Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Pledge of allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Madam secretary, will you please take the role?

Chair Burton?

Present.

Commissioner Puppy?

Here.

Commissioner Ragsdale? Here. Commissioner Kupcic?

Here.

Vice chair D'Amasio? Here. Commissioner Bassler? Commissioner Trupiano? Alternate Hester. Present. Alternate Manuel.

Here.

Alternate Belshi. Alternate McDonald. Here. Alternate Hester seated for District 5.

Thank you. Next on the agenda is the approval of minutes from the 10/14/2025 planning and zoning commission regular meeting. May I have a motion to approve the minutes?

I move to approve the minutes as presented.

I'll second that.

It's been moved and second. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes. Item agenda number three a, Grand View, Arizona, rezoning to community master plan CMP, case number PLZZDash23Dash00016, request for continuance to the 11/25/2025 planning and zoning meeting. This item was continued from the 08/12/2025 planning and zoning commission agenda. The applicant has requested a continuance and staff recommends that the commission approve the continuance to the November 25 meeting.

Any questions, comments, or request?

I move to continue that item till the November 25 planning and zoning meeting.

May I have a second?

I'll second.

It's been moved and second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. The opposed? Motion passes. Next item, as we are rolling through this, agenda item number 4 A, 501 East Mahoney Avenue, rezone case number PLZZDash25Dash0008 request to continue to the 11/25/2025. May I have a motion, please?

I move that we continue the rezone PLZZDash25Dash0008 until November 25.

May I

have a second?

I second it.

It's been moved and second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Agenda item four b, presentation by John Willett, director deputy director of transportation with the city's project management office, providing the commission with an update on planned transportation projects within the city. The presentation is for information and discussion only. No action will be taken. Mister Willett, it's all yours.

There. Commissioner, you sure you don't wanna postpone this?

Say there's no consequences.

We hit the right button. So, as mentioned, I'm John Willett, deputy director of transportation as of three weeks in the program management office. What I'm gonna give you to is an update on the transportation system around the city. I typically do this every year for you all. So we'll get right into it. So for the list of developer projects that have been going on, some of these you guys are aware of. I'm just giving a summary. This is the traffic signal at Miller And Fry's. It's already operational. It's been that way since the summer.

Right below that is a signal at Verrado Way and Market Street. We've driven that road recently. You see the poles up. It should not actually turned on, which should happen in the next month or so. There's also gonna be a traffic signal at Verrado Way and Lost Creek inside Verrado. That construction has also started. That should be completed in early twenty twenty six. Continuing the traffic signal in the festival area. I know you've all been hearing me say this for about two years. I know the festival people have heard me say this for two years. Canyon Springs Boulevard in Desert Vista is right there by the elementary school. Been told they have a contractor on board. They they are actually really moving now. The signal should be coming in pretty soon. And last on this page is a traffic signal at the Indian School Road in Fries.

That signal is in the works to start construction if it hasn't started already and then be completed in early twenty twenty six. Rolling to some more developer projects. You're familiar Roosevelt next to Costco was pushed all the way through to Jackrabbit. That is open two lanes eastbound, one lane westbound. With that, the traffic signal you see in the picture right here, the official traffic signal at Jackrabbit Roosevelt was actually turned on, I think, last week or the week before.

Please note, some of these poles aren't in their permanent final location. They will be done when ADOT does their Jackrabbit Trail project widening in about a year or so from now. But the trombone pole you see on the right side of the picture is a permanent pole in its final location. Below that is McDowell Road, brought away the Tuthill. This is along the is it in the Verrado section of McDowell next to the shopping centers coming in.

They're wrapping that up pretty much from Verrado Way over to the big Box Culvert that was built like about a year ago. That's being taken care of. With that also comes a traffic signal at the Acacia Intersection. We'll be there one at that location to get people in and out of the shopping center and then allow people to go north on Acacia into the Verrado area. And then finally, as part of that same project, Verrado Way from I 10 to McDowell. We're adding the long right term lane from basically I-ten all the way to McDowell Road. That's construction underway. It should be completed by the end of this year, early twenty twenty six. Rolling into some CIP, city traffic signals and some ITS work. We have a project starting construction or it's already underway at Jackrabbit and Van Buren.

I know a lot of people in that area have been waiting and waiting waiting for the signal to come on. It is coming. It's in the construction phase right now. Another traffic signal, Watson and Broadway, that will be going to construction, we think early twenty twenty six, completion by the summer slash fall. With some roadway widening at that intersection and then having a traffic signal to improve the operation of that one. I know it gets kinda busy. Below this is Miller. Whoops. Sorry. Wrong button.

Miller Monroe Avenue ITS. This what this allows is putting some conduit and fiber on Miller from basically I-ten down to Miller Monroe. Monroe across the City Hall over to Easton. What this allows, it'll connect all those signals together next to a system in the ADOT Freeway in I 10, and then it goes back to this pretty picture over here. This is the bottom one is our traffic management center.

This allows folks in my group literally reach out and touch a signal remotely from their desk, watch it operate, make some signal timing changes when there's an issue, make things better. And or when they get a call from PD and says, hey, there's a crash in the northbound left turn lane, an accident in northbound left turn lane of Verrado and Yuma, we can turn the signal off. Turn the green arrow off. We can't can't make left anymore for a while. And then when it's all cleaned up and the traffic's normal, they call us. They say, hey. We've cleaned it. I have a guys can go in here and look at it and say, you're right. It's operating fine. Reset button.

We're back to normal operation. It allows us to also do things when we have downtown events, I e, like the glow on Monroe or Buckeye days when some certain things are closed and we gotta flush people up and down Miller to get back to I-ten. This will allow my guys to do this remotely. So big step for us and allowing us to really operate our traffic signals and move people around the city a lot more efficiency. The more signals, these are the projects that are starting actually in the design phase, they haven't gone to construction.

Well, the top one is Rainbow and Sundance. We unfortunately had a fatality there about two years ago. We were able to get some funding. Actually, we pursued funding. We didn't quite make it across the finish line, but CIP found some money to put a traffic signal at that location. And below that are these two pedestrian hawk signals. One is at Apache Road in Yonker. That location is the power lines that cross Apache Road just north of Yonker High School if you're familiar with that area. There's two pedestrian walkways, one that goes east and one that goes west, the developers put in. Plus the high school kids go up there across the street and go into the Desert Moon Estate subdivision on the east side.

The last one, bottom one is the one at Monroe And 9th. There is a flashing sign that's there today. It will get replaced with a hawk. A hawk is a high activated crosswalk. I do a picture of this one. This is actually on 19th Avenue just north of Thunderbird Road. It actually functions and serves Thunderbird High School. The way it works is what you see is red indicates there's a stop condition. When no one pushes the button, that signal head is out. It's blank.

And so people charge to drive normally. And then when they push the pet bush button, it starts to flash yellow and then it goes to red and then tells people to stop. And when no people in the car, no people crossing the road, it shuts off. So it's a pretty unique thing. Phoenix has a lot of these with other jurisdictions in the valley. This will be one of our first ones. These are our first two. We we get them in. They're going to help get people across the road safely. Roadway construction, CIP stuff, Miller Road expansion, Lower Buckhead at Pima, that's the one wrapping up.

You've seen all that widening finally take place in front of a Funko, Five Below Tractor Supply. Basically, what you see is a truck coming out of the driveway. I think that driveway, I think that is Hess. There's Watkins, there's Tractor Supply, just to give you orientation, and up there is Lower Buckeye. So full road needs been widening has been completed.

They're doing some touch up stuff that should be done in the next couple of weeks, maybe end of the year at the latest. McDowell Road, Jackrabbit, Tuthill, this is a project that's been under construction for a while. It's replacing the box culvert right next to Jackrabbit and McDowell Road, but it's connecting Jackrabbit West back over to Tuttle. So now people who come down out of Arroyo Seco, Canyon Views don't have to go all the way down to I 10, Verrado to get into shopping center. They can actually go down to McDowell and get right into Verrado.

This should be completed early twenty twenty six. Below it is the Jackrabbit Trail, McDowell to Thomas. It's a component piece. It's a sister project. It's widening Jackrabbit Trail from McDowell Intersection up to Thomas, three lanes in each direction. Jackrabbit Trail project will actually put the traffic signal in at Jackrabbit and McDowell. I know nobody in this room wants that signal. Everyone likes the always stop because it works efficiently and it's great. I know that. The signal is coming in and so will a signal at Thomas And Jackrabbit.

So unfortunately, that's like later, that's about a year from now. That's the second phase they're to go on. We're trying to wrap up some right away acquisition on that one before they can move on. The last one is Durango from Miller to 2 49th. We had to wait till the Miller Road project completed from Durango South to Lower Buckeye before we can start this one. Don't like to get two contractors working in the same area because they start to get an argument to who's more important than the other one. Gotta finish one, start the second one. This will improve Durango from Miller around the curve that peels off and does Durango again that goes over to 2 47th and starts to go up towards the Great American Forest facility. That's what name of that place is called. I always forget the name of that.

Before you could turn the corner and go by Jones Ford. That'll be starting early this year, early twenty twenty six completed in the year. Obon projects, this is what the residents of Buckeye voted for. These are three projects that are gonna go to construction quickly. One is Apache Road from basically Watkins, which is just north north of Yonker High School, but it's also north of where the village at Sundance finished their improvements from there all the way to the south end of the bungalows.

We say Yuma, but it matches into what the bungalows at Sundance built. This will basically complete Yuma I'm sorry, complete Apache from the old power lines all the way to Yuma. So it'll be two lanes in each direction, middle turn lane will all be completed when it's done, have you got except for that apartment complex. I'm sorry, multifamily complex in the Southeast Corner. So they're coming in.

They'll build their half street when they come in. Watson Road, Lower Buckeye from Durango from Lower Buckeye to Durango. This is fronting that county island of homes and across the street from Inca Elementary School, North of Sundance Park. There's a long half mile frontage of the county island. So if we followed our city code of developers have to build the half street, there's no developers. They are they're gone. So Buckeye has to do these improvements. We've had these improvement plans finished to finish line for about a year and a half now. We're buttoning up some last few things because of the WAPA power line crossing of the Lower Buckeye Intersection. This should go to construction fairly soon.

Last one is a Gobond project stood by itself. It was Sunlight Parkway lighting, I-ten to Tartesso Parkway. So the design is underway. Once that's finished, we're gonna go put some street lights on Sun Valley Parkway. I tend to Tartesso Parkway just to lighten that corridor up a little bit. We know it's a little gets a little dark out there at night, especially when there's no moon. These are some go bond design projects. So the list of them here, I'll go through them quick. One, Indian School Jackrabbit to Perryville, that was a standalone go bond project. We're gonna do a DCR.

What a DCR is is a design concept report. That allows us to go in and study the corridor and figure out what how can we build the best improvements fit within the challenges we have, I. Right away constraints, utility constraints, things like that. While we have our ideal roadway cross section we'd like to get, sometimes we like to look at this and go, if we narrow things up a foot or two here or there, we save some right away acquisition, which bottom line is money out of the city's pocket. We're doing a DCR to finalize what is the best cross section to put all the way through there and it matches up at Perryville.

For those who don't know Perryville Road, once you hit that, now you're a good year. So we stopped just short of the intersection, but we'll be coordinating with them. DCR starting should be finished in 2026. Miller Road, we're doing a project from Broadway to Lower Buckeye, again, to figure out what to do there. We pursued and received a MAG grant, $6,600,000 from MAG to help us improve Miller Road. In this section, make it four lanes, two in each direction, median street lighting and all that stuff. While putting that together, we decided, well, let's do a DCR to figure out how much more it would cost to do the full six lane. And maybe we do all the six lane at one time instead of four lanes today, six lanes in the future. Yes, ma'am.

So

that's part of the DCR to figure out how we impact the RID Canal and make it bigger, so we can put the six lane on there. Yes. Again, DCR is underway, completed in 2026. Once the DCRs are completed, we will typically retain the same consultant because they know all the history and then go into final design and they're going to construction. Next project is Jack Rabbit Trail, Thomas the Indian School since the previous page showed doing improvements from McDowell to Thomas. This would go from Thomas to Indian School and complete that whole stretch right through there. Again, four lanes or six lanes. Which one are we gonna do and how are we gonna fit our cross section through there? Yes, ma'am.

Are these gonna be kind of whatever happens?

Exactly. Yes. Verrado Way is a standalone no DCR. It's Yuma Road. We're actually going to improve the Yuma RoadVerrado Way intersection. And then we're also going to improve Verrado Way from Yuma to Van Buren. Van Buren North, there's three lanes in each direction and we neck down to one in each direction. That's become a bottleneck. So we're going to widen that to at least two lanes in each direction. It's an interim condition and that buys a lot of capacity.

Two lanes doubles the amount of cars that can go on the road as opposed to one in each direction. So that will buy us a lot of years until the state land piece sells, part of the landing overall vision plan for that whole area, and they'll figure out what the final condition will look like at that time. But at least this bias is several years of time. Watson Road is Elwood over the RID Canal. That is basically between the master plan community, I'm sorry, the subdivision that was built.

Bent Ridge by Lower Buckeye in the North side of the canal, Monroe Ranch on the South side. We have a couple properties on there. There's the mobile home park, manufactured home park on the East side, large lot homes on the West side, the RID Canal and a couple of other parcels. Again, tell the developers, well developers are not going to come in. We're going to have to do the improvements. So we're looking to figure out what to do there. Again, four lane, six lane, how do we impact RID Canal, do it all in one shot or do it in phases. Last one on this sheet is Roto Way Beloat Road to Yuma DCR. That's a long stretch of road. You have an RID crossing, a BID, you have a railroad crossing, you're crossing MC85, which is currently in the county.

Again, what kind of corridor can we put through there and what do we need? I use these terms, what do I need next week? How long will that last me till that last me five years or twenty years before I need to go bigger improvements. So we want to get a DCR to figure out what needs to get built in that corridor. Transportation project, these are ones pretty much generated strictly out of our group.

You've seen this one. This is Miller Road widening from Southern to Lower Buckeye. You're probably wondering what's been the saw cutting and scabbing on of asphalt out there, right, it's immediately north of Southern. We were given a directive from city management, what would it take or could we put a four lane facility on Miller from Lower from Yuma, sorry, Southern to Lower Buckeye to match in what the CIP project had just finished. My guys, when I looked at it, came up with, we can pretty much do so.

We could do something with some scabbed on asphalt. So what you see, this is a picture of by Wood Street, There's a little something I could take. Blacker line area is added on asphalt, scab on and what you can kind of see here is two through lanes in each direction in the middle turn lane. We'll get through there. We do have a bottleneck, a tight little spot and that is the RID Canal.

The challenge is not the RID Canal itself. I could fit five lanes across it. The challenge is the temporary span wire signal pole at Warner. The two poles on the east side are in the second northbound lane. I can't move those poles any farther east because they're as close to the power lines that are out there as APS will allow.

But we came up with, well, do we spend another million dollars for a temporary signal for a couple of years? As I mentioned earlier, I have another project, the same segment, going to finalize Miller between Broadway and Lower Buckeye. So we decided we will leave that as it is and we'll have the four lanes back down for a bit and go right back to four. So that work should be done by the end of this year. All that widening in the second lane, the majority of Miller between Southern and Lower Buckeye, increasing the capacity of that corridor.

We all know Verrado Way and I-ten, if you've been out there, some days it is really busy with a lot of cars and some days not. Majority of the day it's just busy with cars. We know we need to improve that TI. So we're gonna do the Verrado Way. I attend DCR to find out what that is. The challenge I have that I've seen the most people is when I go to work on the Verrado Way TI, where do I put the Verrado Way traffic? Well, I need Jackrabbit built and I need Dean. I need the Dean TI, which is a mile to the west. So that's why we're also doing the Dean Road TI, ECR. The one caveat to this, and I hate to tell people this, but I'm gonna let you know what you need to know.

I start the DCR today. I am lucky if I have it open to traffic in five years. That's the process. It's five to six years, mainly because it's a brand new interchange on the interstate. So it has to go through a lot of approval processes, which includes a change of access report from Federal Highway. Nothing that we can't get through, we're all aware of it. We just have to go through the process. And the DTI has kind of technically been approved as a location for a future interchange. It's been on the mag books that it's going to happen. We just have to go through the formal process.

We kick both of these off with the completion of the DCRs fall twenty six, then the fund becomes of, I got to go find some money to build it. And then transportation studies, the transportation master plan, you guys have all seen this before possibly those, I think everyone's been here that long, not a single year old. You've seen you've been around long enough to see this. We got this approved in 2019. This sets our roadway network for the whole entire city.

We have to do an update with the state statute, so we're updating that right now. We had a I had a PowerPoint workshop last Tuesday to council. Now it's in the common view period. We plan to bring it back to council for approval in December. Right below that is a transit master plan, same thing, the workshop for it on the October. It's in the plan review. So it's actually all plan reviews in kind of a thirty day general public view process. Again, we'll finalize that and bring it back to council in December for approval. Finally, the transportation safety plan is not finally. It's the second to last.

We received a pretty nice grant from Federal Highway Administration to do a safety plan for the entire city of Buckeye. This allows us to chase safety funding. That's the plan. It's hard to chase the funding. But the nice thing is they actually will pay you, will give you a lot of money to create your plan, it allows you to chase funding. We're in the process of wrapping this up. There's been a lot of public meetings on this. Some of the key benefits out of this, it allows us to create a program where we can identify and track intersections that may have an accident problem or a possible accident problem so we can be more proactive rather than reactive. I don't like the fact that we as engineers are only reactive half the time. We have wait till something happens then fix it.

This program will help us start to identify what could be a problem before it is a problem and then fix it. And lastly is our ITS strategic plan. This kind of goes back to that Miller Road ITS I was talking about. This is the plan for the whole entire city of Buckeye, how I connect all the traffic signals. I think you connect it back to a TOC or to traffic management center, while the wiring goes, what they call fiber, how it all works together. This is the last slide, so I'm trying to keep it on the thirty seven minutes. Oh, this is all the ADOT, MIGDOT, MAG things we're working on. So the Jackrabbit Trail TI has mentioned the cups it brought up. That is scheduled to go to construction in early twenty twenty six. They're gonna advertise in early twenty six.

It'll probably go to construction in March, April by the time it goes to state review board approval, a little over a year long construction process. This improves Jackrabbit Trail from just south of McDowell through the interchange stops. Our city CIP project improves the McDowell Intersection before ADOT gets there. By the time the ADOT TI is done, there should be an improved MacDowell Row I'm sorry, improved Jackrabbit from the TI all the way to Thomas. It would be nice to get through there with the new signals at the interchange as well.

SR-eighty 5 quarter study, that's our friendly little one over here on the, say, West central part of the city, the two lane road that goes both directions north and south. We have some studies to do some projects out there. We talked to ADOT. ADOT asked me to do quarter study. I'm not doing your quarter study. We went to MAG, MAG agreed to do the quarter study. The benefit of this quarter study, it looked at all of S-thirty 5 from I-ten down to the Gila River, what the road conditions, configurations need to be, the interchanges. They came up some ideas. The key thing that came out of all this that makes several people happy to when you talk to the most, all the intersections will be signalized. There will not be any roundabouts in the S-thirty 5 Corridor.

That was a big wish from some people. We came out of the studies it will be signals. But then we'll spot off of that is the project right below it. So MAG let me know that, hey, John, we are gonna create a project for you, S-three 85 at Baseline And Broadway. I just found out it was advertised today.

I'm going to pick a consultant and hope we'll have a consultant on board underway by early twenty six plus or minus a year of design, right away acquisition and then it has construction funding in fiscal year twenty twenty eight. That is for signals and roadway improvements. Not just the signals, there are some roadway improvements. So we've shared our vision and we'll share it again once the ADOT project kicks off, what that will be and what we'd like it to be. I personally would like something that's built tomorrow, the last ten years, not last three and then we got to improve it again.

Well, that's what I'm trying to enlighten ADOT slash MAG on as we have a lot of stuff coming in on the S-thirty 5 Corridor. You guys have heard most of it. Ken talks about them all the time. There's a lot of warehouse projects coming in. There's a lot of truck traffic, a lot of car traffic. It's got to get through there. But by Parkway, I put that on here, if you may or may not know, we're in the process of taking over that complete corridor from I-ten, the Tartesso, Terre Valles and Festival to the region boundary. Will be our road. Technically, today it is. Well, not technically. It is ours. We maintain it. We take care of it. I'm in the process of getting an IGA completed working with Tosca's group. We can bring it to council and get approved then it will be officially our road.

I've told people many times we can't dictate how Sun Valley Parkway looks or what developers can build unless it's our road for me to do that. It's been county for a long time. For those who've been around long enough, John knows that it was built by a developer many, many years ago. And then developer walked in the county just inherited it. Well, that's how it came about.

How the city is going to take over it and with it. Last project I have on here is the I-ten widening from Verrado to Loop 303. That's been underway under discussion for quite a while. Actually, it's a fourth lane on I-ten from Loop 303 to 85. That's temporarily on hold.

State legislator only appropriated so much money for it. They needed this much, sorry on video land you can't see me. They proposed only 25% of what's needed. And so ADOT and Mac got together and said, well, we're not going to do this in pieces, let's re strategize. What was going to happen if that occurred was widening through some striping on I-ten between Verrado and the 303. For some reason that's been placed on hold while you still try to figure out exactly how they're going to pull us all together. With that, answer any questions you don't have?

Thank you, Mr. Willett. Miss Puppy?

I don't have any questions, but I think you did a great job on that. Excellent presentation, mister Willett. Thank you.

Miss Ragsdale.

I don't, have any questions either, but I agree it was a very good presentation.

Miss Kupset.

Yep. At one time, you told us that out of all of the roadways in Buckeye, all 640 square miles, that there were 11 miles so far completed to what it's gonna be someday. What what's how many miles are we up to now?

A chair, commissioner, to well, I think we're up to about 17 or 18.

Oh, okay.

We're getting there. Baby steps. Now with the project that was just finished by Miller, it's gonna add another half mile. And then Indian School did some completed in Verrado, so that's gonna add some more time to distance to it. We're we're slowly getting there.

Thank you.

Not as fast as I'd like, but you only have so much money.

Doing good. Thank you.

Thank you, miss Kapsack. Mister Di Macio?

I have a question regarding Dean Road and the improvement over there, but it's a personal question, so I might talk to you afterwards about it, if you don't mind.

Yeah. No problem.

Thank you. Chester? Thank you. No, I don't have any questions for it. It was an okay presentation. Thank you. Thank you, mister Willett.

You're very welcome.

See you soon.

What are they doing this next year?

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Great great presentation, John. You know I love you. Alright. Agenda item number five. Comments from the public. Any members of the audience may comment on a non agenda item. However, the open meeting laws do not permit the commission to discuss items not listed on the agenda. The commission may direct inquiries to the city staff. Miss Hernandez, I bet we don't have

We have none.

I thought so. So with not having any, we'll move right on to number six. And I know that this is going to be enlightening. It's the planning manager report and summary of current events.

Thank you, chair, commission. Thank you for for another good meeting tonight. I think John's presentation was actually I learned stuff, and I I'm around that stuff all the time, and there were still stuff I'd and I heard about. So that was that was really good, and I have some follow-up questions I wanna ask him. But we we will not have a November 11 meeting on account of Veterans Day.

That's been canceled. We will have our scheduled November 25 meeting. As of now, we have five items on that agenda, so it'll be fairly full, probably the longest meeting we've had in a little bit. So come prepared, you know, eat up carb carb load beforehand so you have the energy to to get through that meeting. I don't have anything else. Oh, when is is Thanksgiving?

Exactly. Okay.

So I will see you before Thanksgiving. I was gonna wish you all a happy Thanksgiving.

No. That's too soon, but, man, the year is flying by. Okay. Planning and zoning commission summary of current events. Again, there will be no discussion to deliberation, proposals, legal action. Are there any commissioners that would like to speak on current events? Starting with you, miss Puppy.

Nothing to report, sir. Thank you.

Thank you.

I have nothing. Thank you.

Ms. Kupsek?

I got to be at oh, I saw several of you at the Halloween Carnival Saturday night, which was a huge success. There was lots of people there. I knew about four of them. So anyway, the new people are finding our events, so that's very good.

Thank you. Mister DiMaggio. I have nothing. Co Dodgers. Score? No. Mister Hester? No. I'm getting ready for things, heavy. Awesome. And having nothing else to say, I close this meeting.