Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I'd like to welcome everyone, and I'd also like to call this meeting to order. Will you stand with me and join in with me the pledge of allegiance? I 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. Thank you. Madam secretary, will you please take the role?

Chair Burton. Present. Commissioner Puppy.

Here.

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

Thank you. Next on the item is the approval of the minutes from the 03/24/2026 planning and zoning commission regular meeting. May I have a motion to approve the minutes?

Make a motion to approve the minutes from 03/24/2026.

I'll second that.

It's been moved and second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes.

Item number three, continuance agenda. Agenda item 3A, GFT ready mixed concrete, conditional use permit, case number PLZUDash25Dash0006. There will be a public hearing and request that the Planning and Zoning Commission approve a conditional use permit for aggregate extraction on approximately 77 acres generally located about 1,300 feet east of the Southeast corner of Rooks Road and Hazen Road, subject to conditions a through t. Presentation by mister Copeland.

Hello. It's great to see everybody. I'm actually covering for Joe Miller and and Kangalika, so I'm doing double duty here. So I should get a lunch out of this, I think, at the end the day. That's my my opinion at least. When they come back, that's what I expect. But good to see everybody. Those of you who have not met, I'm Adam Colton. I'm deputy director in development services. I manage the planning team.

I'm happy to be here to present on behalf of Joe. I understand this project was continued from the last meeting, so I'll just kinda do a quick recap. And chair, if you're comfortable, if you're okay with it. When I go through the recap, I'm gonna ask the applicant to come up and give give some updates regarding discussions with the adjacent property owner as a result of the last meeting, have them go through some of those details and then happy to discuss that when he's done if that works for you. So I'll jump right into it.

So you you already gave the intro really on the site and the location. As I mentioned, Jeff Blyley with Gilbert Blyley is the applicant. He's the applicant on behalf of MP Hazen Sand and Rock. And this is a conditional use permit. So this is associated with the use on the property. The site plan for the sand and gravel facility is going through the city process, but that will not move forward until the conditional use permit is approved. But this is purely on the use for the particular property. We already mentioned the location. It's highlighted there on the screen for the audience. They can see it's located adjacent and west of the equestrian center just off of Hazen Road.

1,300 feet exactly probably because Joe is very particular west of the Miller Road corridor. So in any event, this particular property stretches from a two lane right away, which is Hazen Road south to the Gila River, the north side of the Gila River banks. So the zoning district, it's within the rural residential zoning district. We say the word obsolete zoning, but the zoning is still in place. Folks that come in in today's time, they're not able to rezone new properties to the older obsolete districts.

But those that rezone to an obsolete district back in the 90s, early 2000s, those zoning districts are grandfathered in and they're in place. So this particular property is zoned rural residential. And as part of that zoning category, the commensurate zoning with that category is agriculture. And it includes resource extraction as a conditional use permit. What that does is it goes through process, it requires a public hearing, it requires more dialogue, neighborhood meetings as such.

And so this particular property owner went through that process, went through the outreach process, and then some obvious some comments from the adjacent owner came up in the last meeting and there that was a reason for the continuance. But it's all part of that conditional use permit process to allow more outreach opportunities and more discussion. So this is a good example of one that that, you know, works well through that process. The site here, those are familiar with sand and gravel operations. It's pretty vanilla and standard across the valley.

It's 63 acres of the total 77 acre site will be developed to include a pit that will fill with water. There's a very high water table in that area. So many of the San Diego operations that you'll see there that mine it after mining there'll be surface water that'll be there after they take out the minerals. There's also a batch plant that's associated with that that will process the material. And the east half of the site will remain farmland.

That area will be continued to be farmed until the mining operation gets to a point where they'll expand further into the western area. And there is landscaping proposal on Hazen Road and batch plant processing will be moved around the site as it's as the operation continues, which is common with most sand and gravel operators, it's it's mobile. It's not a fixed with a permanent foundation or anything of that nature. The northern portion of this of the site, as I mentioned, will be landscaped with an earthen berm and trees every 30 feet or so just to allow some buffering and screening along that corridor. The east half of the site will remain farmland as I mentioned before, but when the expansion of the farm pit moves forward, there'll be landscaping required on the east side as well as conditioned.

But I'll go over in a little bit here. And I think Joe probably went over some of these details before, but those of you that are aware, most of the sand and gravel operations in the valley are in the county. They're usually not annexed into the city. That's probably 99% of them. Those sand and gravel operators that are located in the county, they're exempt from all zoning standards.

So they typically just set up shop, move forward and they start mining. Well, the city of Buckeye, we do in areas where it's annexed in the city where a sand and gravel operator wants to process through the city. We don't have zoning exemptions, but we didn't have a lot of depth in our code in handling these types of facilities. But we do we did have enough to be able to work with this this owner in regard to landscape areas and some of those and access and those types of things that are important to the city with any use that has that is long term temporary with those types of operations. And so we we came up with some standards.

We have some sand and gravel reclamation guidelines and other things that that are important to the city that we went over. But we're we're comfortable at least where this is at in the process regarding some of the land planning and some of the mitigating efforts that we overtook on some of these things. It's a nice song. You should get like a more of a hit song on there instead of the standard ringtone. So So some of the conditions, the staff reports that you guys have for the meeting tonight, there's a couple of modified conditions regarding the landscaping as I mentioned before to be installed in the eastern portion of the site.

That's to occur prior to the expansion of the mining site. Don't know how many years that is, but when the time comes the city will require that landscape along that edge. And full civil permits. Also lighting must comply with our development code which is standard. Some of the lighting, it'll be important where they're pointing and and those types of things. So we have opportunity to make sure the lighting on the site meets all of our standards, and we have an opportunity to analyze that over time. Also, some of the updates to the conditions. The applicant owner has agreed to certain hours of operation. You can see in this stipulation here, mining operations may not operate between 6PM and 5AM. The batch cement operations may continue during these hours.

If all loading equipment is equipped with lease, with the least disruptive safety alarms permissible by applicable safety regulations to mitigate nighttime noise trespass. And so that stipulation is added to the staff report specific to those hours of operation. And also condition t, just for the record, that condition was removed. That that condition is really more appropriate for when you have a permanent developer coming in like a like a bricks and mortar, Taco Bell, Costco, those type of things. The surface water rights is is vacated and given to the city at that time.

But since this isn't a permanent type of operation, that'll occur at a later time. So that boilerplate stipulation t regarding that was removed. And so those are the updates that you'll see to the staff report. No other conditions beyond those have been modified. So it was just those two. So public participation. There was neighborhood meeting held on 12/18/2025 with the required 300 foot mailings. It it looked like when Joe attended that, there was no attendees at the meeting at that time. All required postings and mailings have been completed. And the applicant, as I mentioned before, met with the equestrian center property owner several times before the meeting tonight.

So there'll be some updates that he'll provide the commission as well as staff. As of over the last couple hours, they've had discussions that we'll we'll see if they've come to compromise on some of these items for your consideration. So with that, before we get into the the motion, chair, if you're comfortable, ask the applicant to come up and go over the updates from our last meeting and he nodded yes. So at this time, Jeff, if you wanna come up and I'll be I'll be here. I'll I'll be happy to answer questions as they come up and Jeff Wiley will also be there. So thank you.

Jeff Wiley, 701 North 44th Street. Real briefly just to go over what Adam did. I mean, we had the hearing couple weeks ago. The stipulations that Adam brought up that have been added are the things we discussed at the hearing at the the last hearing, the hours of operations, and and some of the noise mitigation that we can possibly do. And we were fine with those, and those all got added to the staff report. Right at the end of the hearing, we heard some issues with maybe the the Duncan operation next door. And so we continued it, we've gone back and had a chance to to meet with them and go over some things. And and the operator, John Casey, is the one that's actually done most of the meeting with them. I'm gonna let him go over, give you a synopsis of what he's gone over with them and we'll wrap with

that. Okay?

Thank you, mister Bliley.

Everybody for your time. We have been able to meet. I think we've met with some Excuse

me just a second. Could you give me your name and your address, please? Just for the record.

Yes. John Casey.

Thank you, John. Mister Casey.

GFT ready mix.

Thank you.

Sorry about that. So we have been able to meet. We've had good dialogue and emails going back and forth. I believe we've we've kind of come to some compromises. I'll kinda give you a quick highlight, and then I'd like to give the floor to Jason because he had some questions directly for the city and some concerns.

One of the so I'll go through the ones that we've got. One of the stipulations that they've requested and that we we've agreed in addition to the other conditions were that that when the center has a major event, they'll notify us in thirty days. And in that time, we will reroute our traffic to to so we won't run any truck traffic on Miller Road or east of the property line to Miller Road. So we would route everything either to M C 85 or below and around to avoid congestion. It's absolutely fine with us.

It's in our benefit as well to avoid those congestions. I think the other major concern is the construction of Hayden Hazen Road. So what they've requested, and I'll read this I'll read this verbatim, and then I'll let Jason ask some questions on that. The concern is is that they don't want that construction of the the two turning lanes and the widening of the road to take longer than fourteen days. Their concern is congestion of traffic on Hazen Road unless that construction takes place between basically between 07/01/2026 and 09/30/2026, In which case, they they they want the completion to be within a time frame of forty five days.

Don't have a problem with that. However, some of those things are a little bit out of our control, but I would certainly agree to it. And those are our major one those are our main those those are really our two issues. I think Jason has a few anything else? Did you have some more you had some specific Josh, I'm sorry. Would it be okay if he came up? He had some more direct questions about vibrations and noise limits that I didn't have answers for.

Wilmot?

And and chair, if that is that a comment for the public hearing? If the speak a speaker request card for this gentleman?

Yes, sir. Yeah, ma'am. Yes.

Okay. Then you may wish to defer the comment to the public hearing.

Thank you. I'm going to defer that comment until the public hearing. So was that it?

Yes, that's really all I had other than that. I believe we've got into a good good working relationship there.

Okay. Do

you have any questions for me?

Not at this time.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Don't go far. The commissioner's Going anywhere. At this time, start with you Rebecca, have any comments?

I don't believe I have any comments at this time. You.

Ms. Magsdale.

No comments, thank you.

Mr. Hester. No comments. DeBascio. No chair no comments.

Mr. Basler. I think at this time we're waiting for the public hearing because we knew that we heard the concern about people from the equestrian stable and that was left unfinished. So to have any other questions, we really need to find out where they stand.

So thank you. At this time, I will open it up for a public hearing. Madam Secretary, I already know that I have speaker request cards. So Josh Wilmot, will you come please?

Good evening, council members. For the record, my name is Josh Wilmot and I represent the Buckeye Equestrian Event Center, the adjacent property next to the proposed GFT ready mix operation. I just wanna clarify our position. We're not opposed to responsible development. However, we cannot support approval of this conditional use permit without specific enforceable conditions that protect protect our existing equestrian operations as well as our 80 RV spots and that are less than 300 feet from the proposed site.

As mister Casey mentioned, we did come to several agreements. Again, we're definitely not opposed to responsible development. A couple of those things he had mentioned as far as the easing of traffic during our events, he said that that's something that we can easily come to an agreement on. We've come to an agreement as as well from the for the operating hours only during the evening times for the extraction portion of his operation. During the those times, I think one of the big issues that the city was concerned about as well as that we were concerned about was the noise level of those backup alarms.

Mister Casey stated that they could install white noise alarms at the last meeting. At that time, he was unaware of the decibel levels of those backup alarms. In the meantime, he's found out they were approximately 90 decibels. So we were first off wondering if the city currently has any decibel regulations for any other operations that were not mining related that could be adjacent to a residential property or an existing business property?

I cannot answer. We cannot answer any questions at this time but I can connect you with someone or get you the answer if not tonight.

And chair as part of the public hearing if you have questions of staff and if any comments or if you'd like some follow-up. Mr. Copeland is prepared to respond to that question.

Thank you. Mr. Copeland are you are you prepared?

Thank you, chair. The city does not have any decibel regulations for truck backing up or for trucks that back up because we have quite a few grocery stores and different things that are in residential areas, but we have no regulations specific to the decibel levels for trucks. I know the police department, they do have general noise ordinances, you know, noise nuisance type deals, but I don't believe anything specific to those types of those types of circumstances that we have in our development code. Thank you.

Thank you.

One of the points that I continue to hear mentioned during the previous meeting as well as this meeting is the fact that this property falls outside of loophole per se for the county property that is adjacent next door and currently operating and that there will be a mine operating regardless. So the process has already begun. And again, we're not opposed to responsible development. At the same time, this is a conditional permit that's being viewed by the city. So we're hoping that in this process, if there are opportunities to set limits for something like this, that maybe this could be a time for other conditional use permits that may come up within the city limits that might further help the the process of these things go smoother and go quicker for both mister Casey or any other properties in the future.

As he said, the construction for the roads kind of our biggest thing. We're coming into our non busy season, so we would prefer that that construction gets done before the fall and before you know, traffic really starts ramping up. In addition, we are not the only traffic that uses Hazen. It's a definitely, it's a main throughway and exit way into the city of Buckeye outside of Main Street. So it's used by many other commuters and truck traffic outside of even just GFT.

So we just believe that that would help the city along with us the faster that that construction was able to be completed. And the only other question that I had which if there's no decibel, this might be beating a dead horse. But if the city hadn't any requirements for vibration monitoring for commercial projects that we're currently running.

Ms. Copeland.

And pardon. I had thought the speaker was done with his comments. So at the conclusion of the speaker's comments, if you have questions, that you'd like mister Copeland to respond to, then that would be appropriate.

Thank you.

Does the city have any specific vibration monitoring requirements for current construction projects mining or not? Would be the question.

Was that your

Yes,

That's the final question. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you for your time, counsel.

Thank you

for your time, chair.

Mister Copeland.

My daughters are watching this. They're gonna laugh at me. Alright. Chair, members of the commission, regarding the question on vibration, We don't have anything specific on vibration ordinances that we're aware of. I think it's probably a case by case if it's actually causing damage or, you know, things like that.

There could be a civil matter between owners if there's vibration, but I'm not aware of any ordinances on vibration. What we did, I wanna expand a little more on on the comment regarding the noise that I'm trying to find in here. Here we go. Oh, here we go. So the stipulation specific to the hours of operation and the noise, which I I think these are excellent concerns, you know, for any property owner just to, they wanna watch out for and protect their investment.

So I think it's very well stated. But for the stipulation that we added specific to the noise is the batch plant cement operations may continue during the hours that I mentioned before, the 6PM to 5AM. And if all loading equipment all loading equipment is equipped with least disruptive safety alarms permissible by applicable safety regulations. So we did condition specific to the alarms that that those alarms, if they have that suppressed model or that white noise model, these conditions will require the operator to look into those for their backup alarms. So we we would ask the owner or the operator to to look into those and make sure they install the the quietest ones available that meet all the safety precautions.

But since we don't really get into like the the branding and those types of things, think it's the probably the best way we can condition is what we have in here specific to those backup alarms since we don't really have any code regulations or direction on any specificity to the amount of decibels that those give off. We would have to do probably a pretty in-depth study in order to look at that. So that condition I think addresses that component of it to an extent. And so just wanted to mention that as well, which was part of that first question that came up on the noise. But with that, happy to answer more questions the commission may have regarding any comments that you guys got.

Mr. Copeland, thank you. I have a question. Who's going to be monitoring and making sure that all these conditions are being adhered to?

Yeah. So good good question, chair, members of the commission. So the city has a code enforcement division. They are a division within within the police department. Mhmm.

And so what ends up happening if if any type of build any any project in the city that builds on a as a sand and gravel operation or it could be a Taco Bell, any any residential community, our code enforcement division will go out and monitor if there's complaints. And so typically, if they if folks are out there as an example putting out big signs and banners that they're not supposed to, that's pretty clear that they're in violation. So code enforcement will will go out there and and violate and and give them a violation. But in the event that most of these conditions that are with conditional use permits and site plans, most of them are inspected at the time of if there's a complaint. That's when they really can go out there.

They'll monitor it during evening hours. Sometimes we get complaints from projects on lighting that they're too bright or they'll actually go out and see if they're too bright and they have a meter to measure the lighting and those kind of things. So it's really, that's typically how it works. But we don't have any process in place for like specific to going out and measuring noise levels and those types of things within certain dimensions because we don't have anything in our code that regulates it. But I think if a noise issue we would probably have code enforcement go out there and we would work with the owner collaboratively to try to update their their backup systems to to have more of that white noise.

And we would probably have to see that they made an attempt to do that. But not to speak for code enforcement, but that's these conditions will allow them to be able to go out and question that, address it, and try to work with each owner on a case by case to try to mitigate it. So that's typically what we see with projects. They're they're very busy every day of the week. They go out with a lot of different complaints and things, and we work with them quite often. And we'll we'll have to go over the conditions on the project. So our code enforcement officer officer will know what they can and can't provide a violation for. So that's typically how it works. Hopefully, that answers your question on that.

It did. Thank you very much. I believe we have one more speaker. Don Nargang.

I'm Nargain. I represent the Equestrian Center. I'm the one that came and spoke last time and brought these concerns forward. And I can tell you guys we've had great meetings back and forth with the owners of the property. And like Josh stated, we're not against responsible development.

We agreed to what's what we have talked about and what they've agreed to do. But one thing I wanna get on the record that they didn't bring up is they had guaranteed us that they will put a landscape berm down the east side of the property separating it'll be on their property, but separating a buffer wall between us and and the mining operation itself. So with that said, I mean, as far as everything that we've went through and we've been back and forth, we we we would vote to approve this operation if these conditions are met. Thank you.

Thank you, mister Nargain. Alright. At this time, if there's no further, speakers, we'll close this public hearing. And before I do this, what he just talked about having the landscape on the East Side is that something that we can condition?

Yes, chair members of the commission I could speak to that. There's a couple things I want to clarify. I think there is a condition that's specific to the landscaping on the East Side when the mining operation starts to continue in phase two. But specific to the berm, I believe there is a planned overburden berm that you guys are planning on the East Side. And if chair, if I could request the applicant to come up to speak to the how the berm and the overburden, usually they have mounding, maybe they have a they can speak to that and we're happy to add a condition specific to the berm if if everyone's okay with that. But I believe they're already planning on something like that. But let me if you would support the applicant coming up and speaking to that, that would that would help address that.

Certainly.

Yeah. So within the process of the mining, there's a lot of what he described as overburden, which is what it is. It's it's the dirt that isn't really of use. It's used for reclamation. So it's kinda stored on-site and moved around.

So we have the ability to to store that overburden or provide a berm, as we say, on the east border of the property between these two properties, the goal would be to build that up, use that dirt because we have plenty, build that up to create both a visual shield and a sound shield from primarily from the whole property, but primarily from the RV park on the South Side. So that's one of the things we've agreed to rather than storing it on the South Side. We're going to give up and we can store majority of that the East side of the property to create create shielding both from sound and and visual, of course.

And, chair, if I I think, we could add a condition u. I'm doing the alphabet in my my mind. Condition u that could state that an over berm that it that's associated with the overburden of the mining operation will be strategically placed between the operation and the equestrian center on the East Side to help mitigate noise and other impacts. Does that work?

That's fine with me if you were

asking So we I could for the record, I I said that on the record, we can just approve this case if the commission is comfortable with it with added condition u as stated. And then when we go back and listen to the minutes, we'll go we'll make sure it's worded in that way. I should've wrote that down, But it's on the record now.

So, Ms. Henry, I gotta be honest with you. I'm kinda lost in the process where I am. I believe that I need to call for a motion.

So Chair are there any additional questions or discussion items from the applicant? And if not then the applicant may go ahead and be seated. You have closed the public hearing so now if there are any other discussion to be had by the commissioners or you can call for the vote.

I'll ask you guys one more time. Mr. Bassler.

I guess the people in the equestrian area are satisfied with what's there. I don't think that I can object. I am concerned about the horses. That was the big concern before. I didn't hear much about dust and dust abatement because there was concern about the dust getting into the equestrian area.

So I don't know whether that's been addressed other than the potential for the borough. So that would be the one area that I did not hear anything about was the dust control. And and, again, if the equestrian group is okay, guess we're okay. I would like to hear about the dust abatement. And I would like to hear the impact that this might have on the horses.

So, chair, members of the commission, I'm happy to address a portion of that and happy to have the applicant come up to speak a little more to the operational side of dust control. So the city does we utilize Maricopa County Dust Control Standards as the enforcement wing of dust control operations. So the county actually will go out and they'll inspect and the county is the one that will violate a property owner for dust control issues if they're not keeping the dust down per state, federal, and local laws. So that's at least answering maybe a portion of that question. But as for the operation on how the dust and the control of dust is done on-site, I would ask the applicant to come up to speak a little bit to that.

And then for the horse portion, if it's to the pleasure of the commission after the applicant speaks, if the owner would like to come up and speak to the question about the horses or or what have you that's to the purview of the chair. So if that works, the applicant can speak to that first part if that works for you, chair.

Please.

So so to his point, we are regulated by by Maricopa County air air quality and dust control. We have to submit for dust control permits which we have and have been awarded. They oversee all the way the traffic, the traffic how it moves on-site. There it it is a public process, and I assure you they are very diligent in their enforcement on that. Within our operation, we have to maintain trained.

They have to go through training that we call it's called smoke school to identify best levels visually, self reporting. We have to report all of our dust control devices within our machinery itself. And so it is a fairly it's a very diligent process that all these facilities obviously including ours have to go through. And it is a separate permit that is actually issued by Maricopa Air Quality and Dust Control. And then before they come out and they inspect and then we maintain and improve that.

That also includes track out. I know the question hasn't come up, but that also includes track out that would go on to Hazen Road, which includes things like wheel washers, truck wash, which have been implemented on this site, shakers, which are the cattle guards, the greats that I'm sure you guys are familiar with driving over. So it's a very detailed process and they police that. They visit every site at least quarterly. So they do a inspection of every site quarterly to make sure that we're maintaining those things.

They also respond to complaints as the county does or as the city would. So if there are any dust complaints, they go to them and then they they can they come out and they'll do an immediate inspection on the facility that is generating generating the emissions. Okay. Thank you.

And chair, if the owner would like to speak to the question on the horse the horses, so happy to

do that. Mister Womarcz.

Thank you, chair and council for your time again. We've we've discussed with mister Casey the concern of dust as well as our concern of dust. We run our water trucks consistently like mister Nargang had said during the last testimony. So we understand that dust is an issue out there. Mister Casey has assured us that he will run his dust trucks just as much as ours.

And if he needs ours to come over, we're we're more than happy to help him out to keep some of that dust down. At the same token, we are very familiar, at least mister Duncan, the owner of the property with dust control, and his other businesses there also monitored by Maricopa County for their dust regulations. I think they're a little bit more strict probably in the Phoenix area where he operates that business. So I don't know if there may be a potential opportunity to get a portable dust monitor, a permanent set of dust monitor out there maybe in that area to maybe give a little bit more alleviation of the concern to the board. I know that we have something like that next to one of our Phoenix operations, then you don't have to worry about somebody coming out once every four months and there is a lot of dust and it's just not getting taken care of.

But also in allude to the monitoring of both dust and noise as the gentleman had stated. There really isn't a noise regulation opportunity. As many of us know, our officers I don't think that that would be at the top of their priority list when it came to something to do at night with our growing city is go and sit next to a property to monitor sound or lights. So if there were some opt option to have an outside agency monitor that, I think that would be in everybody's best interest.

Thank you, mister Wilma. Alright. Mister Vasio. No questions? There's no questions at this time.

No questions. No questions, sir.

Thank you. Commissioners, may I have a motion to approve case number PLZU dash 25Dash6 subject to conditions A through U as stated. All in favor? I'm sorry.

I'd like to make a motion to approve PLZ U-twenty five-six subject to conditions A through

U. Can I have a second?

I'll second.

It's been moved and second motion passes. I'm sorry all those in favor I'm just all those in favor. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes.

Jesus Christ. A lawyer I'm not. Getting there though. Alright. Next on the agenda is item number four a Buckeye 83 rezoning to Business Park Case number PLZZDash25Dash0002.

There will be a public hearing and request that the Planning and Zoning Commission recommend approval to the city of the rezoning of approximately 85 acres generally located at the Southeast Corner of Interstate 10 and State Route 85 subject through conditions or two conditions a through k. Presentation by Sean Banda, senior planner.

Well, good evening.

I'm gonna go ahead and do my little preface since they're exiting out of the building right now. So thank you. So this evening's case is called Buckeye 83 rezone. Just to make it more complicated, it used to be called Buckeye 90. And typically there's acreage tied to everything. Trust me, I went over this with their planning staff too. I was going at one point in time it was 83 and a half acres and we actually looked at the legal description. It was actually 85 acres. It's not related to SR 85 it's just is Bucket 83 rezone because at one point in time it was 83 acres on the original narrative. So there's a little bit of history there.

But this case here this evening it went to the companion case for this project went to counsel for an annexation. I'll talk about that a little bit briefly. The applicant this evening is here and it's Wendy Riddell of Barry Riddell LLC and behalf behalf of the property owner. And it's located on the Southeast Corner Of S R 85 and Interstate 10. The pointer doesn't work so you're gonna see me waving my arm randomly because I'm keeping a little a little magnifying glass work. This is my favorite thing to do. A little bit of tidbit fact too. There's a whole website that was dedicated to planners back in the day. It says planners pointing. And every over the years, planners are always pointing at things.

I don't know why, but we do. We go in public places and I'm pointing at corners of buildings and my daughters now do it and my wife can't stand it. So it is what it is. So contextually, I apologize for the aside. Contextually, the north side of this is vacant, not developed at this point in time. The south is the future West Park CMP, it's undeveloped. East of this is actually the current West Park CMP, but it's the single family park. You see that's being developed right now. And to the west, it's also vacant. So there's a lot of stuff going on in this particular area.

Related to that, here's the general plan land use. This is kind of giving us the definition of what's going on in this particular area. The land use for this property is business commerce. Business commerce leads right directly to the allowances for zoning. The current zoning is single family residential 43 and that was as of last week.

So related to that, it was before it was in the county, it was Rural 43 or RU 43 and it was processed. When that fully gets vetted through its referendum period, it'll thirty days from now, so on May, it'll actually be adopted per ordinance and be zoned officially as single family 43. So this evening, request is to rezone the property from the Single Family 43 to the Business Park Land Use or BP as we call it for short. Let me give you a little bit of analysis. Now I borrowed the applicant's exhibits, you'll find them in your packet.

I think it was Exhibit E is the one that you're seeing right here before you. Notification was done on this property. So this is a long time coming. We initially met with this, I want to say 2024, talking about this whole area of the 90 approximately 90 acres, this whole corner development. An application was made early last year of 2025.

What we are seeing here is a process that has involved staff, has involved a lot of discussion, has involved the adjacent property owners to get where we are this evening. We are here this evening with a project or a zoning case that a proposal that makes sense for the area and it meets those requirements. So there are no outstanding issues from any of the reviewing departments. But more importantly, what you're seeing here this evening is proposal meets the intent of the general plan. The general plan within business commerce allows for a business park.

Business park, it's a straight zoning case. Over and over, we recently have been seeing what's called PADs or planned area developments, means they have their own specific standards, their own specific requirements. That is not the case here. What we are seeing here this evening is a straight zoning case with minor conditions to address the neighbors to the east and that was per the request of staff. So continuing on from an analysis, the rezoning to BP also enables the developer to specifically go back to create a master plan employment center and it is limited light industrial uses.

It's lower intensity than i1 with no cross dock warehouses. So what you're seeing here is merely a concept. Now this concept may or may not come to fruition, but that is not related to the day. That is going to be a requirement for future site planning. But based on that, you're seeing a concept that would meet the overall intent as far as a buffering the way it lays out.

In no way, shape or form is this at its final form. The actual site plan will actually address more of the building articulations, more of the building parking. If they want to make one building into five buildings, that's the allowance of it. Because it's business park zoning, if they want to take some of these buildings and make them all into smaller office complexes, that's allowed. Right now, we're not talking about the site plan, but we are talking about the use being changed to business park and we're talking about if they develop this use of Business Park or developing this, they will have to meet certain requirements that the applicant has agreed to.

So continuance of that analysis, Elul was mentioning the orientation is there to reduce impacts. And the question I was getting from staff, actually I had only one question since we've been talking about this project is, are they going to have access through West Park CMP? They will not. The access is going be based on this roadway on the West that runs directly adjacent to the freeway, it's called 2 66th Avenue. That has been in discussions for almost two years now.

But like I said, how it lives, how it breathes, how it's designed, that will have to get worked out later. What is more important about this particular exhibit is the actual buffering. So you'll see I created this little red kind of buffer line. I called it buffer area, very clever name for this thing. And it is adjacent to the residential park.

Now it ranges the buffer from 150 to 400 feet. So that far exceeds the requirement of BP of Business Park. So Business Park and you guys are familiar with General Commerce, it's only 50 feet. Business Park is actually less than. So they're looking at doing substantial landscape buffer, 65 feet and greater throughout here, but creating buffers between the building, the actual use itself and the actual residence.

And so it ranges quite significantly. But the average is more than 200 feet of a buffer. Also the other part of this too, taking into consideration the residential part of this, they're not doing any cross docks facing any type of residential. So what you're seeing is typically the ends of these buildings. So they'll have the cross docks on there.

At the end of the buildings, that's usually where your enhancements are. It's usually where your office entrances are. So it's trying to be very much cognizant of what's around them and being aware of how can they soften any type of light industrial uses adjacent to residential. Like I said, and I keep stating the same thing. The full review of traffic, drainage, we talked about noise just recently.

Noise, lighting will be addressed at the site planning stage. So that will be an administrative process that will be actually processed with staff. But like I said, conceptually this is just a concept plan. It may or may not look like this at its finality. So at this time, we are comfortable as staff.

We've taken this role in departments. We are comfortable the applicants can come up with all the conditions that were actually written here as well. And we recommend this if you are so comfortable to have this taken to the City Council on May 5, Cinco de Mayo. That's a perfect Taco Tuesday. So with that being said, we do have the applicant here. They have a presentation if you wish to hear more or if you have any additional questions for them as well. Thank you.

Thank you.

I think do you have one too? Oh, do you have one there too or no? Oh, okay. We can borrow the same one.

If someone would be so kind as to pull up our presentation. Mister chair, members of the commission, Wendy Riddell with the law firm Barry Riddell, 6750 East Camelback. My pleasure to be here this evening. Frankly, Sean did a wonderful job. So I've got a a few other details that I can share, but I will do my best not to take too much of your night.

Of course, very happy to answer any questions that you have. So, it's my pleasure to be here this evening on behalf of Via West Group, these lovely folks that are sitting back here with me as well. Via West has frankly been around since 2003. They're a very well known developer, involved in a lot of top office and industrial projects. These are just a few here you see from the city of Phoenix and Chandler to give you an idea of what they do. Site here we've talked about, 85 acres. It's true. It was 90 when we started all of this. I can also tell you when we originally filed this application, we filed for a much more intense zoning district. So Sean is correct when he tells you staff staff leaned into us.

We did listen, and we have now come back with a business park as a result. So here we are requesting the business park designation. This has been part of an annexation property that has been in the county for a long time, and hence now our request to bring it into the city of Buckeye and to rezone it to business park. This shows you what that looks like ultimately changing the color on the map. Also tells you that it is entirely consistent with Buckeye's general plan.

That was the 2040 general plan showing this site as business and commerce. Very appropriate designation, we would suggest, right there along the confluence of two freeways. We also know from the policy document of the general plan that it is also consistent with their policies. It will stimulate the local economy. It will provide new jobs, business commerce suitable for large scale office park and industrial activities.

It provides an economic opportunity here at the intersection of two freeways supporting that larger region. Our proposal here is to develop an employment center. Uses that would go there are a variety of commercial uses, light manufacturing, assembly, office, wholesale, and more. There are some conditions that staff has placed on us that the average building floor area is not to exceed 200,000 square feet. But where you go out there, where you where you see the five belows in the world, that's that's not us.

We are significantly, frankly, a quarter the size when you see those. Think of this much more as business park employment. There are no cross docks that are permitted here. Our proposal, you'll see seven different structures. It's correct that this is a conceptual site plan. We see this likely to way out to lay out a very similar to this. It is at its closest point where you see the site plan, a 166 feet from that planned residential to the east. Very significant buffers. I'll drill down on a little bit more here. As Sean also mentioned, this site is accessed from 266th Avenue from Broadway Road.

Importantly, there is no access into the West Park neighborhood here. It really is, separate and apart. The buffers that you see planned, you see the setbacks that we have made sure as as generous as we can, to that residential to the east, pulling those buildings to the west. But you'll also see that the proposed buildings will be set back from the residential uses at varying degrees from a 166 feet to nearly 400 feet, really significant setback. We also have increased the landscape setbacks on our side ranging from 62 feet to 85 feet.

Again, really substantial buffering and setback landscaping that will be included within that. When you jump over to the West Park side, you will see they also have a landscape track between the two. That's a that's 55 to a 155 varying enraged landscape. Again, very significant landscape open space setback between these two uses. You'll also notice that the dock doors have all been placed, where possible to the interior of the of the project. So, as Sean also mentioned, we've had quite a significant amount of outreach involved in this project. We spoke part with the West Park Community Association, board member. We do have an email of support from one of their board members. Did have a neighborhood meeting. There were two attendees there.

We also have gone out and talked to some of the businesses in the area, and we are grateful to have letters of support from them. With that, mister chair, I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. We would otherwise respectfully request your support, subject to staff stipulation.

Thank you. Start at this end this time. Mister Basler.

I think it adds an additional buffer from the highway to the residential area. And I can't believe that a lot of people would want to have a residential house in that area that you're going to use for a business district. So I think this is well deserved and a good change.

Thank you, Mr. Massio. I have no questions, Chair. Mr. No questions. Thank you. Ms. Ragsdale.

I have one question. In the first slides that you were showing, it had a comment about historic Buckeye. And I was wondering how that tied in with this project.

Chair, Commissioner Ragsdale, if it did, don't remember historic Buckeye being in there. Maybe I had Oh, historic zoning. I'm sorry. Like historic Buckeye man. When I put this presentation together, let me give a little bit of history there too.

When I put this presentation together, we were doing this as concurrently as possible. And then we went for an additional notification trying to reach the 500 feet because zoning is different than annexation zone notification. So those applications that were running exactly concurrently are now separate. So when I did that, it says, hey, it says zoning being proposed historically was this. What it was is that that is now annexed that property.

So I'm sitting there giving you a little bit of history on it. Historically, it was in the county, it is not in the county anymore. When it got annexed, it went to the zoning of Single Family 43 or SF 43 from the county's RU 43. So that was the only reference to the history of it was that.

So There's no historical implication.

Yeah. Historical implication. Exactly. Thank you. I should have just said that. That's a lie.

Yeah. You should have. Thank you.

I'll be with wage plus. Don't worry about it.

Ms. Puppy.

I have no questions, but I do want to say that I think there was a lot of forethought from you, Mr. Banda and Ms. Riddell. It looks like you really thought about a lot of factors with the residents and everything there so great job.

Thank you.

Thank you Ms. Rideau.

Thank you.

Alright at this time I will open up public hearing. I have one speaker card, and that is Chris You'll tell me if I'm right or wrong. I'm sorry if I messed it up, Chris.

Hey, mister chair. Commissioner Chris Manus, Buckeye resident. I don't have any prepared remarks today, but I thought it was necessary to come up and at least advocate in opposition this recommendation. I am the original owner of a house in West Park since 2006, which is a few months short of twenty years, which pressing to think about because that means I'm older than I wanna be. My house is on the North Side Of West Park, so I am not directly impacted by any sight lines of this.

I still have undeveloped commercial desert to the west of my house. But I am up walking around my neighborhood and this property line multiple times a day, and I come in and out of Buckeye multiple times a week for work. When I moved into Buckeye in 2006, the plan was, as referred to, I believe, in the presentation for a phase three Western Side Of West Park that had lighted baseball fields and volleyball pits and dog parks and things which would inspire someone to want to live in that master plan community. The economy, of course, shelved that plan, and the new plan came in to put three warehouses on the East Side of the subdivision and a school district bus depot on the north side of the subdivision and a heavy construction machine depot on the north side of the subdivision. And then we transition back to developing the rest of the West Park residential that flows west.

And before these people even move into those houses, now we're going to build another light industrial park. It just is a patchwork of indecision. My perspective is just someone that lives here. If you ask me what district I'm in an hour ago, I don't think I could have do that. I'm not involved in local politics by any means.

But just as someone who's been here twenty years, it's hard to put your hands around what it is we're trying to be in Buckeye. Are we embracing residential and life and experience and community? Are we embracing technology and industry? And it just seems every five or six years, we kind of weave in and out, and we end up with these sort of patchwork neighborhoods that I don't really know what to make of. So, I mean, my closing remarks would be, I understand this is owned a particular way or the request to meet to converge with the mass the general plan.

Right? My hope was that the space could be used your comment earlier, commissioner Bassler, about we're not gonna put homes in this space. I agree with that. It's right next to the 85. But we can hope for something better, something that inspires the residents there to be outside or be with each other or engage with their community. We don't have to settle for something that's the least ugly option that we've seen in the last ten years. We can hope for something better, and open desert is just fine. It's beautiful. Let's not pursue more of this type of environment. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Madison, I'm sorry for butchering your name, I apologize. If there is no one else to speak, I will close this public hearing and I will go down the road once more. Commissioners, starting with you, Ms. Puppy.

No comments, thank you.

No comments, thank you.

Mr. D'Amasio. No comments. Mr. Bassler.

No comments.

Thank you. And may I have a motion to approve case number PLZZDash25Dash0002 subject to conditions a through k.

Mr. Chairman, I will motion to approve the rezoning to a business park. Case number PLZZ-twenty.

Second. Conditions

Conditions A through K sorry I was looking for it.

Do I have second? It's been moved and second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries.

Thank you.

Thank you, mister Banda. We have come to the end of the road. Agenda item number five, comments from the public or any members of the audience may comment on a non agenda item. However, the open meeting laws do not permit commission to discuss items not listed on the agenda. The commission may direct inquiries to the city staff. Are there any members of the public wishing to speak? Seeing none, we are rolling to the planning manager report.

Thank you, chair, members of the commission. I think we have the next commission meeting may be canceled, but we'll confirm. If we don't have any items on that agenda, we'll ask Carrie to send out a cancellation. So we'll we'll probably do that this week once we confirm there's no items on that agenda. We do have our airport plan. We've we had it on hold for a little while, but we're picking we're picking that back up with a con a new consultant. So it'll be a a very collaborative process. So in the next couple months, we'll be coming before the commission with a presentation workshop that will coordinate with you guys. It's probably gonna be sometime in May. So we'll look forward to doing that with your team.

The the the consultant is Logan Simpson. And so Terry Hogan is with Logan Simpson, who you guys know. So it'll be good to work with her, and I'm sure she'll look forward to seeing everybody that she worked with before. So we'll we'll look forward to to having that and send you any information, obviously, ahead of time regarding that workshop. But other than that, it's great to be here and be part of this group in this presentation. So thank you guys. Good to see everybody. And that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you. It is good to see you as well. Alright, Rebecca, any?

No, it's just really good to see you.

You as well.

Mister Copeland, I was gonna say your first name but.

I see one of you guys at church sometimes over there so. I see him more often than you guys.

Miss Raggeda.

I went to the spring Easter festivities at the park in Sundance. And it was wonderful. I took my grandchildren. And they had a wonderful time. It was a wonderful event. I've never been to an event at that park. So it was really nice. It's really big. It's just beautiful.

Yes, it is. Mr. Hester?

No, but it's just great. My granddaughter should come in this week.

Yes. Mr.

Di Macio, vice

chair. I have no comments or current events of the report.

Thank you so very kindly. Mister Basler?

I'd like to thank the individual that did come and speak up to express his concerns and interest. We need more citizens who come and speak up when they have a concern. So I wanna thank you for being here. Thank you very much.

I do too. I do too. What a night. Alright. Let's go home.