Below is an article from AZCentral.com explaining Randy Jones' fight to oppose the high-density Berkana Apartments complex that is currently approved to be built at 27th Ave and Baseline. Please read this article, and if you are interested in helping with Randy's initiative, please read the follow-up posts on this subject:
Follow-up post #1:
http://www.trailsideblockwatch.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=188Follow-up post #2:
http://www.trailsideblockwatch.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=187Follow-up post #3:
http://www.trailsideblockwatch.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=186-------------------------------------------------------------
Laurie Roberts' Columns & Blog
http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/LaurieRoberts/15823Can an average guy really fight city hall and win?
Randy Jones seems like a fairly regular guy. He's an auditor, a pro with numbers, and yet here he is, mounting a campaign against a city that statistically speaking…
… Well, let's just say that not too many regular guys fight city hall and win. Still, he marches on.
Says Jones: “We want to send a message to the Phoenix City Council that hey, you know what, you need to listen to your citizens.”
That should get a good guffaw over in the power corridor at city hall. These are the people who last month approved a 20-fold increase in density in Jones' neighborhood, a move that'll add hundreds of new residents to an area where the streets are already parking lots and the schools are already overflowing.
This, at the request of the ultimate insider -- a former mayor turned developer.
Jones lives in Laveen, an area that not so long ago had more goats than people. This rural outpost on Phoenix's southwest side began to change a few years ago as developers discovered the area and suburbanites moved in, drawn by quick commutes and a rural feel. Jones and his wife, Jen, moved in three years ago, sure of what they were buying given the city's own plan for low- and medium-density housing in the area.
That, however, was then and this is now. Now, when former Mayor Paul Johnson has set his sights on 27th Avenue and Baseline, where the city's plan calls for one house an acre. His request: let me build 20 times that.
Neighbors were horrified at the prospect of jamming 517 apartments and townhouses where 27 houses are supposed to be. The local citizens group called it “an incredible departure from the General Plan and thoroughly inconsistent with the surrounding approved and established uses.”
So naturally the Planning Commission approved it. Unanimously. And the City Council voted for it, 7-1. Only Councilman Claude Mattox dissented. Mayor Phil Gordon abstained, citing a conflict. I'm guessing that's because the developer is his best friend and chairman of his finance committee – not to mention the man he tapped to chair the 2006 bond campaign to raise funds to build ASU's downtown campus.
Johnson said his entree at city hall is actually a handicap, not a help. “You're a past mayor and everyone is nervous about it,” he said. “What sold the project was the product.”
It's one of a number of high-density developments Johnson is building on the city's west side. The idea, he said, is to put in affordable housing so that “community champions” -- teachers, police, etc. – can afford to live in Phoenix, easing commutes and combating sprawl. The development, he said, will be a vast improvement over the shacks and trailers that now dot the site.
That may be so, but is it a vast improvement over what all the city's plans and studies have said this area is supposed to be?
Jones says no. He and his neighbors have launched a referendum aimed at killing Johnson's project. They have 30 days – until Feb. 8 -- to file nearly 10,000 signatures of Phoenix voters in hopes of putting the project to a public vote. (For information: 602-445-6332.)
If successful, he'll be that rare fellow who fought city hall -- and won. The only time I recall that happening was in 2005, when Donald Trump tried to plop 140-foot condos at 26th Street and Camelback, right where a 56-foot building is supposed to be. In that case, citizens tripped over themselves to stop it and the City Council, properly rebuked, did a U-turn.
Now Jones is hoping for a repeat performance and other neighborhood groups are coming to his aid. Among them is longtime Arcadia activist Paul Barnes, all rested up from his fight last year to stop to a developer from shoving a trio of high rises right up the nose of Camelback Mountain.
“It's something all of us are going to face,” Barnes said. “They're taking us down, neighborhood by neighborhood. It needs to be stopped.”
(Column published Jan. 30, 2008.)
