Buckeye unanimously approves Lennar's 52.4-acre Ventana Ranch 2 mixed-use development with building caps
BUCKEYE, ARIZONA — October 9, 2024

Buckeye unanimously approves Lennar's 52.4-acre Ventana Ranch 2 mixed-use development with building caps

Lennar Homes's Ventana Ranch 2 rezoning approved as mixed-use business park, retail, and attainable housing development designed as transition buffer between industrial warehouses and residential areas, with developer opposing but commission maintaining staff restrictions on building size and cross-dock facilities.

Lennar Homes's Ventana Ranch 2 Rezoning Approved with Building Size Cap and Cross-Dock Restrictions Intact

The Buckeye Planning and Zoning Commission on October 9, 2024, unanimously approved a 52.4-acre mixed-use development proposed by Lennar Homes at the northeast corner of Southern Avenue and Watson Road, designed to function as a transition buffer between massive industrial distribution centers to the south and residential neighborhoods to the north. The approval included a minor General Plan Amendment changing 43.87 acres from Neighborhood to Business Commerce designation, followed by rezoning the full site to a Planned Area Development (PAD) with two distinct sub-areas tailored to commercial, retail, and light industrial uses. The commission rejected the developer's request to remove staff-imposed conditions limiting building size to 200,000 square feet and prohibiting cross-dock facilities, preserving restrictions that planners and commissioners maintained were essential for protecting residential compatibility.

Key Speeches

"We spent the last three years working with staff on this project. What was needed from a housing standpoint back then led to a little bit of an economic boom here in Buckeye from an industrial standpoint. But in 2001 we saw a start of a tick up in interest rates, supply chain issues, and material costs coming out of the COVID downturn, and so about the exact same time as when Ross was finalizing their plan for a very large industrial building to the south, Lennar Homes had to look at their parcel which is directly across the street from this large industrial warehouse and say, does this make sense? Should we build these single family homes down to Southern across the street from a very large almost 2 million square foot building?" — Bill Willet, Lennar Homes

"We went through and tightly defined the allowed uses in both P8A and P8B that fit within this area instead of just saying hey, zone at C2 or zone at I1. Let's do a PAD. I would say it was probably one of the first PADs that we did here in Buckeye. It was a good experience working with Ken and his team to tightly identify some of those uses and really tailor the site to what makes sense in the area." — Bill Willet

"The red is essentially a commercial type of category, but does definitely allow for Business Park and some light industrial uses so long as they're appropriate scale for the area that they're proposed. How is it different from the employment? Really talking about scale and design. The types of buildings that you'll see in business Commerce with light industrial uses won't typically be the million square foot type of buildings we see in employment; they would be things that are much more toned down in terms of scale to the adjacent neighborhoods." — Ken Galiqa, Planning Manager

"I personally would much rather have that next to my house than what we have down here by the post office. I'm glad that I would much rather have that as a property owner and a homeowner right there than dealing with that kind of stuff. I'm here in support of Lennar Homes. They've been open with me and that so far has been in good standings with myself." — Wayne Kirkpatrick, neighboring property owner at 231st Avenue and Southern

"I'm all for commercial development in the city of Buckeye. What concerns me about this project is the potential for the cross-stocking. I knew that the Walmart Distribution Center was there when I moved in, and it's gotten increasingly worse as time has gone on. If we actually have more warehouses north of Southern, regardless of the size, that traffic on Southern is just going to be outrageous." — Vanessa Fulton, Riata West resident

Timeline

Opposition

Number of speakers against: 1 (Vanessa Fulton, Riata West resident)

Main concerns:

  1. Cross-dock facilities would increase truck traffic on Southern Avenue, which is already severely congested
  2. Additional warehouses north of Southern, even if smaller, would worsen traffic conditions for Riata West residents
  3. The Walmart Distribution Center's traffic has grown substantially since 2008, making Southern increasingly difficult to traverse
  4. Concern that the project replicates the pattern of warehouse-residential adjacency rather than creating a genuine transition

Most compelling arguments: Fulton's testimony tied the traffic concern to observable real-world conditions on Southern Avenue and the documented growth of distribution center activity. Her framing positioned the cross-dock restriction as essential to preventing a duplication of the problematic warehouse-to-home adjacency already present at Riata West and Walmart.

Organized groups: None identified.

Support

Number of speakers in favor: 1 (Wayne Kirkpatrick, neighboring property owner)

Main concerns articulated as support:

  1. Appreciation for Lennar Homes's transparency and door-to-door community outreach
  2. Preference for light industrial use over existing nearby uses and conditions
  3. Satisfaction with proposed buffer distances and setbacks
  4. Recognition of the proposal as more compatible than other development scenarios for the site

Most compelling arguments: Kirkpatrick's status as a 50+ year Buckeye resident and on-site property owner with a small manufacturing operation gave his support credibility; his statement that he would "rather have that next to my house than what we have down here by the post office" suggested that light industrial was the lesser of available evils and functionally compatible with his own operations.

Organized groups: None identified. A letter of support from Wayne Kirkpatrick was referenced as being in the public record.

Project Details

Vote Breakdown

Outcome & Next Steps

The Planning and Zoning Commission approved both the minor General Plan Amendment and the Ventana Ranch 2 PAD rezoning unanimously, with all conditions A through P intact. The developer's request to eliminate or modify conditions C and D (the 200,000 sq ft building size cap and cross-dock prohibition) was not granted. The commission's action recommended both items to City Council for final approval. A site plan review will be required before any vertical development begins, at which point the specific building configurations, parking, landscaping, and design details will be reviewed. The developer must complete half-street improvements on Southern Avenue and Watson Avenue. City Traffic Engineer John committed to ensuring Watson Avenue improvements (including lane additions and a traffic signal at Broadway and Watson) would be in place before the project buildout. The next Planning and Zoning Commission meeting is scheduled for two weeks later and will include chair and vice-chair elections and a workshop on the Specific Area Plan with consultant Ed Boy of Matrix.

Controversies & Context

The core tension in this case centered on the appropriate level of regulatory control to impose at the zoning stage versus relying on market forces and future site plan review. Lennar Homes argued that the 200,000 sq ft building size cap and cross-dock prohibition were overly restrictive at the PAD stage, contending that the tightly defined permitted uses and design standards (buffering, lighting, landscaping, setbacks) already constrained development sufficiently and that flexibility was necessary to attract industrial tenants. The developer warned that losing industrial revenue would jeopardize the subsidy mechanism enabling attainable housing sales under $300,000, potentially leaving the P8B parcel vacant. City staff and the commission maintained that the restrictions were appropriate for a transition zone between major warehouses and residential neighborhoods, noting that Buckeye residents had expressed concerns about cross-dock facilities during the neighborhood meeting and in subsequent correspondence.

The project also reflected broader policy tensions in Buckeye: the city's simultaneous pursuit of industrial employment (particularly along I-10 and SR 85) versus in-situ housing affordability and traffic mitigation. Lennar Homes framed the development as a response to changed market conditions post-COVID (rising interest rates, supply chain disruption, material costs) that made all-residential development unviable at the site while addressing a city-declared housing shortage. Commissioner Bassler raised a philosophical challenge: the proposal positioned light industrial as a "transition" from heavy warehouses, yet cross-docks are themselves warehouses; allowing them to proliferate north of Southern would replicate the warehouse-residential adjacency pattern the project ostensibly sought to avoid. This critique highlighted the inherent contradiction in using industrial uses as a buffer to warehouses rather than transitioning directly to residential. Vanessa Fulton's public comment underscored real-world traffic impacts already evident from the Walmart Distribution Center, casting doubt on whether additional industrial activity, however light, would meaningfully reduce vehicle trips compared to the baseline all-residential scenario.

Lennar Homes's three-year negotiation process with staff, culminating in what Willet characterized as agreement on 98% of the project details, illustrated the iterative nature of PAD review in Buckeye. The developer's door-to-door outreach and incorporation of lighting, landscaping, and buffering stipulations beyond staff recommendations indicated a willingness to incorporate community feedback. However, the refusal to compromise on the building size and cross-dock restrictions reflected the commission's view that market flexibility should not override compatibility concerns in a transition zone, particularly given documented traffic and residential sensitivity.

Duration