Zoning overlays meet in complex Heritage District

In the Heritage District, the new collides with the old like nowhere else in Maricopa.

The reminders of an unincorporated “cow town” of fewer than 5,000 people are everywhere. Some residents and residences have been there for generations. Symbols of old Maricopa, like the water tower and the railroad properties, are still holding ground.

The indications of future needs are also obvious.

From the moment an overpass was proposed for State Route 347 over the Union-Pacific Railroad tracks, the impact on the Heritage District became a primary issue.

Some buildings will go away when an overpass is constructed. Other changes will occur before that happens if the city can find the right balance in the distinctive neighborhoods of the Heritage District.

“It has challenges that are unique in the city, and it has its own character,” Interim Development Services Director Dana Burkhardt said.

In April the city agreed to seek a community development block grant to remediate dangerous situations, including children living in a shed. The effort to qualify for the CDBG led to police officers going door to door to conduct surveys.

The goal of meeting the special needs of old Maricopa and setting up new Maricopa with modern development tools resulted in overlay districts during the zoning code rewrite process. The Transportation Corridor overlay meets the Mixed-Use Heritage District overlay at the heart of Maricopa – the Heritage District.

“The purpose of the overlay project is to develop unique codes and tools for a specific area,” Burkhardt said, “and to encourage a certain character.”

The city hosted three open houses to explain the overlays and what they could mean for redevelopment in the neighborhood.

“Comments from the open house meetings, I think, have been very supportive,” Senior Planner Rodolfo “Rudy” Lopez said.

Lopez said there was concern expressed in a letter from Union Pacific as well as from Arizona Grain and Pinal Energy, which own impacted property, before an explanation of the Transportation Corridor overlay was provided.

The Transportation Corridor (TC) overlay applies to the first 150 feet of applicable parcels fronting SR 347, SR 238 and Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway.

The TC overlay is meant to “prevent developments which would conflict with the vision in the General
Plan for these corridors or interrupt the transit, bicycle and pedestrian experience,” according to Article 301.

The TC overlay is meant to encourage mixed uses that are conducive to pedestrian and bicycle traffic. Burkhardt said where the TC overlay district encounters the Mixed-Use Heritage overlay district, the TC has precedence.

Since 2009, the district has been designated as a redevelopment district under state definitions, making it eligible for Community Development Block Grants and other funding. “That kind of started everything,” Burkhardt said.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have any designated historical structures in Maricopa.”

He said the overlays encourage the development of existing properties to have that historic identity.

After incorporation, the Heritage District had general rural (GR) zoning left over from Pinal County. Burkhardt said that was in place because the area did not have infrastructure such as sewer.

Buildings were on septic systems, creating a problem for anyone subdividing any smaller than an acre. Burkhardt said anything denser than that leads to groundwater issues.

But the Heritage District already had much smaller lots, even 8,000 square feet.

Then the city began to get pressure to allow residents in the Heritage District to convert their homes into businesses or to make changes to the homes stifled with large setbacks. Burkhardt said was approvals were on a block-by-block basis in neighborhood collection of nonconforming uses.

With few storefronts available in the area, accommodating the requests was a way to encourage investment in the neighborhoods. Burkhardt said city staff asked, “How do we create an almost incubator opportunity for people?”

The neighborhoods already defined “mixed use” before the overlays were adopted.

The Mixed-Use Heritage overlay district intends to “promote pedestrian-oriented infill development, intensification and reuse of land consistent with the General Plan and the Heritage District Redevelopment Area Plan.”