P&Z OKs Plan, Wants Better Traffic Analyses

By Raquel Hendrickson for inMaricopa 
One planned project brought out frustrations entailed in the City of Maricopa’s General Plan and how traffic flow is designed. 
Though the Planning & Zoning Commission unanimously recommended El Dorado Holding’s Rev Development to the city council for approval, commissioners and staff used the opportunity to push for change. 
Rev is planned as a 25-acre residential and commercial area on the SEC of Bowling Road and Porter Road. It was before the commission asking for a minor General Plan amendment and a zoning change. The residential portion of the project is to be a gated complex of 200 rental housing units. 
Those units are planned as a combination of single-story, standalone and duplexes with one, two or three bedrooms. The main access will be off Porter Road, with a secondary access off Bowlin. 
The commercial portion, on about five acres at the corner of the intersection, will have “neighborhood commercial” designation. 
“The 2005 General Plan is a very suburban sprawl type of model,” Deputy Director Rodolfo Lopez said. “Our land-use pattern has to change in the future, so we have a better type of transportation corridor.” 
Porter Road has direct access points for three schools, a preschool, Pacana Park, Banner Health and The Wells businesses like Walmart. It also channels traffic for Central Arizona College and two other charter schools. The Glennwilde subdivision is on both sides of Porter. 
The addition of multifamily housing to the mix without a way for commissioners to consider the overall traffic flow perturbed the board. 
In this case, the traffic impact analysis, which has been submitted to the planning department by the applicant, will not go to the commission until later. 
“Traffic will be fully vetted through a traffic impact analysis at the time of the development review permit submittal,” Assistant Planner Peter Morgoliner told the commission.  
“I would tell you that we have already done a detailed traffic impact analysis, which has already been submitted,” Brad Hinton with El Dorado Holdings said. 
Current commercial zoning on the parcel, from the county before incorporation, describes a “much higher intensive use from a traffic perspective.” Hinton said the proposed land use is less intensive, and that will show up in the traffic impact analysis. 
Nevertheless, commissioners wanted staff to find ways for them to more fully consider traffic in future plans. 
Read more at inMaricopa.