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Developers of this complex on Shea Way at Porter Road say apartment-phobia is no more common in Maricopa’s sprawling single-family quasi-utopia than anywhere else in metro Phoenix. In fact, pushback in other Phoenix suburbs is much fiercer.
Rental disorder Apartment myths have stronghold on city’s housing market
BY MONICA D. SPENCER
“The first times people talked about NIMBY struggles really had to do with the mostly working-class, middle-class communities protesting the location of toxic waste plants and nuclear powerplants.” KIM PHILLIPS-FEIN, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY HISTORIAN
toward them. An April InMaricopa poll of 640 city residents found an eye-popping 85% did not support the idea building apartments could help drive a city’s economic growth. In fact, that perspective may have worsened over the years. An InMaricopa poll from 2022 showed just 73% of city residents opposed constructing new complexes, claiming they would “further clog streets and highways.” Poll results, online fodder and the few who show up at city meetings to speak dissent are all examples of a phenomenon colloquially dubbed NIMBYism — the “not in my backyard” mentality where people recognize something is necessary for society, but they don’t want it within eyeshot. Keyboard NIMBYism The first iterations of NIMBY came in the 1970s when residents near a toxic waste dumpsite in New York feared for their mortal safety, according to New York University historian Kim Phillips-Fein. “It didn’t always have the pejorative connotations it has today,” she said. “The first times people talked about NIMBY struggles really had to do with the mostly working- class, middle-class communities protesting the location of toxic waste plants and nuclear powerplants.” However, this has morphed into arguments over “the dynamics around property ownership and the desire to protect the value of one’s home,” Philips-Fein said. Enter “nimbies,” as they’re called in popular parlance, and there are plenty in Maricopa. Any news of a new or proposed multifamily
housing development in the city invariably brings with it a plague of comments bemoaning apartments. Maricopans advocate for a moratorium on development, make calls to show up to city meetings and muse about city staff lining their pockets with wads of cash from developers — all without evidence. But it seems these residents are heavy on the bark and light on the bite. Finding a packed city meeting is rarer than Maricopa schools calling a school day. Two residents attended the most recent Planning & Zoning Commission meeting. Most city council meetings are empty after proclamations or awards are issued. It’s lacking compared to the anti-development suburbanites in Phoenix. In December 2022, Chandler residents arrived with a 3,000-signature petition for a city council vote on a 518-unit development that would have provided affordable housing for seniors and families. It was standing room only as their councilmembers voted against the development. In the West Valley, community activist group Voice of Surprise has 800 members and regularly calls for attendance at city meetings. In September, the group collected 5,400 signatures for a petition against a 600-unit affordable housing development and recently began stumping for an anti-development mayoral candidate. There goes the neighborhood Myths surrounding apartments and affordable housing run rampant through Maricopa and
A BUILDING MORATORIUM?
Some Maricopans advocate for a development moratorium or other attempts to slow building. Province homeowner Claire Dodd Rickman Beamer’s solution: “Stop residential building until the infrastructure catches up.” The movement has attracted people outside city limits, too. “Take care of the roadways first,” suggested Robin Davis, a Stanfield resident. “Put a moratorium on building until you get a handle on the traffic. You can say not right now or no.” That’s not a good idea, according to Tempe economist Jim Rounds, who spends a lot of time analyzing the economy in Pinal County. “I don’t think it would become a ghost town, but all the economic growth would go elsewhere,” he said. Why? “Every community around Maricopa is going to pass them by and the city will stagnate,” he said. “Tax revenues will go down, incomes will go down, property values will go down, taxes will go up because they have to maintain a certain level of service. Regardless, the whole economy will fall apart if they put a growth moratorium on the community.”
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She hears those same arguments firsthand in town halls and zoning meetings all over the state, including in Maricopa where she’s developing the Horizon and Oasis at the Wells apartments. “We do some pushback,” she said. “Affordable housing does sometimes get a bad rap of people just thinking, ‘I don’t want that riffraff, I don’t want those types of people in my neighborhood.’” Apartments weren’t the bogeyman people thought, property value and crime data show, but today, public opinion is still contentious
with her husband and moved from Las Vegas one year pre-apartment era. “I live in the area and am totally against this,” she said. “The area will go downhill fast! I saw this happen in so many neighborhoods in Vegas. Property values will go down. There will be grocery carts everywhere!” Five years and several more apartment developments on, were the predictions accurate? Julia Surak, president of the Apache Junction apartment developer Englewood Group, said that kind of opposition is nothing new.
HEN INMARICOPA REVEALED blueprints for the city’s first apartment complex five years ago, the opposition was loud and clear:
Coffee is for closers only.
Just swap coffee with Maricopa. “We did not come here to be around or near any apartments,” said Kathleen Thomsen- Grover, who bought in Homestead three years prior and moved from San Luis Obispo, Calif. “We came here to enjoy a small-town life.” Cheryl Reed bought a home in Smith Farms
InMaricopa.com | May 2024
May 2024 | InMaricopa.com
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