there i'm going to look at it but do you want me to give you a copy of the yeah that'd be a whole lot easier i figured that might come up that's in its entirety i've only pulled sections of it but you're entitled to keep that and i'm happy to wait if you have questions for it or come back or however you want to handle it and charles just let me while he's looking at that let me just ask you a question so this is uh this is what you would expect to be given to sign i mean we know we know that it will be required it will be required of you okay and it has been required of others so it's not unique to our piece that is what's been required throughout and i think you'll find that probably on each of the pieces okay or something very similar to it he's still slightly different because they're allowed to have medical uses that are associated with education for obvious reasons okay so while board member pitcher's looking board member peterson i think has a question so what is the relationship of tenant with this vhs acquisition subsidiary that owns this and the property to the north i'm not an expert on that i believe it's a holding company for tenant that operates and owns their land holdings so so let's call it uh the related related entity yes thank you don't wait for me okay i i don't know if this this isn't so much a question for the applicant or they could answer it but i'm sure i would like prefer staff's answer so this um the question i have i believe cassie touched upon it with the employment area the 254 acres that is the general plan category correct there is there is there a pad over this property that restricts it to the same degree that you're talking about i know it's a specialty character area but she mentioned that was part of the general plan and as opposed to a zoning chair board member sarkician that's correct the 254 acres is within the the specialty character area designations it includes multiple properties and different property owners there's not one planned area development overlay for the 254 acres okay so for this 254 acres they've all been developing independently that's correct as they come in okay can we did you want to question ask a question yeah just with uh and sorry my head's stuck on these numbers a little bit still though um so with the what and so this was the specialty character area was approved in what year the 2040 mesa general plan was approved in 2014. okay so 2014. and a lot of these the the apartments and everything else develop before i i guess the the when the 80 rule coming in there the it when you included all these areas that were already developed with on multi-family and with retail along higley road then that's that looked and just looking at it it looks like more than 20 percent so it almost says that 20 is gone until for this whole area that's am i interpreting that correctly uh board member peterson i believe it accounts for approximately 17 with the existing multiple residents okay so that would and and then what about the retail along higley road is that also part of the 20 or part of the 80. the retail on higley road is actually not within the uh the specialty character area designation okay gotcha and is the 80 percent is that uh i i guess what's the how how specific or how arbitrary was the 80 do you know what the history was for the 80 as in the the genesis behind the 80 percent correct yeah um chair board members nana pm the development services director so it's very important for you to look at the intent of the percentages i think we're getting stuck with the specific numbers the intent of those primary and secondary ratios was to make sure that the primary dominant use that forms the core character of the designation is really developed because over time over the years what we've experienced in the city is we have a general plan character designation that is intended for specific character defining area but because we don't define what is supposed to be the major dominant character for the area we allow the secondary which is supposed to be accessory to be developing over time the secondary and accessory takes over the specific intent character of the area so couple of years ago after experiencing that we came up and discusses that moving forward we want the dominant character uses to be the defining developed character of the area and once that is done then the accessory or the secondary uses can be developed to support it either that happens independently or when there is a proposed development that come in with the ratios to show that the 80 percent is going to be fulfilled without development with a 20 as part of that all the 80 needs to be developed and then later on the 20 percent can come in so at the end of the day we ensure that the dominant character area is actually being developed so that's really the intent behind the ratio and in this specific case one of the major issue here is this is one of the prime areas in the city that is actually left for such a large area to be devoted for employment uses our support for basically that employment uses is not that we don't recognize the need for multifamily we do recognize the need however there are several other locations in the in the city that can be devolved for residential in addition we also look at it on a case-by-case basis and there's been a couple of cases that has come before you that way zone let's say limited commercial or other employment uses that we believe that actually rezoning into residential was a right thing to do to really support and energize or revitalize the area this is one of the areas that we believe that actually taking that employment land for residential is not the right appropriate use at the location and at the end of the day it doesn't promote the goal of economic development for the city directly i have a question for you with with the types of deed restrictions that we're looking at here that the owner of the property is putting on it it seems like that has the potential to thwart the the medical campus character of this area so i guess the way i'm looking at if they want to sell their property they need to maybe get rid of the need restrictions board members so that's really a good thing unfortunately none of the staff was aware of even this this this restriction we just saw at least i just saw that i'm not sure if myself have even had this conversation that's one number two the property right now is zone plan employment so it's when the property when i went through right now they can go ahead and develop it for non-residential uses that are allowed in the pep and i believe when the pep zone index nation was put on the property the applicant can answer this question but i believe this deed restriction was still on the property and so in addition to even the deed restriction the site doesn't have to be developed specifically for this medical users the alternative to non-medical users at this location is no residential there is a large volume or demand for other non-residential uses in the city that this site can actually be looked at or reviewed for those users as well okay thank you that i appreciate that clarification and board member peterson and then board member pitcher director thank you for for that input so the uh and and i remember uh in the late 90s when this area first started get the infrastructure first started going in and so to to your point of this is a very high demand area i fully agree with that where there's a disconnect is that um supply and demand has manifest over time right and so here we are 25 years later and it still has a significant amount of undeveloped area where um looking at the the other side of higley road where banner and then anderson those have all filled out robustly and even uh and i even had some some personal consulting involvement on the south side of baseline road where they thought that that same time in the early 2000s everybody thought everything around here would be medical but once once those pieces kind of fell into place then as the applicant's representatives have said you once pieces fall into place you kind of and so you see on the the south side you know that they started with some medical desires and hospital desires then it turned into assisted living and it turned into about you know some small percent assisted living and and then and then the rest retail which is a very robust retail center there's certainly demand for that and so the disconnect is here we are 25 years later this is a high demand site but with the restrictions placed on it it would seem like especially over the last 10 years of hyper growth and development that if there was the demand for the things that talking about limiting for it here why hasn't that occurred over the last 10 years uh more more than it has to board member troy that's actually a good question yeah but to answer your question there is a reason why the general plan allows for rezoning and to go through this process and going through this process so one of the things we do when projects come through the city we review that together with our economic development department and they are very much aware of the demand in that area and there are other potential demand that is actually can be those that can be developed in the area other than residential so going back to my um response earlier the alternative for the demand is not residential there are other as we talked about and i know you guys were talking about the existing project right now that is coming through that has not actually come before you which we saw is so ongoing discussion so i don't want to really sidetrack us with that discussion but those are the demands that is actually right now there's a need for it and so we have to look at it from the overall demands right now one of the things there is a lot of demand for non-residential uses in the city of mesa as well as you know we are one of the fastest growing cities you can see on the agenda a lot of demand so what we are trying to do is make sure there is a balanced city we are balancing where people live and also providing employment for them so when we get this project we look at and review that with economic development and sometimes we say yes this site there has been vacant there's been not been that much demand and we believe that this is an area that we can reason to example residential but this is one of the side that we believe there is more demand and there are other potential uses that we could preserve it we can obtain those uses and director of p i think i don't want to put words in your mouth but i think what you're saying is even if it's not a medical demand on the property there are other types of demand that would go there that are consistent with the existing zones absolutely that's correct okay yeah and and that thank you that that follows my my question is in reviewing the the restrictions it looks like they're hospital related and you know emergency you know you know related kind of uses so are there some uses that you feel are going to be separate from those that are restricted that are interested in this process i haven't seen the deed restriction um so i really don't know but there are so many in the plant employment park there are so many other uses that are non-medicare related board member sarkician so i have a question um being that this has been in a you know an area that you're targeting and stuff like that for um this type like growth and because it's a high employment area uh area does this site within an opportunity or incentive zone i don't know if it's an unemployed um was it called a opportunity zone and so that's a little bit of my concern whether this you know gets pushed back and stalls to see what happens but i think that's that's my concern is that i have personally driven past this on the freeway since 2003 when atwell went in and i'm looking at historic aerials and you know the second building for atlanta and 2004-ish um it's you know the road to the good through was done in 2007 the ymca was done in 2010 and the parcels that we're talking about have continued to sit and while you know when when i i know we've denied projects before waiting for other things to come through and then nothing it happens and so i'm just wondering at what time do we do we open it up to other things if it's not going to be because i know there's been like banners exploded on that side and they've had issues with um not enough housing for because they want sam hugh not sam he's uh you know the that hired it the higher quality for doctors and stuff like this i don't know if this one is specifically geared geared towards the doctors or more of the students but regardless i know there's a housing shortage issue but um i'm kind of i'm trying to toss because i was like you want to wait for the better you know you're waiting for the better but you don't have the better in front of you but then on the other side you also have an issue of um you know this this is what's in front of us at this time and what what are we trying trying to do okay because you mentioned like that project at the south in gilbert on the south side we did i did that i worked with that on that project and that was 60 acres of regional and that was set for office employment type uses and it became assistant to the medical which was the assisted living the med the memory care assist uh nursing home and then also came with at the hotels to assist the banner and then it came the commercial to assist all other stuff so it's like they feed off of each other but i'm not the other thing is because we're so good right now at the industrial off of elliott and the ganesha gateway i don't know if that's pulling those high-tech r d stuff that way versus keep and and i don't know if it's kind of pulling it away from this area and i don't know chicken or egg like what's gonna you know it's kind of like what do you wait for would you like i don't know especially especially since it doesn't have an opportunity zone on it makes me a little more hesitant to say let's wait let's keep this like it is chair board members so what staff is recommending is not to wait and keep it ideal till something comes up this is something that we deal with it daily for the employment or commercial designated land uses the consistent comments or consistent argument that comes up when they come to re-zone it it has been ideal for so many years and so we want to basically rezone it to residential that's daily conversations if we go that route we will be reasoning all majority of our employment land uses that can be converted to residential what we are saying is this is a land that is preserved for employment and as a city there are examples of places that you know we started and the city basically stood and said we still want to preserve this for employment usage and after 15 10 years it's come back and it has been devolved for employment uses on the contrary there's been other places that have been preserved for employment uses and in the most recent years we've rezoned them from you know light industrial to residential because we believe that of all the things that have been developed around with a retail with a you know restaurants and all that there is one example around that i wouldn't mention that you guys actually recommended approval last year it was zoned for light industria but the surrounding developments were commercial restaurants and we believed that rezoning the live industry actually to residential was going to help provide the food traffic to support the restaurants and other uses looking at this site this is one of the side that staff believe that it needs to be rezoned to residential well thank you any other questions for director appiah all right um any other questions for the applicant board member pitcher did you have anything more for the applicant no any anything else board member alan no not for the applicant or staff okay i'd like to respond to those comments but i think it would make more sense to open the public comment first and then okay to allow me to respond after okay absolutely so i have one speaker slip that is by uh former council member richans so i'd invite him to the podium and state your name and address for that dave richardson's 833 west 11th place i didn't realize i'd feel a certain amount of ptsd coming back in this building i was rather surprised like oh i spent way too much of my life in this room um i was there when we did this 2014 this general plan in 2014 if you open the book you'll see my name there on the first page and i've heard a lot of banter by folks who were not here during that period about what we intended by that general plan um one of the things that i heard was that you know the intent of the general plan is to preserve these job producing uses and and i'm going to say if you look at the general plan on the on the title of almost every page it says the goal of the general plan was to create recognizable neighborhoods innovative jobs and memorable public spaces that's it and so what are we trying to accomplish here that's what that's you know what what this whole case is really hinging on there is a solution to this and it lies within a subtype in the general plan so when we had our subtypes that you see in the blue they they're calling it a medical subtype there's an additional subtype within the general plan called the educational campus it's on page 7-30 and on page 7-30 it'll talk about that campus subtype and that residential uses are absolutely an accessory used to that and so part of the solution of this site as it transitions is to look at it a little different and allow it to evolve i think board member sir kissian put it very well she's been by the site for a number of years she's seen it stay vacant and this zoning case that happened in 2007 2008 things have changed considerably the economy has changed we've been through a pandemic we've been through a boom period now we're into major inflation so as things evolve we need to evolve as a city and a general plan is exactly that it's general but within that general plan we're given latitude to change our mind a little bit now the this 80 20 ratio that was created in 2020 only a bureaucrat could come up with that and i listened in with intent to the planning director and all due respect the planning director i i tried to unravel that in my mind about why you'd have this 80 20 ratio and why that's so important but to me a general plan shouldn't even be that specific it really is trying to create three things the innovative neighborhoods the excuse me the uh let me find my note again the recognizable neighborhoods innovative jobs and memorable public spaces and this project i came just because i felt upset about the general plan characterization in this case and i love a.t still university we worked really hard on city council during that period to bring educational uses here and if you walk outside the back side of this building you're gonna and if you keep walking towards city hall you're gonna run into asu and if you walk down the street a little bit more you're gonna run into benedictine and if you know you think about all these different things that have developed here we need to preserve these educational uses and i i worry about a.t still they they may not go anywhere but they may cease their expansion the staff report does not mention 80 still once now to me that's very concerning it shows me what they value they value more getting wrapped around the axle about 80 20 ratios than a major educational institution that's turning out the doctors that are employed next door at banner in the general plan and when you're looking at those ratios we count 271 acres if you were to count the rest of the acreage into gilbert which is what this whole totality of the area would take in then that whole 80 20 thing is like okay yeah we have a preponderance of medical uses here so i think you have the latitude within changing your mind a little bit saying hey this is a great place for residential a.t still supports this i am sure if how do we approach banner banner would love to have some high-end housing for their nurses and employees he flashed past the picture kind of quick of the doctor sleeping in the hallways at some of those hospitals i've seen that myself happen i'm sure you guys have too let's let's be some flex let's be a little flexible here let's understand that the general plan provides latitude to allow a great project to come to mesa i hope you vote for it thanks thank you for your for your comments on that um okay so uh charles did you want to have the final word here i do i hope the final word is the vote i wish i could take that myself as well but uh at least the final comments you know we disagree respectfully with staff on what this means we disagree particularly whether the general plan should be the zoning case or the zoning case should be the zoning case but really what we disagree with and and you asked the question kind of well kind of chicken or the egg i'm not even sure it's that anymore because i think we're at the point where we're not going to continue to get the jobs we want if we don't have places to house people they're not going to continue to get the students they want at at still if they can't find places for their students to live because they're coming from other places we we in arizona have worked really hard over the last decade and more to bring to broaden our economy to make it not just about development to bring jobs and industry in from from other places you know what one of the things that we benefited from the most was california not because they were necessarily doing it right but because they made it too expensive and too difficult and people had to live too far from their jobs and people changed in that time they wanted to live close to their jobs particularly people who are working at a hospital and are working shifts from you know 2 p.m to 2 a.m or whenever it is all kinds of odd hours and tired when they get home and they they don't people don't want to drive 45 minutes anymore and we shouldn't want that either it's not good for the roads it's not good for the environment we should be designing campuses with people in mind and if you're going to put people in mind they have to have a place that they can live and if we can continue to say yeah yeah we think there's a housing problem but somebody else should solve it it should be somewhere else not near here it's not really solving the problem and this this case getting back to specifically what it is does solve a specific problem it takes land and yeah you could put some other uses in there you know there's a ton of fast food restaurants out there we can you know popeye's is already there but maybe we can get all their competitors out there and you can fill up this land on baseline with 30 more fast food restaurants and take the land up to me that's not great that doesn't increase the feel of a campus for a t still it doesn't increase the job quality of life for people who work at banner or for any of the remaining land uses to me having residential uses really helps you get the rest of the land available for jobs that are good jobs that people can afford to live by so i appreciate your time i appreciate that this is a tough case but we we really feel strongly that this is the right project and that that's noted not only by the kind words from the design review board but also the fact you have no opposition it's so rare anymore to find a piece of land that doesn't have opposition but this one has support and and councilman richards pointed out and i can probably even find you that piece of the code even in the general plan and again i would argue that it's a general plan not a zoning case i think the law would support that but even then there are secondary uses and the secondary uses were always designed to be residential is there any other questions i'd be happy to take them uh thank you for that um you know i'll just make a comment uh charles and earlier earlier you said that um that staff doesn't like apartments and you know since i've been on pnc for i think about four years now we've approved a lot of apartment projects or multi-housing projects so i i don't i don't think i'm happy to refine my statement if i said it wrong what i heard in in this year recession was the real issue is multi-family okay and i and it's not it's not an antagonism toward multi-family projects it's really is this the right project in the right place and so just relating it to this case i'm not not willing to speak through a larger picture sure okay i understand that and appreciate your presentation that's helped certainly helped me understand much better you know what we're what we're talking about today so any other questions for the the board or from the board any discussion on this item that you'd like to have board member monster it's okay um can you tell me how many students attend the university i can't tell you the exact number uh there may be a representative here who can tell you i can tell you that the university breaks down though into a way that would make that somewhat misleading the university has students on campus in fact they have some climate clinics and other things and they also run similar clinics in lots of other places so even if i gave you the real number which i think the thing you really want to know is how many students live uh participate in that campus and i think it's a few thousand at least okay okay well they also have plans for continued growth um okay so we have an item on our agenda with a recommendation do i have a motion on this hey excuse me chair prophet you need to close the public hearing first oh yeah thank you we'll go ahead and close the public hearing thank you for that keep me on my toes here so any other discussion uh before we maybe consider a question on this item if i could if i could uh take a moment just to i guess share my thoughts on this project um given my background obviously with economic development and being part of a city staff for 30 years i have a tendency and i'm leaning towards supporting staff and their recommendation only because i was there when he still came in and i watched that development go you know everything develop around it and i watched all i know that was an employment center and we tried to maintain that and i fall back to the economic development staff that they know what they're doing and their recruitment you know efforts and so i'm i'm leaning to support towards recommending denial or at least supporting the denial recommendation thank you for that board member peterson yeah just some some thoughts on this and uh from from a baseline of staff recommendations i have a lot of respect for and put a lot of credence in the staff recommendations uh in this particular case and and um at the in the late 90s i lived just on the north side of the freeway here so i'm very familiar with it i've watched it grow up over the years i i do see um that when when i when i pull back you know half a mile two miles five miles in my little sim city mind and say what's good planning here the uh the the case before us it feels like good planning it feels like a good mix when i go to this 80 20 mix which i i get it it's a number whether it's arbitrary or not and um this site is at 10 acres that's four percent of the area if seventeen percent is already secondary another four percent is 21 call it 20. it's within that range of that balance that that the general plan is seeking although it might not be in the exact this comes before that and and then the the bigger thing is just the the time factor of and demand on on development of what's coming in if economic development had such high demand for this why have we gone 25 years and particularly the last 10 years of hyper employment related growth and not had more go on here as and and i get there's a case for a large parcel and that that's great um coming before us here in the near future sounds like even that's more industrial which is in call it the gray area of i think what we're what we're talking about here it's i i would guess that that's not that that's not economic development's first wish that would go in here and then seeing how the hospital campus has developed in in all directions in this area and the the support that is needed not just general population wise with a shortage of housing but specific to the hospital for uh longer term stays for patients patients relatives uh medical workers students at the at the um students at the university there it it it to me it feels like it's it it's a a a good planning thing to do and so for that reason the uh i would be in support of uh recommendation for approval for this case okay any other comments i see board member pitcher reaching all right um you know in looking at the restrictions and and the fact that i think i heard that that uh the tenant was an affiliate of the owner i think you know some of some of this is um they have control over who goes in there so i mean the fact that it's vacant is somewhat you know their own choosing um i i you know the other thing i'm i'm concerned about is and they're between higley and greenfield from baseline north there's 2 100 apartments just there and i don't know if you know there's there's really necessarily a need that this one would solve if we've got some availability down south uh in board member sir kissian please um i guess just again looking at the history of the site and seeing what's around it and what's gone on i mean even to the south i mean gilbert's done crazy stuff going on the west side but even when you start looking in this portion south of baseline it's stalling pigley uh record dead ends into like stillwell id still so i feel especially i mean it is a really great piece um i just feel like if it was in demand it would especially with everything going on it would have kind of hit or you'd have another application for it i don't know that how many applications have come before on the site um so with this one without there being i think i think um at this point that some of this stuff is getting cannilized by the insanity that is going on elliott corridor being another being it's i think it's somewhat in close proximity mileage drive-wise but um and i do think the housing shortage issue and i i mean it's it's kind of gotten ridiculous but um so for that i would actually be in support of it because i don't see another i don't see anything else coming before us at this time and what is before us is this and like i mentioned i've been driving bias since 2003 and since the last development i've seen in this area was um 2007 and then well 2010 was the ymca which is affiliated with the school but uhaul's been there since 2004. another i mean there's nothing that's been pushing this for growth in that sense so that's my concern is that um we're waiting for something that's not incentivized enough to go here despite how much we want it to be there okay well i'll just share my thoughts i am i'm persuaded i guess by board member pitcher i think that the owner of the property has um within its control the ability to to market this property in a way that could have it be developed i think we have an item on our agenda today that's the recommendation that we approved was that it be continued the september of the later september meeting but that's a that's a large project and as uh director of pia said that you know it's not just we we shouldn't just focus as narrowly on medical here i mean it's it's an employment parcel it's it's large it's a large area for employment i spent 10 years on economic development before coming here so i'm very vest invested in economic development in mesa and in preserving areas that we have for employment and i've as i indicated earlier since i've been on the board here we've approved many many uh multi-family housing projects so it's not any aversion i understand that the issues with the demands for housing but again for me it's about right place right time so i'm i'm going to go ahead and i'm going to move this item and we'll see if i get a second on it board member montez did before i do that is there anything you wanted to to say or add to the discussion uh well i know housing is needed [Music] i just was speaking i know banner on power and power and my goodness between maine and broadway yes i know that i had spoken to them because my school's in that area and i know that many of the nurses there and hospital employees are traveling from other cities to go and work there and they're lacking housing in our area and so a part of me is i think if we if our housing is being if they are working there or near banner or any of those hospitals but they're living in other cities that doesn't bring us an economic value right because they're not shopping in our town they're they're living in other areas so part of me i'm kind of thinking i mean i i'm new here so it's my first time but i could see the benefit of having housing my other question would be i don't know the apartments near there are they like i would want some are they at capacity do students use those apartments like i would want some numbers in looking at that because there's apartments right there but i'm not sure are they at capacity do they have a waiting list fully occupied and yeah and unfortunately we've closed the public hearing part of this that's okay it's okay um so you know this is our channel those are kind of my what i'm looking at okay well thank you for that well i'm i'm gonna go ahead and move this item so i would move item 4e which is case 0n22-00431 district 2 within the 5700 to 5900 blocks of east baseline road within the 1800 and 1900 blocks of south sun view and within the 5700 to 5900 blocks of east inverness avenue located west of wrecker road on the north side of baseline rezoned from planned employment park and planned area development overlay and council use permit to multi multiple residents five with a planned area development overlay and site plan review this request will allow for a multiple residence development the staff recommendation is denial so i will move approval of this item and ask if there's a second i second that could you make a rule of their recommendation i'm approving i'm recommending approval of this item with the recommended denial from staff so the effect would okay so could you make a motion either to approve or to recommend denial well i recommend denial denial which is the staff recommendation here and then and i i second that so we have a first and a second and we'll go ahead are we ready for the vote yes we are let's go ahead and vote board member alan yes okay so we have three yes votes three no votes with one board member absent so i'll turn to our attorney and that i guess what what do we do now so to pass any motion you need a quorum of those present so to pass any motion you need four votes um you could make another motion but i assume based on the outcome of this it ends up 3-3 as well so when it goes to city council it's going to be recorded on their agenda as a split 3-3 okay all right well thank you thank you for the vote on that and um i'll turn it to rachel is there anything else that we need to address on our agenda today chair board members no there's nothing nothing okay so do i have a motion to adjourn our our public hearing so moved second second all right are you ready to vote board member alan what's your vote yes all right by your vote of six eyes with one absent you've approved the motion to adjourn thank you or someone would have been the deciding vlog [Music] you