Planned Arizona developments with 'affordable housing' labels quickly become targets
NIMBY-ism in the Valley:
Not in my backyard| There, not here| Rezoning hurdles| Targeting City Hall | What needs to change?
The line of people waiting to take the microphone stretched to the back of the auditorium at Hamilton High School in Chandler.
In theory, the event was supposed to provide a forum for community members to ask questions of officials with Dominium, the developer of an affordable housing project proposed on an island of county land in south Chandler.
But the late-January event last year was too little, too late.
Months after talk of the development first erupted in the community, most of the speakers had comments instead.
As Dominium's speakers presented, the room was punctuated by cries of "Don't lie" and "Be transparent." When community members got the chance to speak, they expressed fears over additional traffic and more crowded schools. Some read off printed sheets of questions and comments handed out by Voice of Chandler, the group organizing much of the opposition.
While Voice of Chandler leaders said they tried to encourage group members to focus on the merits of the project rather than the people who might live there, at least a few in the audience suggested — or said outright — that people who need affordable housing aren't who they want in their community.
A teenager, to widespread applause, claimed most young people who come from lower-income families — the people who would benefit from affordable housing — are drug addicts. The teen said they didn't want any more troublemakers at their school.
The project, initially known as Landings at Ocotillo and now called Sonoran Landings, quickly became one of the most controversial issues that the city of roughly 275,000 has seen recently. In response to the backlash, Dominium officials said in April that they would reintroduce the project with a new name and some modifications.
Instead of adding up to 500 units of affordable housing in Chandler, one of the wealthiest cities in the Valley, the plan now is to offer 280 units of affordable housing for seniors. Two light industrial buildings are now planned for the rest of the land.
Dominium submitted a zoning request for its new plan in early November.
The apartment project joins a list of similar developments that have faced intense backlash from wealthy neighborhoods around metro Phoenix, even as Maricopa County battles a deep affordable housing shortage.
Dominium officials have framed the backlash in Chandler as a classic case of NIMBYism, an acronym that stands for "not in my backyard."
"It's a little scary sometimes and a little sad, to be honest," said Owen Metz, senior vice president of Dominium. "You've had people say, 'Well, don't you know, this is an affluent community, this is a wealthy place, don't you know the median income here?' And like, 'Yeah, I think that's why we are interested.'"
The residents who have helped lead Voice of Chandler, however, say the developer made little effort to gain community trust and there were valid reasons for not wanting the development to go through. They accused Dominium of launching a public relations campaign against them.
"If they were to build luxury condominiums or even single-family there with gold bricks, we would be against it," said area resident Aarthi D'Costa, who contends the property itself is simply not appropriate for residential development.
While the group stands hundreds strong, not every person in the neighborhood opposes the development.
Bob Hilderbrand, who lives within a mile of the proposed site, said he understands the project might add inconveniences. Still, he believes his community needs to pitch in and help solve the Valley's housing problems.
"As I see it, we live in paradise here," Hilderbrand said. "And should we try to prevent others from living in paradise, especially people who otherwise find it difficult to find housing that they can afford? It was very clear to me that would be a mistake; it would be against things that I believe in strongly."
Dominium held another neighborhood meeting at Hamilton High in early November to present its revised plan for the land. A smaller group of neighbors showed up than in January, about 25.
Though some are still unhappy about the development, fewer people spoke in opposition. A Voice of Chandler representative read a prepared statement saying the apartments would hurt the city's airport and cause the same problems as the previous plan.
Learning from a community group on the other side of the Valley
An obvious parallel to the Sonoran Landings controversy is opposition to another Dominium project in Surprise.
There, residents came together to protest a proposed 601-unit affordable apartment complex. The complex would be located in the area of Waddell Road and Cotton Lane. Like south Chandler, the area is largely well-off — nearly half of all households in the City Council district that encompasses the proposed project have income upwards of $100,000 each year, according to data from the Maricopa Association of Governments.
The opposition group came to be known as Voice of Surprise, and it has fought the project tooth and nail. Voice of Chandler copied the name and is in touch with the group but didn't start as an affiliate, D'Costa said.
"We reached out to them to understand who Dominium is," she said. "That's how we got to know Voice of Surprise. And then we thought that we could name ourselves as Voice of Chandler because it's like, 'OK, if they're opposing Dominium in Surprise, then we might as well just take the same name.' And ... I guess it's easy on the ears."
Many of the factors that Voice of Chandler members cited as concerns — including traffic, school overcrowding and incompatibility with Chandler's voter-approved General Plan and Airpark Area Plan — are often named by those against affordable housing in their neighborhoods, Dominium officials said. Voice of Surprise, for instance, argued that the development proposed there could exacerbate traffic problems and did not fit in with the nearby area.
"At the end of the day, if someone doesn't want housing near them, generally you'll hear the same things," Metz said. "It's traffic. It's crime. It's, 'Schools can't handle it.'"
But every neighborhood is different, and other concerns are unique to the proposed Chandler-area complex. For instance, Voice of Chandler members told The Arizona Republic they are concerned about the safety of planes flying in and out of the nearby Chandler Airport.
Residents in the Chandler community also have seen an unprecedented boom in multifamily housing in recent years. Land for some of the developments popping up around the area was rezoned years ago, residents said, long before most of those fighting the Dominium project even were living in the neighborhood.
"It all hit at one time," said Voice of Chandler member LouAnn Sedgwick. "They all started going up."
If the Dominium project goes through, Sedgwick and other residents against it worry it could mean other developers will want to rezone land in the neighborhood for multifamily housing.
"The whole southeast Chandler area was supposed to be really more tranquil, more calm, more suburb-type," Voice of Chandler member Derek Logan said. "And that's what drew me to it. Now, I'm concerned that they're trying to change that whole idea."
Voice of Chandler members also said Dominium never actually tried to communicate with neighbors about the development.
"Dominium was not going to tell us about it," Sedgwick said. "Someone had seen the sign, and then we looked into it with the city, and that's how we found out about it."
Dominium officials acknowledge a lack of public communication on the Chandler project. In contrast with most Valley cities, Maricopa County never required community outreach as part of the rezoning process, said Sarah Shambrook, a government relations associate for the developer.
"We typically will talk to staff; we'll talk to county supervisors; we'll talk to local municipality elected leaders and just say, 'Hey, what do you want to see,'" she said. "And we will follow what staff wants us to do ... and we were told, 'It's not necessary. Let's just move it through.'"
Metz said he wishes Dominium had done it differently. But he's not convinced it would have made a difference in the opposition to the project.
Community group joined by city politicians in opposition
Those leading Voice of Chandler said they asked residents expressing opposition to remain polite and stick to criticizing the project's merits, not the people who might live in it if it were built.
But they won't "censor" their members, they said.
"Everybody has very different perspectives," D'Costa said. "We're not trying to control anything. When we find out things, we put it out as it is. Now, if people are to interpret things a certain way, it just can't be helped."
Voice of Chandler isn't an island of opposition. In December 2022, the Chandler City Council passed a resolution putting their objections to the project on the record, even though the project is on unincorporated land and the city has no authority to halt the development.
The city's stance on the project hasn't changed, Chandler spokesperson Stephanie Romero said. City leaders still believe it is incompatible with Chandler's voter-approved General Plan and Airpark Area Plan, she said, which designate the site of the proposed development for employment and industrial uses, respectively.
Nevertheless, Dominium is moving ahead. The company purchased the proposed development site for $9.5 million in early April.
Hilderbrand said that despite the intense opposition from some in the area, he believes people living in the complex will be welcomed into the community if Dominium's plans go through.
"I think that's one of the things that people who are opposing this ought to be thinking about," Hilderbrand said. "These people who move in here are going to be our neighbors. And some of them, at least, will be aware of the fact that this community fought against having them move here."
Getting to the facts
Throughout the controversy, Dominium officials and residents opposed to the proposed development have accused each other of spreading falsehoods.
The Republic dove in to get to the bottom of claims and counterclaims about the initial project and its impact on the surrounding community.
Here's a brief recap of what The Republic found.
Explaining affordable housing: The project is partly financed through a housing tax credit program known as Section 42. Developers agree to designate a property as affordable housing for 30 years in exchange for tax credits equaling 30% of the total development cost. Developers then sell those tax credits to investors, using the proceeds to fund construction.
Section 42 is different than Section 8 of the Housing Act of 1937, which was added to federal law in 1974 and deals with housing assistance for low-income families. The Section 8 program was overhauled in the mid-1980s, and today, some low-income Americans use what are called housing choice vouchers to receive rental assistance.
If approved by county supervisors and built, Sonoran Landings will have income limits for tenants. Not all of them may use housing choice vouchers. But under the provisions of the tax credit program, Dominium cannot discriminate against potential tenants based on their source of income.
Income limits: The vast majority of the housing is reserved for people who make less than 60% of the area's median income.
For a single person, that's about $37,000 annually. The cap comes in at roughly $53,000 for a family of four.
Workforce housing: The new plan for Sonoran Landings is for it to be affordable housing for seniors. But previously, Dominium described it as "workforce" housing. What does that mean, exactly? Single, childless teachers and police officers would generally have had too high of a starting salary to qualify for the affordable apartments, based on figures from Chandler Unified School District and the Chandler Police Department.
But some other types of staff may have qualified, such as bus drivers, teacher's aides, maintenance workers, cafeteria employees and technology assistants at Chandler's schools. Plus, many of the city's service workers, including wait staff, baristas and cashiers, would likely have fit the income criteria to rent at the Dominium development if the original concept had moved forward.
Rental rates: Rents at the new development would start at around $1,000 for a one-bedroom apartment, according to Dominium.
That's far less than the market rate average rent for a one-bedroom unit in Chandler, which runs around $1,700 monthly, according to data from the Maricopa County Association of Governments.
Traffic impact: Chandler's Transportation Master Plan, last updated in 2019, shows that the nearby Ocotillo Road and Arizona Avenue intersection isn't slated for major upgrades for car commuters before 2040.
The intersection is not expected to be at or near capacity based on traffic projections for 2040, according to figures in the master plan.
However, the plan shows that the stretch of Arizona Avenue between Ocotillo Road and Queen Creek Road is projected to be among the city's highest volume stretches of roadway.
A traffic impact study prepared for Dominium by CivTech, a traffic engineering consulting firm, also shows that nearby roads can support the predicted impact of the project.
School capacity: The new plan for Sonoran Landings to be affordable senior housing likely means few new students will move to the area. But even before the plan changed, Chandler Unified said in a letter to Dominium that the district has the capacity to add new students. Chandler Unified currently serves more than 44,000 students and employs over 5,000 teachers and staff.
The district uses portable trailers to help create classroom space at many schools. Officials said the trailers help keep class sizes low and allow the schools to offer specialized programs.
Airport safety: Chandler Airport generally does not determine the safety of proposed development projects. Officials said that’s the jurisdiction of the federal government.
The Federal Aviation Administration did not respond to a request for comment.
Arizona Republic reporter Catherine Reagor contributed to this article.
Sasha Hupka covers Maricopa County, Pinal County and regional issues for The Arizona Republic. Do you have a tip? Reach her at sasha.hupka@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter: @SashaHupka.
Next up:
What developers say is biggest hurdle to affordable housing
Corina Vanek
Arizona Republic
The barriers to building affordable housing can sometimes start even before a plot of land is chosen.
"When you look at most cities' general plan maps, you will see almost no multifamily-zoned land," said Dan Klocke, development project manager for affordable housing developer Gorman and Co.
"It's a huge issue because then you have to go through a zoning case, and the cases can get pretty ugly."
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix-area affordable housing projects often face wall of opposition
