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This Week
NEWS.............................3 American newcomer, teen son killed in Chandler
NEWS......................... 14 Former City Manager Charles Luster dies at 98.
BUSINESS .................. 21 Where to stock up for trickor-treaters
FOOD.........................29 Anything goes with this lush cake.
COMMUNITY ............... 16 BUSINESS ...................... 21 OPINION .......................23 SPORTS..........................24 GETOUT.........................26 CLASSIFIED....................32
Sunday, October 27, 2019
Will massive development threaten Gateway Airport? BY JIM WALSH Tribune Staff Writer
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epending on who’s talking, a massive development proposed for Southeast Mesa either threatens economic development around Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport or marks the inevitable and welcome replacement of six large dairy farms. But one thing is certain: The Planned Area Development called Hawes Crossing would change that part of the city forever, if it is approved. Located about a mile north of the airport, the mixed-use proposal will eventually go before Mesa City Council for what Mayor John Giles called possibly the most important decision he and many of his colleagues will make during their tenure in of�ice.
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Dairy farmers and nearby residents showed up in force last week for a hearing on a proposed massive development plan that critics fear will threaten Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport. (Jim Walsh/Tribune Staff Writer)
Old mobile homes, ‘bedroom’ image vex Mesa BY GARY NELSON Tribune Contributor
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t may seem odd to say this about a city of 500,000 people, but Mesa is grappling with what it wants to be when it grows up. That emerged as the basic question when the City Council heard an update on Mesa’s efforts to revise its housing master plan. That slow-moving, largely bureaucratic procedure will soon produce a document aimed at guiding the development of Mesa’s housing stock over the next 20 years. What city staff sought in the study session was endorsement of �ive overarching principles that have been hammered out as a result of community meetings and discussions with council members over the past several months. Those principles embrace the idea Mesa will need to work with governmental and private partners to ensure the city’s housing stock is adequate, diverse and safe. Council was �ine with that. But in the process, members raised a multitude of worries
about the city’s huge stock of deteriorating mobile homes and its longstanding image as a bedroom community that serves as a dumping ground for the East Valley’s lowincome residents. Raw data from the U.S. Census Bureau underscored that concern. According to Ruth Giese, Mesa’s community services director: Mesa’s median income, which in 2000 was 5.6 percent higher than the statewide average, now stands at 4.5 percent below the statewide average and 12.2 percent below the average for Maricopa County. About 38.5 percent of Mesa’s population is classi�ied as low- or moderate-income, earning substantially less than the area median income. More than 81,000 Mesa residents and nearly 14,000 families are considered to live in poverty. That’s 17.2 percent of the population and 12.7 percent of Mesa’s families – the second-highest percentage among cities in Maricopa County. Homeownership in Mesa declined from 66
percent of its households in 2000, to 58 percent in 2015, a lingering effect of the devastating Great Recession. Despite all that, Mesa is still growing at a robust pace. It’s expected to add 60,000 people and will need 30,000 additional housing units by 2030, Giese said. It may need more than that, however, if some way can be found to move people out of an expanding stock of manufactured homes that have sunk into decrepitude. Manufactured homes represent 10 percent of Mesa’s existing housing stock. Unlike brickand-mortar homes, they depreciate over time and in Mesa, nearly 40 percent of them are at least four decades old. Councilman David Luna described the problem. “You drive through many of these parks – they’re in deplorable condition, almost Third World,” he said. “So, we’ve got to do something to correct that.” He referred to Mesa’s controversial efforts
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