Why obscure Camelback Mountain with a mid-rise building?
A 75-foot mid-rise in east Phoenix should be alarming — to Arcadia-area neighborhoods and residents, and to Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego and City Council members who will decide the proposed project’s fate Wednesday.
It has been astounding to see the project proposed for the northwest corner of 44th Street and Camelback Road waltz through the village planning committee and the city planning commission with minor changes, without challenging the developers’ insistence on building 75-foot buildings — something never remotely contemplated by the Camelback East Village plan.
An acknowledgement and a pushback: The 56-foot building on the southwest corner of the intersection was never part of the plan either, but it should be considered a mistake, not a precedent for trashing the plan even further.
Ignoring decades of thoughtful urban planning, these “planning” bodies act as though this land has just been discovered and is open to the highest bidder. At best, it appears an example of the developers’ sizable budget allowing them to hire paid petition circulators to gather signatures of support.
At the village meeting we even witnessed city development staff pushing the project, because the larger the project, the more tax revenue to the city!
It’s clear that in this era, neighborhood residents’ only recourse is to the City Council itself.
The Phoenix General Plan identifies three cores for the Camelback East Village: primary cores at 24th Street and Camelback and 44th and Van Buren streets, and a secondary core at 44th Street and Thomas Road.
The corner of 44th Street and Camelback has never been designated for core-type development, and for good reasons:
1 There are other designated development cores in close proximity west and south.
2 On the north side of the intersection, 44th Street/Tatum Boulevard is the only north-south artery serving northeast Phoenix through Paradise Valley. It is a major bottleneck at rush hours and would become even worse with a mid-rise office building necessitating a new light just above the intersection at Steak 44.
3 Most importantly, tall buildings would compete with Phoenix’s signature natural landmark, Camelback Mountain.
Barry Goldwater’s last venture in politics was to protect Camelback Mountain. In the early 1960s, the entire mountain was in private ownership. Homes were being built ever higher, and there had been serious talk of a hotel on the summit. Senator Goldwater led a political and fundraising effort that preserved the remaining high ground as a Phoenix park.
We urge Mayor Gallego and the City Council to draw the line on development heights at 56 feet and be remembered on the side of Senator Goldwater in history — following the long-term interest of city residents, not the money.