P&Z eyes potential business center
The Yuma County Planning and Zoning Commission voted Monday to recommend approval of modifications to county regulations and a tentative map for a planned commercial center on Fortuna Road south of Interstate 8, which a representative said has a “commitment” to build a hotel.
Attorney Barry Olsen, presenting the cases for longtime Foothills developer Ross Wait’s Wild Coues Deer Investments LLC, said Wait is moving to act on building momentum for retail in the area, as evidenced by another Wait project, a center including a Verizon Wireless store and other shops currently under construction across the street.
“We have a commitment for a hotel to go on this site, so people are looking at the numbers, they’re looking at Yuma, they’re looking at the Foothills, where you’ve got two hotels that are very successful,” he said. But even three or four months’ delay at the county level could give the unnamed company time to reverse course, if economic conditions begin to worsen.
The proposed project is being called Fortuna Palms and is at the northwest corner of Fortuna and 35th Place, just north of Walgreen’s. Besides the hotel, the plan sets aside three lots for fast-food restaurants, three for other shops and
one for an auto-parts store.
Olsen said the development is projected to create 125 to 150 jobs for the area: “Right now, let’s all recognize the obvious. Out in that area and around the community we finally have some economic momentum again.”
The six county subdivision regulation modifications being sought by Wait are mostly related to one requirement under county Public Works construction standards: that the center have 60-foot wide roadways for access from Fortuna and within the development. Olsen and project engineer Kevin Dahl said that requirement is excessive and would force removal of at least one of the lots.
Olson said the center at the southwest corner of Fortuna and South Frontage Road, which includes the Fry’s Food and Drug and several smaller stores, was built with 30-foot wide roadways without needing special approval, because it was under the six-lot minimum to qualify as a subdivision.
Instead it was treated as a “land division” by county planning staff, which approved the 30-foot access road, Olsen said.
He said Yuma Palms and other retail areas in the city and county have similar street widths. “It’s not like we’re asking the county to reinvent the wheel, we’re just asking you to apply the same standards in a subdivision that staff would apply, without coming to you, on a land division, as we’ve seen with Fry’s,” Olson said.
He said a center lane will not be needed for the driveway on Fortuna because only right turns will be allowed into and out of that center, and the internal roads will be privately maintained by the developer. There will be additional access from Prescott Avenue, which runs along the west edge of the property.
Olsen also said the County’s subdivision requirements apply to both commercial and residential projects, which don’t always fit the business developments.
Yuma County Land Development Engineer Arturo Alvarez argued the wider roads were necessary “since it will not accommodate a central turning lane, and the uses will generate significant traffic, and requires more than two lanes. The standard was introduced in our standards to accommodate this type of commercial development.”
The commission voted 9-0 to endorse all the modifications sought by the developer, many saying they don’t like having different rules for land divisions versus subdivisions, and not differentiating between commercial and residential subdivisions.
Commissioner Danny Bryant said, “I checked around in other jurisdictions and most of them have two sets of regulations. Have we ever considered a different set of regulations for commercial? It just seems like the residential (regulations) don’t fit the commercial subdivisions very well.”
Alvarez said the only distinction currently made in the standards is for internal roads, where the county requires wider roadways in the commercial areas than residential areas.
The Fortuna Palms cases are scheduled to go the Board of Supervisors for a final decision Sept. 18. Olsen said construction could start shortly thereafter if the project is approved.
The 9-acre project includes the property where a variety of food stands and trucks have been operating for about 15 or 20 years, Olsen said in an interview Tuesday.
“My client has been in contact with the vendors for at least probably a year or so, that the property was at a point to be developed,” he said.
The commission also voted Monday to recommend approval of:
• Four more special use permits for McFarland Solar, on parcels totaling 1,546 acres north of Dateland.
All four properties are south of Paloma Avenue between the alignments of Avenue 68E and Avenue 70E, and are currently zoned for one house for every 40 acres. Their projected total output is 230 megawatts. These are adjacent to three more properties totaling 1,760 acres for which the firm obtained special use permits late last year. Projected output for those properties is 290 megawatts.
Salt Lake City-based Sustainable Power Group plans to begin installing pole-mounted solar panels on the McFarland sites next year, Permitting Project Manager Adam Furman told the commission. They have an expected lifespan of about 25 years, after which they will be removed and the land allowed to go back to its natural state, he added.
The commission unanimously voted in favor of the permits, without comment.
• A rezoning request for a 10-acre property zoned for one house per 10 acres to one residence per two acres, at 2526 E. County 15th St., after developer Ramon Arias agreed to realign an aging canal just north of his property to the property line.
• Another rezoning request for a 10-acre property zoned for one house per 10 acres to one residence per two acres, in the vicinity of Avenue 4 1/2 E and County 12 3/4 Street, outside Yuma.
• A tentative map for the 10 East RV residential subdivision, at the northeast corner of Avenue 10E and 34th Street. The commission recommended denial of a request to modify the subdivision regulation requiring the developer to put in a gravel access road.