The first matter is a General Plan Amendment to upzone 19.9
acres of DR-190 (5 acre lots) to General Commercial, in order to build a 130
room Hotel, amphitheater, and sewage treatment plant. This means that the
original housing density will go from 4 houses to a hotel. Besides the fact
that this is being planned for the middle of an existing rural neighborhood far
from other General Commercial areas, and besides the fact that there are 2
other planned locations already for a Resort, this is a terrible precedent to
have passed. Every other developer would then be able to demand this same
upzoning. If they were turned down by the Town, then developers would have
every right to sue, with high expectations for winning, because there would be
no reason to turn down any future request once this kind of change was allowed
anywhere within town limits.
The second matter is a rezoning request to upzone 200.1
acres of DR-190 to a mixture of DR-43 (1 acre lots), DR-70 (1.75 acre lots),
and DR-89 (2.5 acre lots). This would result in an incredibly large density
change from 40 houses to over 210 houses. The developer is also asking for a Planned
Area Development overlay. This would allow the developer to not follow our
normal building constraints, such as house setbacks, animal corridors, building
envelope lot disturbances, and allow them to build on slopes greater than 15%.
The submitted PAD plan is to ignore all of these zoning rules.
There is a public meeting at the Cave Creek Library on March 7th at 5pm to discuss this with the developer. There are also
Planning Commission meetings at Town Hall scheduled for March 15th
and April 19th, and a future Town Council meeting will be scheduled.
Come out to these meetings to be informed of the vast changes that will affect
not only this parcel, but EVERY vacant parcel in town. It could affect ANY
parcel that is zoned DR-190, already developed or not. If these upzoning
requests are passed by the Planning Commission and Town Council, NO
neighborhood, vacant parcel, or even already built DR-190 parcels will immune
to these future requests.
We purchased the Spur Cross area in order to protect the far
outreaches of our Town from high density resorts and development. The
developers haven’t stopped. Call and write your Planning Commission and Town
Council members. Tell them they are there to protect our desert from developers
requesting high density neighborhoods in areas not currently zoned for the type
of projects the developers want to build in order to maximize their profits.
Tell them that the 2005 General Plan, approved by the voters, should be upheld.
