Buckeye identifies 11,000-unit housing shortage, shifts policy toward mixed-density development

I'd like to call this meeting to order. Madam Secretary, you take role. I love my roll sheet. One moment, please. [Music] Chair Burton present. Commissioner Puppy. Commissioner Ragdale here. Commissioner Cupsick here. Vice Chair Damasio. Commissioner Bassler here. Commissioner Tripppiano, Alternate Hester, Alternate Manual, Alternate Belshi, and Alternate McDonald. Thank you. Let's let's let's get ready to go to work.

Uh number two, workshop agenda 2A, presentation and discussion of the draft housing action plan. This item will include a staff presentation, commission discussion, and time for questions. Commission may provide input and suggest modifications, but no formal action is required. Andrea, please take it away. Thank you, chair and commissioner. Um, as you know, I'm Andrea Marquez, one of the senior planners in development services, and we did not go back in time.

I am just using the original slide set that we used at council. Um, but I'll be using my own notes. And as a reminder, it is a workshop. You know, don't um feel free do feel free to interrupt or ask questions. Uh, I don't think I'll take more than 30 minutes to go through the slide. Um I do want to touch on you know why we're doing all of this and everything.

So um as you know the city of Buckeye is working with a consultant which is Matrix and we've been working with uh Laney Corey and Michael Wright. You'll see their pictures up on on the power. So they are helping us um guide us through this this process of the housing action plan and which is basically our roadmap to how Buckeye will be addressing housing needs now and into the future. So this plan is required by the state and supports the city council strategic goal.

So our big picture direction on you know how we want to move forward with any future policies or implementation. So we did kick off the housing needs assessment which was reported to um Arizona department of housing and that was earlier in January of 2025. So, we've actually been working with the League of Cities, with MAG, and with our consultants since uh last year of October um to get the data for our housing needs assessment, which we also got a grant for a housing action plan.

Now, keep in mind this is the first housing action plan that the city has had. Um so, always welcome any comments. Um, I kind of want to keep this the plan isn't supposed to uh, you know, be policy. It's just it's more of a guide for us right now and and see how we would like to move forward. So, um, I do want to mention we were fortunate enough uh, to receive a grant from bank in order to do the housing action plan. Um, this is a collaborative effort.

I, you know, had a lot of help with um staff here in DSD, with Matrix, with um our human services department, and also our uh neighborhood services um manager as well with a lot of our outreach. Uh the document that you did receive that Carrie has sent out, that is our second draft. And believe me, we we had a lot of we had more comments. um they will be providing a final draft at the end of um October. So uh we are still currently providing reviewing and accepting any comments.

So and we thank any of you that uh Commissioner Baffler he provided comments as well. So I took those into account for those over to our consultant. So, um today again just an over brief of uh the process and the plan. Um again, it's in draft form. Um you know, does commission and we're going to be asking council, you know, do they support the proposed policy direction?

Are there any priorities that we want elevated such as workforce housing, senior housing, affordable housing, or affordable rentals? The final draft um again will come before council for final adoption and I will go into the power. That was a long introduction for myself. Let's see. Andrea, may I ask a question? Are we required to do this now because of our population has gone up or is it just So it it is a state mandate. Um, and yes, our our population does trigger that.

So, I think the threshold was like 60,000. So, there's a lot of smaller communities that are struggling with this because there there's a lot of mandates. Um, it's a lot of work to, you know, move forward with. So, yes, it is. Um, and it has been on the council strategic poll ever since, you know, we did pass that threshold.

So, uh, this was the first year we had to report to Arizona Department of Housing regarding our housing needs assessment and, um, part of that we should have a housing action plan to go along with that data from one just procedural um, favor. Uh, if before you ask a question, welcome as many questions as possible. Could you just say your name really quickly because the the recording is not going to know who you are. That was Deanna. Thank you.

Um so uh in the next 30 minutes we'll uh do the project overview, housing needs assessment, the existing conditions that we have here in the city on uh implementing and where we're at, you know, following our policies in the housing action plan, the type of community engagement that was required. Um and then also some more detail into the housing action plan and um Q&A. As I mentioned, these are our consultants that we are currently working with.

Uh we kind of went over this in our introduction understanding both the housing needs assessment and our housing action plan. I like to call it the HAP plan. So halfways happy, right? Uh council, we will be asking for council feedback um on the implementation priorities and then uh what the next steps for staff will be. Okay. So, uh really quickly project overview first uh in involved data collection and analysis.

Um so that went over demographics, economic conditions, housing, stock, housing, market demand. Um they also provided us with the GIS site suitability analysis that was part of the document. Uh we did go out and do community engagement uh which also included an open house at the landing. Um and then we also had a separate request from the senior citizens because they could not make that meeting. So we had a separate meeting at the senior center as well.

Um and then our housing action plan again is what matrix is helping is what you saw dropped just going over policy recommendations, funding mechanisms and implementation guidance. So I would like you to keep in mind this is our our first you know just attempt at this. So you know some of these policies or implementations they they may not fit our community at this time.

So, you know, if you know there are any concerns, I I welcome that or you know, you have any other experience that well, maybe this idea will work better for our situation. We need to be able to implement that and put that into into this plan. Um, you know, just kind of just kind of a guideline to to let us uh give us some ideas. So, the report elements, so the report will address challenges. So, um, it does talk about the rising housing cost, which, you know, we've all been affected by that.

Um, Buckeye has always been a place where, you know, people, you know, they they drive out here, they they love the area and the houses are affordable. I don't see that as much anymore. So, uh, definitely some rising house cost. Um, limited housing diversity. Uh, and again, it's, you know, that's all based on the market. So, uh, you know, we as a city, we really don't have a lot of control over that. And then also the need for more attainable and affordable options.

So, um, that just kind of dives back into diversity, um, housing. So, this document is advisory and it will not dictate where housing will be built. Um, it will not force neighborhood changes. Um, and it will only focus on new developments. Yeah, just to add to the limiting housing diversity bullet point. Now, this is the the demographic data that this is using um is mostly from 2022.

Um so from 2000ish to 2022, uh Buckeye built a lot of single family homes and there weren't many multifamily projects or or anything um of that sort completed during that time. What this is not reflecting and what future updates will is as we get updated data is is the stuff that we've approved that the planning and zoning commission has approved council has approved um over the last couple years.

So um we would expect that based on all the stuff that we've been doing a lot of these quote unquote problematic areas are probably starting to get better already. Um it's just not reflected yet. And to actually touch on that. So the housing needs assessment was actually data based off of our 20 24 data. Um so after we collected all of that and that included um housing stock, rental cost, um the the numbers that came back, of course, you know, Buckeye has a rapid population.

It's at 134% growth since uh 2010. Um our housing stock uh was dominated by large single family homes. 83% were three plus bedrooms. Um the rental cost and home values were rising with affordability pressures across you know all income levels. And um so what the housing needs assessment that we reported to um Arizona Department of Housing and which is also public record at the League of Cities for all of the cities including Buckeye.

It did identify Buckeye um with a shortage of 2,840 units today and projected to grow up to 11,000 um units by 2029. So that's that's should be the focus of this policy plan on how do we uh start bringing in more more diversity of housing so there's not this shortage and again the housing needs assessment uh was compiled of data regarding how many plats do we have entitled how many lots how many um were actually built how many permits were pulled.

So there was a lot of different data that was able to get us these final numbers and you know to be able to predict our growth. This is Deanna. So if the it says where we're short, but does it say what category we're short in? single family, multifamily, rentals, that kind of stuff. That's that status reflect that or um correct. It it just is that where it, you know, and we see it.

We do have a lot of single family as as Ken mentioned, the market has shifted a bit, so we see a little bit more the built ramp, more multifamily. Um we're going to be getting a new assisted living uh facility as well.

But one of the big ahas I I found in the report is we're also lacking move up housing and that you know when we start getting those professionals or let's just say that you know you you've worked you know within the jurisdiction and you've been at your job for 20 plus years and you you want to upgrade do we even have that housing right now for our population? So I really wanted the plan to focus on attainability across across the board.

So and and even looking at the affordability component as well because we don't want to get to a point where we're like, oh, we need to start planning for affordable housing. We we want to be able to make sure that our community is sustainable in housing so that we have that diversity um and we continue our growth and the workforce and all of that good stuff. So um let's see what else. So excuse me. This this is Teddy Teddy B. We keep throwing throwing the word out affordable.

help me understand that because what's affordable to me may not be affordable to the next person. So what does that mean? Yes. So it would so I did make sure that because the first draft we received it it kept saying affordable housing because that's the way the state bill was was read. We need to address affordable housing. Um, I wanted to make sure that this plan talked about attainable housing because then it covers all all walks of life, right?

Just wherever stage you are and we have a pretty young population. Um, so there is also um language in here which was not I don't believe it was part of your draft, but I also wanted there to be a section for affordable public housing.

So there's that distinction of um affordability and then but that's where the policy policies go in you know does the city start investing in land do we start invest um taking more interest in in partnerships you know so that's what this guide should help us but yes so when we're talking I'm hoping that the the document is clear enough that we're we're asking about attainability and then also there's a component of affordability but I do have some numbers on that and just to add like the metric that that the data uses is u AMI which is average to median income.

Um so something that uh 80% or 90% of the population in Buckeye can afford u and not not meaning spending 100% of your paycheck on your your mortgage um but you know a reasonable amount um that would not be considered typically affordable. it might be considered attainable.

Um whereas, you know, something that's more geared to u you know, 30% uh somebody 30% below the the average median income in the area, um you know, would need something quote unquote affordable, uh which is u probably below market value for rent and and those things. Actually, those numbers because I I really like I um you would think that we'd plan those, right? Um, so when you're talking about affordability, you know, the the golden rule is try not to spend more than 30% of your income, right?

Because you still have your other living expenses, you know, food and, you know, entertainment and being able to spend the money in your community. So, um, if you look at the the plan, the data says that the median income for Buckeye is 98,000. Now, with everyone making 98,000, I I would say at our population at at the younger age, we're not quite all making, you know, that top tier. Yes, Diana. Is that number per household or per per household? Okay.

Um, so in regards to the 98,000, if you're you're going to break it down to 30% that goes to your mortgage rate, taxes and insurance, uh, 2,450 per month should go to your rent or to your mortgage. You're like, okay, that's attainable, right? Maybe. Um, but then if you if you're making 60,000 your that rule, you should only be spending anywhere from 14 to,500 per month. So now I'm starting to think, I don't think I've seen rents or mortgages that low.

So then I'm like, okay, let me do some more math. So in today's market, you could afford a house using that 30%. If you found a house for 200,000 or 240,000. Thank you. So, you know, and then you're looking at, okay, at a good interest rate, 6.5, your 20% down payment. So, your safe budget for someone making 60,000, which I would say was more average, right? Even for your workforce employees that are out here, you could afford 1,500 a month.

But if you want to buy a house that is 400,000, which is really on the lower end of the the housing market right now, you would need to if you're making 60,000 and you're using your 30%, you would need to be able to come up with $2,400 a month. Is that affordable? So, when we use the word affordable, I want to make sure that in the document it's it's talking about attainable. Is it affordable for our residents here?

But there'll also be a a component in here talking about affordable public housing as well. So there is a difference. Absolutely. I I think we as a community, you know, if we were a bigger community, maybe our housing needing assess our housing action plan would need to focus on affordable housing. And um I don't most of you should know we do have uh affordable housing uh here in Buckeye just on Mahoney and forth I believe and that's that is um managed by Maricopa County.

Um and then in the document as well we have some of the apartment complex and um some other facilities that do um get federal funding for rental assistance and and so forth. But as the city, do we have a true uh affordable housing product? We do not. But I also wanted that to be in the plan to make sure that um you know if we ever did get to that point that you know we have some guidelines. I think just to add Andrea is doing great so I don't feel like I need to add but just a little more color.

Um most of the the projects that we've seen multif family projects that have come forward um I would say 80% of them have been market rate um so no rent control component no leasing to only you know persons below a certain income level. Um just it was you know high highest bidder wins the unit.

Um, we've probably had two, not not probably, we've had two or three projects um, over the last couple of years that have been um, lowincome housing tax credit projects um, where a certain percentage or in some cases the entire complex, but a certain percentage of units at least are reserved for people below a 60% or a 50% income level. Um, and are all of those in Oldtown Buckeye? Uh we had just had one approved your project. Is that Yuma and Apache?

Yeah, Yuma and Apache um is is one that's outside of it, but two in downtown. Yes. Um so those are not those are very different than what Andrea is talking about when she talks about government housing. Um a lot of people think of the term section 8, which just means government gives you a voucher and you turn it into the landlord and you don't pay them. like it's just you're gone. Um it's free. Those have a bad reputation um you know for probably some valid and some invalid reasons.

Um in this case it's just discounted rent um for uh for residents that are below a certain income level. And these are multifamily projects, not Yes. Um there's not really um a single family. I mean you could do that type of model with a single family type of unit. Um, but it as far as purchasing a home, you're talking about different types of incentives to try to get folks u maybe below the the average income level into a home to own, which is something we want to do.

Um, and Andrea will talk about some strategies there because years ago there was a farmer's home UVA or some Oh, yeah. Farm farm home. Farm homes. Yeah. Where you could buy it. you could buy a house and and and payments were feasible. It got you into a house and go into it. I think that was more of a rural okay project. And and there are various, you know, if you're a if you're a veteran, obviously there are programs available to you.

Um there, you know, if you work for a certain company, they might have their own, but there's not necessarily something that applies for everybody within the city. Um, that's what we could potentially look at doing through this plan or at least identifying what we might want to look further into. This plan's not going to say we're doing this. This is just going to say this is stuff we need to study more.

Basically, I I think you know to approach and not saying that if you have a problem, but to approach something and also to avoid getting to a problem, you need to have that research and that data.

So this way you can always say okay our housing you know um you know is our population dropping why is it that they can't find affordable housing here is there not jobs here is there so you know it's always I think that's why these policies are good sorry for us to always have an update because then you always have that data and you can start seeing trends and you can see where we're making accomplishment accomplishing our goals or or we're not and where we can, you know, try to fix those.

So, a big component of the housing action plan um was looking at key demographics and housing housing um housing findings. So, as you see up there some of the highlights um again Buckeye relatively young population, we do have a larger than average household sizes. So that just reflects that Buckeye is family oriented in character. Um let's see our household income have risen significantly outpacing the regional growth. So you know that those are good those are good markers to be seen here.

Um it does say educational attainment level they lag slightly. Uh disability prevalence particularly among seniors highlights the growing need for accessible housing option. So again, so this data is pointing us to, you know, the gnomes. So, uh, this is good to know, wait, you know, we attract a lot of our snowboards here, but are we going to keep them? You know, what's going to happen?

they you fall in love in Arizona, you fall in love with Buckeye, you you love your neighbors, you love the weather, but then if they're, you know, now you're you've just outlived your or or your rent is is gone skyrocketed, where can you go? Um do do we provide any of that diversity here? So, and then the policy also helps builders look and say, well, what does Buckeye want and need?

and it kind of gives them a guideline as well because I know in the past we said we didn't want multif family but we we kind of need it we we we do need it for you know that workforce that's coming in but you know maybe 20 years ago multif family wouldn't have been part of the suggestion in here it would have been our outlook would have looked a little differently I think I already mentioned most of our housing stock here we have three plus bedrooms um 83% units in 2022.

So that that's a pretty large um amount um with the limited availability of smaller units 0 to one bedrooms at 2% and two bedrooms at 15%. So right there that just shows we just need to add diversity to our portfolio here in Buckeye for housing. Andrea. Um, but isn't the trend kind of downsizing? You know, you know, there in the 80s, 90s, whatever that it was the McMansions, you know, everything was bigger and better and and that kind of stuff.

Is it getting is and and whether that's true or not will this these policies reflect trends in the housing market or or that kind of stuff I don't know if that's a legitimate question or because it does fluctuate some yeah it's an interesting question and the the hard part of that question is how me I might get myself in trouble what percentage of the trends are being driven driven by the buyers and what percentage of the trends are being driven by the home builders um because they're only doing a certain thing and you have no choice but to buy X Y and Z.

So, uh at risk of annoying my our home builder partners, um you know, I think there there's certainly some people, I don't want to say it's a huge percentage that want something different than what they see out there. Um, so that's a that's a challenge that we're we're trying to work with. Um, as mentioned, just going to see if I have any other notes here. Um, as mentioned, uh, it is required to do community engagement. Uh, we did have a resident survey. We had uh it in Spanish and in English.

We pushed it across social media. We pushed it across our uh senior um community meeting that we had in May. I worked with Janine and she was beat on the pavement at festivals and any type of event that was out even out in festival and Tarteso. So, a lot of good outreach.

Um I will say some of the data is skewed because we did get so much involvement from the senior cit citizens that day but again it just brought to our attention um I don't think if they were involved we wouldn't have a lot of the language in here in in talking about how do we address you know our aging population because I actually just got a call from someone in Victory and she was unaware of the uh Um, it's such a living facility that's coming in. And she goes, "I love my community.

My family is here. You know, my church is here. All my stores are here. And I would hate to have to move out if there was that one point that my family would need to put me in care. You know, I don't want I still want them to come visit me because they live here and not have an excuse not to to visit. That facility is very well needed. Very has years. Absolutely. Okay.

So, in regards to the document, um again, it just outlines strategies and goals to address identifying housing needs, uh proposes specific actions, and I I do have it here. We can go over a few. Uh guides policy decisions and resource allocation.

Um, and I I think one of the biggest things too because this this is a new new policy guide and and it touches lightly on here, but this also starts a conversation who's responsible for this, you know, which department is going to um, you know, implement a lot of these policies, but also or is it a collabor collaboration um you know in regards to uh Janine and and Christian we have been meeting with Habitat for Humanity because all of a sudden there is an interest uh we just met with uh the housing the builder what it housing builder institute um and they were from DC uh DC primary Denver um but they are out of Phoenix build strong academy so again just talking about um partnerships in regard ards to providing um workforce education regarding uh carpentry and building.

So you know those are a lot of good um you know policies and implementations that we can put in this plan but you know who do we need to dedicate that you know do we need a separate division? Do we, you know, just do it collabor, you know, different across different departments, you know, how do we want to be able to handle these questions that are starting to come to Buckeye?

Um, because you don't want people to be, you know, contacting one person in one department, getting an answer, and then talking to someone else. and you really want us to be working together so the program is successful in networking and you get a better product. In other communities, how do they handle that? It's mixed. Um yeah, a lot of times, but not always. Um you'll see a a department that kind of focuses on uh resident services u social services type of stuff.

Um but in some places it's a function of their uh finance departments or planning departments. Um it's it's mixed. Yeah. And excuse me. And as uh if you're not aware community services and it's I think it's just it's one year um we have a human services department or division. So that's brand new and you know their main focus is social services. The housing needs assessment plan also uh talks about uh what the city can do.

Uh we wanted to highlight some of the um uh actions that we already already implementing um which we do have reduced fees in downtown the downtown boundaries. Um it's not it doesn't just focus on affordable housing or housing. it it does touch anything within our downtown boundary. Um, you know, do we want to get very specific on, you know, reducing more fees or how, you know, how we handle residential moving forward in our downtown areas?

Um, we are also moving towards community uh development block grant entitlement. So right now we're under Maricopa County as a non-entitlement receiving CDBG funds for our low to moderate income area. So this will be a good opportunity to maybe use some of those resources towards um affordable housing or attainable housing. Uh we're also mandated has been working on our development code updates and a lot of that's been statemandated as well.

Um, and we do address I I think a lot of diversity opportunities in our housing. You know, I I don't think we restrict um a type of housing here that, you know, we're not in compliance with the state bill. Our uh our CMPs, I think we have more than 27 of them, they already voluntarily, you know, uh have density bonuses in their CMPS. they wanted a higher density in certain areas. Uh, you know, that's allowable. Did you say density bonuses? Density bonuses.

So, um they may have maybe uh on their land use plan um you know medium density or higher density and they they may want to shift um uses and even have an allowance for however they have it written in in development standard they may be allowed to do a density bonus. So, uh, depending on what that requirement is or in the safety, I just had never heard that term before. Basically, density beyond what our base code might allow in a particular district.

Uh, compliance with recent housing state legislation. Um, again, this is part of it. uh the housing needs assessment data uh collection and also doing the housing action plan and updating our development code and um we are also exploring streamlining final plots. What that means for the city is they will be administrative and no longer need to come through planning and zoning and council or final. So all of all final or just housing or I believe all the final Mhm. Yeah.

So we won't need planning and zoning anymore. Well, planning and zoning wasn't reviewing final plat um already. They were going to council on consent agendas. Um so they would be taken off the council consent. Will they still be reviewing pre-plat? Uh preliminary plats are uh required to go to administrative also by the state statute. So that is something that uh PNC has been reviewing um that per the new um state law we won't be taking forward to.

Is that all Is that all just to um Warren Peterson's plan to to just you know eliminate all planning whatsoever? No com uh I hope not. But we hope not. I we think you know some of us um I guess we can be cynical from time to time but some of this stuff um just taken by itself are understandable measures. Um there is a long process to do something to build something and a lot of that is because the state uh state requirements have been a certain way and required so many steps along the way.

So, you know, you know, something takes five or six months to get in a, you know, from from start to finish, that seems like a lot of time to some folks. So, you know, eliminating a meeting requirement, if it can shave off a month, I can see the benefit to that. It does have the downside of um having less input and feedback, understandable um to be concerned. And then if you look at our neighbors, California, the same process takes uh two years in a lot of cases. Um, so it's it's all relative.

Um, I didn't think we were doing too bad, but somebody's always complaining. [Laughter] Thank you. Um, just couple more minutes left and I think I just have one more. So in regards to uh some of the policy implementation strategies that our consultant has um suggested was and it was in our report the catalytic development areas identifying those um to add more of the missing middle housing doing that bonus the density bonuses and that would be um in our downtown area.

and then also at the landing uh activity area as well. So those were identified in our housing action plan. Um there was so if there's any development incentives that were in the report that you want to discuss, I'm not going to repeat them all or go through them again. Development code updates and I think just you know this will be a document that we'll always be revising and revisiting.

Um they do talk about accessory dwelling units which we're already in compliance with with our development code. Um one of the things we did ask them to add is uh look into down payment assistance like what types of programs are available for that and um again the human services there is like where do we want this program to live you know when we grow up you know who should we you know have as that main point of contact.

So I do know um just from experience Habitat for Humanity had uh looked on our website and they contacted everyone in the city um because they could not find someone you know their point of contact and um I I think at this stage of you know where we're at we we shouldn't have um someone trying to search you know who can help them and and build those partnerships and relationships with are there any of the implementation or strategy suggestions that you would like to discuss or go over.

Um, Don Bassler, my my question really relates to future building. Um, they just broke ground west of here for 100,000 homes. How does that fit into what you got here? 100,000 homes sounds like a pretty big number to me right now. And so that's a whole another development area that's in Buckeye that that's going on. So how does how does this plan kind of dove into what they are doing?

Um, this plan helped me understand why in the last couple years we've been approving a lot of multifamily units because we didn't have any and it's a shortage and that the report points that out. It makes me feel a little better about all the multifamily stuff we've been approving. Um, seems like residential homes were going away and everything was multi- family that we were approving. So, so the report was very eyeopening from from that standpoint.

Um, one of the things that we did approve uh just east of uh Verado Way was an experiment with small homes on small lots for people to purchase.

Um, I hope that type of an experiment would continue on allowing people to start building some equity in small homes so that they can in fact get their feet on the ground and get into that and to the extent that we can somehow encourage that type of thing, I think that would be extremely extremely positive because for young people and that's what we're attracting in Buckeye right now is young people. that's what's coming in.

And so the fact that we can get them some type of way to build some equity, um, that type of housing would be very, very helpful. The thing that it did point out, and maybe that's because there's a lot of people that were 65 and over, we have a horrible absence of um, senior um, living facilities. I'm not talking um, necessarily seniors.

I'm talking about like the facility that's being built right now on human Sundance Parkway uh where you have a senior facility that will take care of you for life um through stages of that and um we're missing that here. That is definitely an area that Buckeye right now does not have the facilities to do. So, so um I thought the report was excellent, especially if you get the first report that we've done.

Um it's a very comprehensive and complete report and very eye openening on several several issues. So I think it was uh very helpful. My question is how do we move forward with this report when basically builders come in and build what they want to build the 100,000 homes that are going to be built up west of here. I don't know how much influence we're going to have on what they build. um they do that and so so I it's a great report.

I just want to know how we incorporate that into what we do into the future. Yeah, maybe I'll take the first crack at that. With any private property, we can't compel uh an owner to develop a certain type of housing. Um if the zoning allows for multiple things, you know, if you have zoning that allows for single family and multif family, um we could say we prefer single family there or we prefer multif family there. Um but at the end of the day, it's it's their decision.

I think that the ability that the city has um is to make uh make developing things maybe easier or cheaper to incentivize it um or um to um Oh my god, I lost my train of thought.

Um, oh, um, or to provide, you know, assistance when it comes to if if we wanting to to have people build the smaller for ownership product that you talked about, maybe home buyers assistance uh, programs, down payment assistance programs, um, are the way to go um, to get because even though even for that $200,000 house still need a down payment, some folks just don't have it. So um you know I I think our role is is more in that rather than um compelling somebody to to build something.

It's it's more encouraging um via you know finances and stuff like that. Kim Ted Burton question where does the down payment assistance come from? Or is that something that you will all you all search search out to find? I'm sorry. Where does the down payment assisted assistance come from? The monies for the down payment assistance. Is that something that you all will search out or is that something that the city will take on? How does that work?

It's it's very vague in here, but I I think that's where you know this is where we start having those conversations with maybe it's another municipality or if it's the nonprofit or um you know do a request for information um but then again if that's not something that we're interested in uh then we would take those extra steps. Thank you. Yeah, there's a lot of places it could come from. Um, potentially even CDBG funds could be used for for something like that.

Um, it could come out of the general fund. I mean, there's there's a lot of potential ideas. Nobody's decided nobody's decided that we're even going to have that program yet. Um, and if we do, exactly how it will function. It sounds like a good program to make us a more well-rounded community. I do worry about that. How, you know, my son's 31. How's he ever going to afford to buy a house when they're 500,000 is a starter house? It's crazy. When my I bought my first house, it was $24,000.

So, Well, if there's no other discussion, if all hearts and minds are clear, uh, just saying don't be in a hurry, Ken. Okay, we do need to make sure to get to the meeting on time. Just so the commission's aware. Yeah, most of the the last page of the document is a density map um talking about where uh housing is most desirable to do.

Um most of that focus is obviously right here in the area that we're sitting in right now because it has all the commercial establishments and everything else that we need. um for Buckeye to grow and to continue to have the land mass that they the the development of housing um like the 100,000 homes that are being built. We've got to get more commercial in outside of this area.

who is looking at being able to get those types of things up the Parkway so that there is that place to do more housing than just downtown Buckeye because we're obviously here using most of our farmer fields right now in new housing. So, um we're going to run out of that. So, what is happening up the Parkway?

Um I will say all the well the this the CMPs that are in place up there Tavalis being the biggest one um or Floro the first phase of Terraalis and and Howard Hughes is is now working on the bigger portion u behind it to the west uh coming in for a CMP amendment.

Um but all of those master plans festival even uh Northstar Ranch um was a was a somewhat contentious one a few years ago um all of those have a mix of housing types and uh land designated for multif family land designated for single family um of different lot sizes. Um so I I think we're in pretty good shape from a zoning standpoint to continue to kind of grow with diversity of housing. Um what we can't do is say you have to, you know, restrict your rents um on this project.

We we can't do that. Uh we can say we'd love it if you could and maybe they would um but it's not something that we can can require. Um otherwise um you know the other the other thing that Andrea mentioned earlier is it's not just going in the one direction which is more affordable. Um, we do have I I share the same exact concern. We want you to stay here long term and we hope you're successful as all heck.

Um, and if you want to move up to a 4,000 ft home with uh, you know, no neighbors on your back um, that costs a million dollars or 1.5 million, we'd like to have those opportunities for you as well. So, um, I think that's one of the biggest things that, uh, I've taken away is when we work on these big master plans, making sure we're not just looking at the density angle, but also the the the other side of that coin. U VAR does a nice job with it.

Um, but I think we can get more of that in some of these larger master plans, but we need the commercial to support that. Yes. I mean, I moved here with Walgreens and fries. Mhm. That was it. Yeah. And that commercial has now come in and is coming in full blast. People up there don't have Oh, if that's what you're talking about specifically. So, um I don't know if I'm allowed to say. Uh don't don't cry for the margin. Uh I can't remember. This one has a non-disclosure.

I will just say that there's uh there's additional commercial that's coming up north um pretty soon. But for years we always heard that commercial follows the rooftops and then and then industrial follows the you know grows that way. Yes. Yeah. But our ranch is is it only one because they had the houses but then they didn't get any. So this is Adam Copeland. Um um our uh I think what what we're finding is it's very it's interesting how some of these commercial users make a decision.

It's all about the math. Are there seasonal residents? How how how many months out of the year are they here? But on the planning side, our our job is to make sure as you suggested to make sure there's we actually have commercial opportunity instead of zone everything just residential. We need to still have a certain component percentage of commercial uh employment in those types of uses.

And so our economic development department is working hard trying to, you know, market those places, fill those in along with the brokerage community. Um, but it's just depends on the company and the business that we don't have a lot of control over when they make a decision to come. But we do have control over land use and ensuring there is some commercial opportunity. But it's a balance, you know, depending on where you're at.

And we don't want folks driving 15 miles to the grocery store, you know, especially at buildout that that we wouldn't, you know, I think we would uh we would have failed if we we have big communities that are 15 20 miles away from commercial services. U so that's what we're going to be thinking about long term and we're going to be updating our general plan over the next few years.

We'll be looking at th those elements as well that we get a lot more feedback on and more market updates on what's going on in that industry. Mr. Chair B, we're going to have to end the discussion here, but great discussion, robust. I like it. I love the questions. Anyway, let's jer and head over to