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Updated: April 22, 2024 @ 9:24 am
The Harris Place homes likely will sell for seven figure prices. (City of Chandler)
The Harris Place homes likely will sell for seven figure prices. (City of Chandler)
A proposed housing project making its way to the City Council might represent the future of new single-family homes in Chandler.
There won’t be many and they will be expensive.
The Planning and Zoning Commission recommended approving the Harris Place development at its Aug. 16 meeting. The subdivision would be built on the south side of Ocotillo Road, just west of McQueen between Kerby Way and 119th Street.
There would only be nine homes in the subdivision. The developer said in response to concerns from neighbors that the homes will likely be sold for $1.2 million to $1.4 million.
As Chandler nears buildout, it’s currently at 93%, there is less room for new subdivisions. Most of the remaining 7% has been reserved for industrial space, ensuring there are enough jobs for the city’s residents.
Most of the housing left to be built will most likely be multifamily as developers try o get as many homes into as little space as possible.
So projects like Harris Place will be the exception.
“That is a really big bucket of demand and nine added to it doesn’t make a huge dent in it, but there’s 100 people vying for nine homes,” said Kevin Mayo, Chandler’s planning administrator.
That’s not to say all single-family home development is mostly done.
Rick Brammer of Applied Economics gave the Chandler Unified School District Governing Board a briefing earlier this month on is future demographics.
He projected that about 400 single-family homes would be built in the next three to five years inside the district’s boundary. However, most of those would be outside the city’s boundary in the Lagado development in Queen Creek.
The Harris Place proposal is putting together some lots on Maricopa County land that the developer hopes will be annexed into the city.
The nine homes would sit on 3.4 net acres in a public right-of way cul de sac with the entrance off Kerby Way to the west. The nine homes would be between 3,281 to 4,688 square feet and be built by GBC Custom Homes.
The average lot size is 8,371 square feet.
Initially, there was quite a bit of opposition to the project by neighbors, many of whom live on larger lots on county land to the south of the proposed development.
However, the developer worked out compromises with them during public meetings.
For example, many were concerned their new neighbors would object and complain about animal noises since many of those lots have farm animals.
The compromise was to write into the deed that there are farm animals nearby so anyone buying property in the subdivision knows what they are getting upfront.
Another concern was traffic, with some neighbors wanting a traffic control signal installed at Kerby Way.
Staff told the Planning and Zoning Commission that the city traffic engineer looked at the project and determined the nine additional homes would not generate enough vehicle traffic to warrant an additional signal.
In fact, a light would not be possible because it is too close to an already existing light at the Paseo Trail crossing.
In the end, opposition dropped. Staff was aware of only one email that had arrived the morning of the P&Z meeting that opposed the project. There were more emails that supported it.
One Chandler real estate expert believes smaller projects with bigger price tags is the future of new single-family homes in the city.
“Chandler is definitely … transitioning into a next stage of maturity,” said Peter Kamboukos, co-owner of KP Elite Team at EXP Realty in Chandler.
“There’s just not a lot of room left in Chandler where we can build these out at this point. A million-dollar property is no longer the anomaly it used to be, even three or four years ago.”
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