Mesa Planning and Zoning Board Approves Seven Cases; Board Member Disputes Industrial-Over-Commercial Land Use Strategy in East Mark Community
MESA, ARIZONA — October 28, 2026

Mesa Planning and Zoning Board Approves Seven Cases; Board Member Disputes Industrial-Over-Commercial Land Use Strategy in East Mark Community

Mesa Planning and Zoning Board approved six real estate cases and one general plan amendment on October 28, 2026, including two battery energy storage facilities, a 360,895 sq ft commercial center, and a residential-to-industrial rezoning, with board discussion focused on traffic and single-use zoning concerns in the East Mark community.

Mesa Planning and Zoning Board Approves Seven Cases; Board Member Disputes Industrial-Over-Commercial Land Use Strategy in East Mark Community

On October 28, 2026, the Mesa Planning and Zoning Board voted unanimously to approve five consent-agenda items and two individually heard cases, clearing seven land-use applications totaling over 150 acres of mixed industrial, commercial, and employment development. The meeting's signature tension emerged during discussion of a 21.6-acre general plan amendment and rezoning at Ellsworth and Starfire Avenue, where Board Member Hails publicly questioned whether the city is perpetuating inefficient single-use zoning patterns that force East Mark residents to drive 2+ miles to access basic commercial services. Planning staff defended the proposal by reference to nearby Gateway Crossing, Legacy development, and other regional commercial anchors, but acknowledged the broader concern as a recurring complaint from the community.

Key Speeches

"The community to the east mark is the epitome of single use zoning where you have swaths of residential and not a whole lot of the commercial uses that you need for daily needs, feeding yourself, groceries, um but other things too, retail, restaurants, etc. I am a little bit concerned... if we're not maintaining some of the commercial uses here, I don't know where else they're going to get it." — Board Member Hails

"When we look at the bigger context of what's going on in this area, we've got a lot of the [Gateway Crossing] developments that are going on... Gateway Crossing that we just heard today that has a lot of the commercial services that you're talking about." — Planning Staff

"There is commercial on the east side of East Mark that is currently serving that community. I think Legacy is pretty much almost adjacent to it... when we look at this site because it is surrounded by industrial uses, what we're trying to do is really focus on kind of that land use compatibility type of thing." — Planning Staff

Timeline

Opposition

No organized public opposition was present at the meeting. However, Board Member Hails expressed internal board-level concerns during deliberation on Items 4A & 4B:

  1. Converting 21.6 acres from urban residential to industrial/employment use perpetuates single-use zoning in East Mark.
  2. Residents forced to drive 2+ miles minimum to access basic commercial services (groceries, retail, restaurants).
  3. Single-use zoning creates a "watershed effect"—all traffic funneled to distant destinations rather than distributed locally—increasing network-wide congestion.
  4. Preference would be to expand commercial (LC) designation on-site rather than solely adding industrial (LI) zoning.
  5. Board Member Hails noted that his model community (northern Gilbert) places commercial at most major intersections, enabling shorter trips and reducing overlap-driven congestion.
  6. Concern that traffic impact studies address immediate project impacts but not broader network effects of land-use pattern fragmentation.
  7. General staff policy of minimal LC increase (4.1 to 4.5 acres) insufficient to address community need.

Despite these concerns, no voting member opposed the items.

Support

All board members present (7 of 9) voted unanimously in favor of Items 4A & 4B. Planning staff provided the primary support rationale:

Project Details

Item 3A: Ellsworth 1 Energy Center

Item 3B: Ellsworth 2 Energy Center

Item 3C: Gateway Crossing

Item 3D: Al Vista Auto Repair Facility Major Site Plan Modification

Item 3E: Stone Lake POS Crossing

Items 4A & 4B: Ellsworth Starfire GPA and Rezoning

Vote Breakdown

Consent Agenda Vote (Items 2A, 3A, 3B, 3C, 3E)

Item 3D (Al Vista Auto Repair Facility)

Items 4A & 4B (Ellsworth Starfire GPA and Rezoning)

Outcome & Next Steps

The Planning and Zoning Board approved all seven cases without dissent. Items 2A, 3A, 3B, 3C, and 3E were approved on the consent agenda in a single motion and vote. Item 3D (Al Vista Auto Repair Facility) was voted on individually with Vice Chair Pitcher recused, resulting in a 6–0 approval. Items 4A and 4B (Ellsworth Starfire GPA and Rezoning) were formally presented with a public hearing opened and closed (no public comment), then voted on together, resulting in unanimous approval.

Both the general plan amendment (GPA 26-00248 V20) and the associated rezoning (Z26-00126 V20) will now be recommended to the Mesa City Council for final approval. No conditions, continuance dates, or modifications to the approval were stated in the motion. The council use permit component of the Ellsworth Starfire project will allow for substantial future commercial development, with applicants expected to return through the development process once specific commercial users are identified.

All other consent items (battery storage, Gateway Crossing, Stone Lake industrial modification) are now fully approved at the Planning and Zoning Board level and do not require City Council action.

Controversies & Context

The Ellsworth Starfire rezoning sparked the meeting's most substantive policy debate, though it passed unanimously. Board Member Hails articulated a critique of Mesa's single-use zoning pattern in the East Mark community that reflects a broader urban planning tension: whether to prioritize industrial land preservation (and thus land-use compatibility with surrounding uses) or to enforce mixed-use density and neighborhood-scale commerce to reduce vehicle miles traveled.

Hails framed the issue as a traffic problem with a land-use root cause. He argued that converting residential to industrial (rather than commercial) forces residents to drive 2+ miles to reach basic services, creating a "watershed effect" in which all trips are funneled to distant commercial clusters rather than distributed across a neighborhood network. He cited northern Gilbert as a model in which commercial nodes at major intersections reduce trip overlap and network congestion.

Planning staff countered that the immediate area is well-served: Gateway Crossing (just approved that day, 37 acres of new commercial), Legacy development (adjacent), East Market, Sprouts, Elliott-Ellsworth mixed-use zones, and the Burge auto center. They also noted that the site is surrounded by industrial uses and that land-use compatibility—not shortage of commercial—drove the recommendation. Additionally, the council use permit provision allows for future commercial development if market conditions support it.

However, staff's response did not directly address Hails's systemic concern: that staff consulted only with the economic development team about this single site's zoning, not about whether the broader East Mark neighborhood should shift toward more distributed commercial zoning. The staff position appeared to be reactive (this site fits nearby industrial uses; Gateway Crossing and other projects elsewhere will serve the community) rather than proactive (should we consider commercial designation at this location to improve neighborhood walkability and reduce single-use fragmentation?).

Despite the philosophical disagreement, no board member moved to abstain, amend, or oppose Items 4A & 4B. All voted yes, and the items were recommended to Council unanimously.

Duration

Other Notable Items

Battery Energy Storage Strategic Infrastructure: Ellsworth 1 and Ellsworth 2 Energy Centers together represent 42.1 acres of battery storage facilities, a strategic asset for grid resilience and renewable energy integration. Both were approved on consent with staff recommendation and no board discussion.

Gateway Crossing Commercial Anchor: The 360,895 sq ft commercial center (37 acres) approved on consent is explicitly serving the East Mark region and was repeatedly cited by planning staff as the primary commercial supply response to the area's needs. It was referenced in Board Member Hails's debate as evidence that the city's commercial strategy is working at a regional scale, even if neighborhood-level single-use zoning persists.

View source transcript ▼

Source: Planning and Zoning Meeting - 10/28/2026 — October 28, 2026. Auto-generated YouTube transcript; may contain transcription errors.

Welcome everyone to the October 28th, 2026 city of Mesa Planning and Zoning Board public hearing. Will all board members please unmute your microphones? I will begin by taking roll call. Chairperson Peterson is here. Vice Chair Pitcher here. Board member Montes here. Board member Carpenter is absent. Board member Wagner here. Board member Thomas here. Board member Trexler here. Board member Hells here and board member Klene is absent.

Uh with the quorum present, we will call this meeting to order. Uh so for today's agenda, uh Danica, have any uh blue cards been submitted? Chair, board members, there are no blue cards. Okay, thank you. So for a few reasons, the consent agenda will be broken up into three different votes. We'll start with uh the the items that will not be on the initial vote will be items 3D as in dog and 4 A and 4 B as in boy. And with that, Cassidy. Thank you, chair, members of the board.

Items on the consent agenda. Item 2 A, the planning and zoning minutes from the October 14th, 2026 Planning and Zoning Board. Item 3A, Z26-00129 Ellsworth 1 Energy Center, 21.8 acres located approximately 2,450 ft west of the southwest corner of South Ellsworth Road and East Starfire Avenue. Reszone from Lightned Area development overlay to light industrial and site plan review. This request will allow for a battery energy storage system facility.

Staff recommendation is approval with conditions. Item 3B, Z26-0000131, Ellsworth 2 Energy Center, 20.3 acres located approximately 1,200 ft west of the northwest corner of South Ellsworth Road and East Starfire Avenue. Reszone from Light Industrial with a planned area development overlay to light industrial and site plan review. This request will allow for a battery battery energy storage system facility. Staff recommendation is approval with conditions.

Item 3 C 0 Z125- 00660 Gateway Crossing 37 acres located at the southwest corner of East Williamsfield Road and East 24 Gateway Freeway council use permit, special use permit, and site plan review. This request will allow for an approximately 360,895T Group commercial center. Staff recommendation is approval with condition. Item 3D has been pulled off the consent. Not Not that one. Yeah.

Item 3E Z26-0000614 Stone Lake POS crossing 35 acres located at the northeast corner of East Pacos Road and South Sausan Road. Reszone from employment opportunity to light industrial with a planned area development overlay. [clears throat] This request will allow for modifications to an existing industrial development. Staff recommendation is approval with condition. All right. Thank you, Cassie. If you don't mind, stay up there and we'll have you as we do the other two. Chair, if I may.

So technically the other items are are are not consent agenda items. So we'll stay those from here. Okay. All right. Fine, Cassidy. Thank you. Uh the consent agenda has been read. Is there a motion? Motion to approve the consent agenda. A second. I'll second. Uh please vote. Board member Montes. Yes. Board member Trexler. Yes. With that, the consent agenda passes unanimously. All right. Next, we will go to item 3D in which Vice Chair Pitcher will be recused.

And you want me to Yeah, I'm I'm uh conflicted on this one. The the applicants. Okay. So, Vice Chair Pitcher will not vote on this item. Uh, is there any discussion from the board or are we okay to go to a vote? All right. If we're okay to go to a vote, then is there a motion? I'll make a motion that we approve item 3D uh on the agenda and then start with the Z and just read through. Yeah.

026-00217.45 acres located approximately 250 ft north of the northeast corner of Al Vista Drive and East Southern Avenue. Major site plan modification. This uh request is to allow for an approximately 2200 square foot minor auto repair facility. And then uh with your motion is uh to approve to approve with the with conditions the recommendation to council recommending approval of conditions. Okay. Yes. Thank you. We good. All right. Uh item has motion has been made. Is there a second?

I'll second. All right. Second and I'll vote please. Board member Montes. Yes. Board member Texler. Yes. All right, the item carries with six votes in favor and vice chair pitcher Epsteini and then we will move to items 4 A and 4B. Is the uh anyone on the would the board like any further discussion or are we okay to go to a motion? Chair. Yep. I would like to make a comment related to just the broad planning related to um the general plan.

Uh the community to the east mark is the epitome of single use zoning where you have swaths of residential and not a whole lot of the commercial uses that you need for daily needs, feeding yourself, groceries, um but other things too, retail, restaurants, etc. I am a little bit concerned.

I do recognize that uh the proposal will increase the uh LC um from 4.1 acres to 4.5, but uh I I am considering uh potentially maybe we make a recommendation to council as far as maybe expanding some of the commercial designation uh rather than as proposed simply because of the if we do not industrial is not helping create some of the those services. We're essentially creating future traffic.

If uh it's like a watershed if everyone's getting funneled to go to some of these distant destinations rather than like water where it pools together, it traffic it creates congestion and it slows everything down. So, uh I I think if if we're not uh maintaining some of the commercial uses here, I don't know where else they're going to get it. There's already a lot of buildout around Eastark. Gotcha. So, so, so on on this case, this is uh the taking it from residential to limited commercial.

Uh, Chair Peterson, I'm happy to address that if you'd like. Yeah, go Um, when we look at the bigger context of what's going on in this area, we've got a lot of the Haw crossing developments that are going on. We've got a lot of MX, which is the mixeduse up on Elliott at Warner. We've got and Haw um I'm sorry, Elliot and Haw. We've got um Legacy that was just approved just south of of Eastark.

We've got the Gateway Crossing that we just heard today that has a lot of the commercial services that you're talking about.

So when we look in the bigger context of commercial in this area, we work very really closely with our economic development team before we make a recommendation on changing any of the zoning that where we might lose either industrial or commercial use and we don't see this as being any kind of a conflict from the planning department's persp or planning division's perspective. Okay. What about traffic?

So, Chair Peterson, board member Hails, traffic is always a consideration when these projects are being done. As you know, with Legacy, there's a traffic impact study being completed. It is in conjunction with the one for Gateway crossing across the street from it. Whenever um we look at any development project, we not only look at traffic, we look at infrastructure availability, we look at the the road widths and deceler deceleration lanes, the need for those. We look at um pedestrian traffic.

we look at vehicle or bicycle traffic. So, all of those things are considered as we're looking at those development projects and how they all work together to make sure that, you know, we're we're meeting the needs of the people who live in the east side of of the city. It just appears that uh most of the residents in these areas are going to be driving minimum mile two miles or more uh to get to just the first uh commercial land use. Um which that that's pretty far.

So that that's where my concerns lay. And and so um Chair Peterson, board member HS, and then I think Deon wants to add something. There's there is commercial on the east side of East Mark that is currently serving that community. I think Legacy is pretty much almost adjacent to it. Again, Gateway Crossing and the project that we saw today. I think that a lot of the the um commercial and the MX areas up on Elliot are pretty close in driving range.

So, um I think that when we look at this site because it is surrounded by industrial uses, what we're trying to do is really focus on kind of that land use compatibility type of thing. And I think that's why we're looking at the the case the way we are. Evan, I don't know who I am. And and there's uh even on the west side of East Market, Ray and Ellsworth, the the Sprouts that just opened and that complex around How did I forget East Market, Chair Chair Peterson? How did I forget East Market?

that was such an important project for that area. [laughter] One other thing I I might mention just just real quick is is um chair board member Hails, that's actually something we hear from Eastmart quite a bit is is the lack of commercial development. Um there is a reasonzoning request with this, but another component of that is a council use permit to allow for large commercial development. We they don't have users identified yet, so they'll need to come back through the development process.

But this request actually sets up the property for a substantial amount of commercial development even in the LI portion just what would that be west of the the LC portion. It's definitely something we've heard loud and clear. And Cher Peterson, I wish we had a map because I think we could show you all the commercial that's in and around the East Mark area. I we I mean we can't forget the Burge um auto center and all the commercial that's going in there. Elliot Ellsworth and everything. Yeah.

And and I mean, you know, from the west side, getting access down signal but to to that development is, you know, pretty pretty easy for the residents of of East Mark. So they're they they are surrounded. It may not be right in East Mark the way that sometimes we would we would prefer to have except for maybe the East Market and the the development over on the the east side of the the community. But there is a lot of commercial in this area.

And again, we always want to work with economic development. We don't want to sell ourselves short in the need for commercial or industrial land within the city, within our neighborhoods. I thank you. Yeah. And it's not to say that um there there is nothing. I just am I guess uh um I I look to a lot of the kind of the model that uh I grew up with in uh north part of Gilbert where pretty much every major intersection you have some commercial set aside.

And so it enables to have uh fairly shorter trips uh which then reduces the amount of overlap in in trips and therefore reduces the traffic congestion that applies.

So, uh, I guess my my final comment would be I just, uh, would prod staff to take that into consideration is that, uh, certainly the there's the traffic congestion that gets considered in a traffic study for the immediate future, but the broad network impacts of of ex of having these single use, you know, zonings where it's just a huge swath of one particular land use really creates the uh traffic congestion that we're often trying to avoid. All right. Thank you for those comments.

Are we okay to do both cases in one motion? Uh chair. Yeah, that would be up to your discretion. You could do both, but just as a reminder, because this is a general plan amendment or at least 4 A, uh you need to formally open a public hearing. Um, I don't think anyone's here to speak, but then uh to close the public hearing before you take action. Okay, gotcha. For item 4 A, GPA 26 00248 V20 minor GPA, we will now formally open the public hearing.

Is there anyone from the public who would like to speak on this item? Seeing none, we will now formally close the public hearing and move to a motion of items 4 A and 4B together. Would someone like to make that motion? What's your picture? I I think I've been volunteered. [laughter] Um, uh, motion to approve GPA 26-00248 view 202 minor GPA, uh, 21.6 6 acres located in the southwest corner of South Ellsworth Road and East Starfire Avenue.

Minor general plan amendment to change the place type from urban residential with an evolved growth strategy to local employment center with an evolved growth strategy. Uh the next is um Z2600126 view 202 multifamily reszone 21.6 6 acres located in the southwest corner of South Ellsworth Road and East Starfire Avenue. Reszone 17.1 acres from multiple residents.

Four with a planned area development overlay to and limited commercial with a planned area development overlay uh to light industrial with a planned area development overlay. reszone 4.5 acres from RM4 pad and LC pad to limited commercial with a planned area development overlay and a council use permit. Uh this request would uh allow for future development of industrial commercial uses. Staff recommendations on both is approval with conditions and I move to approve both of them. Thank you.

And uh so a motion has been made to recommend to city council to approve these two items. Is there a second? I'll second. All right. Thank please vote. Board member Montes. Yes. Board member Trexler. Yes. With this items 4 A and 4B are approved unanimously. And that concludes the items on our agenda. Is there cheer Peterson and board members? Just an update from our study session.

Uh Danica is going to get out the um invite or the uh Zoom link for the meeting tonight at 6 and then tomorrow she will send you a link to the video from the meeting tonight. So if you can't make the meeting tonight, you'll be able to see the discussion that occurs tonight. All right. Thanks so much. Hearing that, is there a motion to adjurnn? I'll make a motion to adjurnn. Second. Uh motion's been made and a second. All please vote. Board member Montes. Yes. Board member Trxler. Yes. Thank you.

Motion carries unanimously. Meeting is adjourned. Have a great night. [music]

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