Despite an ongoing drive to attract employers and a housing shortage causing some of the highest rents and home prices in the state, the Queen Creek Town Council directed staff last week to draft a General Plan amendment that would relegate multifamily development to areas in or near employment or commercial zones.
Officials said allowing multifamily in Neighborhood-zoned areas does not reflect the Town founders’ vision for the community and would be detrimental to the town’s character.
Median prices for single-family homes in Queen Creek are $600K, according to analysts, and two-bedroom apartments average $2,500 per month. The town has seen recent rent increases of 76%.
Queen Creek has the lowest percentage of multifamily as part of its overall housing makeup of any city in the region, with only 5% of its existing stock coming in the form of apartments. Projects currently under construction or approved for development will increase that to 13%, which is still lower than Gilbert, Queen Creek’s next closest neighbor in terms of multifamily percentage. Gilbert’s stock is 17%.
At the moment there are 3,669 multifamily units in existence, with an approved site plan or actively under construction in the town.
Experts told the Council the jobs the Town will likely attract will not pay enough for employees to live in the community. Queen Creek’s median income is $104K, according to the report. The required average income to afford to live in Queen Creek multifamily units is $118K.
Most of the jobs Queen Creek is chasing are in the light industrial sector. The analysts warned the housing shortage, increasing rents and increasing mortgage costs could negatively impact economic development, since employers want their employees to be able to live near where they work.
As a community that had been, until recently, seen as an outlier, Queen Creek traditionally had a high degree of affordability when it came to housing. Officials used the circumstance as an economic development draw. Analysts warned that characteristic has not only faded, but it has also reversed.
Town officials said they want to meet demand and meet economic development goals but that they are not willing to sacrifice Queen Creek’s character. (Source)