Mammoth apartment-home complex eyed in SE Gilbert

Oct. 13—A proposal to build 851 apartment units, 238 duplexes and single-family homes and 104,670 square feet of retail at the northwest corner of Power and Williams Field roads will need more work if it wants approval from the town.

The master-planned Bella Storia project is proposed on 79.71 agricultural acres in Maricopa County but an application for annexation into the Town of Gilbert is being processed.

"When you look at the residential area, my concern is on the deviations especially in the single story (residential) where you go from 15- to 10-foot depth separations," said Commissioner Charles Johnson at the Oct. 5 study session.

"It seems like the developer is packing as many units in as possible and I call that love your neighbor whether you like him or not," he continued. "I know that it's economically good for the developer but I really don't think it's sound planning in terms of separations of units to create a better quality of life especially in this single-family area."

The developers The New Home Company, and Davis Development, a multi-family builder, are seeking a minor General Plan Amendment and rezone on the land owned by the Di Bella Family.

The developers also are seeking over a dozen deviations, including for building height, open space and building separation.

Planner Keith Newman said staff was not in support of a number of the requested deviations, including reducing the building setbacks for the commercial buildings and reducing the amount of private and common open space for one of the two proposed apartment complexes.

He added that staff supported the request to reduce the separation between the attached single-family units to 10 feet from the required 15 feet.

"It's something we have supported with a lot of developments," he said. "I think we would be OK with that deviation."

Newman also said that staff was highly concerned with the design of the commercial portion of the project.

"We feel that it doesn't meet the character that we are trying to create in the Santan Character area as there are a lot of drive-thrus along Williams Field Road and Power Road," he said. "It looks like a typical, traditional, suburban shopping center and not something that kind of complies with or meets the vision of what we want to create in the Gateway Character Area."

He said that for the east side of the proposed shopping center, staff would like to see buildings a bit closer to the streets, the drive-thru lanes hidden more and maybe larger buildings with pedestrian access out to the streets.

Newman said staff also had some concern with pedestrian accessibility, noting, however, that "some of their drawings and exhibits don't do it justice yet as to what they are proposing as far as sidewalk connections."

He said staff was working with the applicant to ensure that residential units along the roadways have direct pedestrian access to the street and that there are direct sidewalk connections from the residential areas to the proposed commercial development.

Newman said a virtual neighborhood meeting held in January was attended by two property owners who voiced minimal comments and who "seemed highly in favor of the project."

Commissioner Anthony Bianchi said the General Plan amendment request seemed minor and reasonable but it would take a lot of convincing for him to support the rezone given the sheer volume of requested deviations.

Commissioner Lesley Davis said she agreed with Newman's concern regarding pedestrian connectivity and she wanted to see a pedestrian connection from the residential units to the amenity area for the apartment complex proposed at the southwest corner of the property.

And with all the deviations requested, maintaining the required open space was important, which she said she was not yet seeing with the proposal.

Commission William Fay said he had no particular concern with the general commercial proposal but that the parcels for the attached single-family homes and for the apartments in the southwest corner seemed "packed in."

He said if they were really drilling down into the deviations that night, it would be a "hard sell" for him to support the attached single-family project as proposed.

Commissioner Brian Andersen said he agreed with staff's stance on the deviations and suggested that the angled parking for one of the drives in the commercial portion be at 90 degrees.

Chairman Jan Simon noted the large amount of parking lots in the project and asked if it was meeting the town's open space requirement.

Newman said only the two apartment complexes fell short of the requirement — the complex in the northeast corner was .8% short while the one in the southwest corner was 8%.

"We're fairly confident to get them to meet that but the parcel in the southwest corner is more of a struggle," Newman said. "We had a meeting with the applicant last week and are hopeful they will get close to 40% or meet it completely."

Simon said he would like to see some work done to address that and that he shared his fellow commissioners' concerns with the requested deviations.

"I feel it's pretty rich on what they are requesting and I personally have an issue with the apartment in the southwest corner," he said.

Simon said the complex looked like an "institution" and that the developer needs to do more work to address the concern with pedestrian connectivity.

Newman anticipated the project coming back for formal review by the Commission sometime in the first quarter of next year as the proposal was early in review and staff was still working with the applicant on some of the concerns.

As proposed, the commercial development would be on 16.6 acres on the arterial corner with anticipated tenants like specialty grocers, shops and restaurants.

For the multi-family component, three-story buildings are proposed for the two separate apartment complexes with one-, two- and three-bedroom units ranging in size from approximately 680 to 1,500 square feet.

The single-family attached and detached portion is proposed on 30 acres at the north end of the development. The 238 lots would consist of cluster homes, alley duplexes and detached homes with floor plans ranging from 1,300 to 2,554 square feet.