Council approves land use change for Kelly Ranches

The Maricopa Council unanimously approved a major amendment to the city’s general plan Tuesday, granting a request by developer the Cowley Companies to change the general plan’s land use map for 100 acres of land at the southeast corner of N. Porter Road and W. Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway, just south of the Union Pacific Railroad tracks.

The property, which will be developed as Kelly Ranches, will have its’ use changed from the current mix of commercial, open space and employment to medium-density residential. It sits between Santa Rosa Springs and the proposed Eagle Wing project. Prior to the change, the site was broken down into 90 acres of commercial, nine acres of open space and one acre of employment.

When completed, the community would feature 315 homes and more than 800 residents.

“This is a parcel that has been designated commercial for a long time, and has not developed for a variety of site-specific constraints and other reasons, which has brought us to this point today,” said Byron Easton, a senior planner for the city of Maricopa.

Vice mayor Nancy Smith questioned whether it was wise for the city to continue to convert commercial land to residential zoning and usage.

“There are many, many questions on the transfer of land use from commercial, employment and open space to residential,” she said. “Are we losing a significant amount of commercial, a significant amount of business opportunity, of open space, and…there is very little change from 2016 to 2021 in terms of acres (for each of those uses). I found that to be very valuable. I wanted to draw attention to that because of the fact there is so much conversation going on regarding the transfer of one use to another use and are we losing all of our ability to develop our employment base, and the answer is no.”

Current access to the property is from Porter Road, on the land’s western border. Because of an existing 200-foot railroad right of way corridor, there is no access from Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway.

In addition, the community lies just north of the City’s planned east-west corridor that will extend and widen Farrell Road to a parkway from John Wayne Parkway to Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway. That parkway eventually will provide a connection from the south part of Maricopa to Interstate 10 and could also provide a secondary access point to the Kelly Ranches.