City cuts commercial land use, adds residential

The city of Maricopa has approved an amendment to its general plan that changes the land use for about 100 acres at the southeast corner of Porter Road and Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway just north of the Farrell Road alignment from a mix of Commercial, Open Space and Employment to Medium Density Residential, paving the way for the Kelly Ranches development on the site.

The change converts 90 acres of commercial land, nine acres of open space and one acre of employment land use to residential with a density of between three and 5.5 homes per acre and lots sizes of 4,500-6,000 square feet. The parcel sits just north of the Farrell Road alignment.

In pre-application documents submitted on behalf of homebuilder K. Hovnanian Homes, which is in the process of purchasing the property to be known as Kelly Farms PAD, the developer states it is looking to build on 73.67 acres of vacant agricultural land. At medium density residential land use, that would bring about 260 homes and 670 new residents to the area.

The City of Maricopa approved a General Plan amendment in late 2021, and the developers now wish to establish Planned Area Development (PAD) to build a single-family residential community on the site.

The general plan change request was made by Norris Design on behalf of developer the Cowley Companies, a real estate company that focuses on developing raw land, primarily in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas. Cowley also has built several industrial buildings in metro Phoenix as well as adaptive re-use projects in the Phoenix warehouse district.