Queen Creek's Planning and Zoning Commission will hold a public hearing Wednesday, Oct. 14, on a request to allow up to 250 apartments on the southern end of The Union, a roughly 25-acre mixed-use project planned for the southwest corner of Queen Creek and Ellsworth roads.
Town planning staff recommend approval, according to the commission's agenda packet. The meeting starts at 6 p.m. in the Community Chambers, 20727 E. Civic Parkway.
What the request would change
The land is already zoned for mixed use, which allows retail, office and hotel buildings without further hearings. What it does not allow is many more homes. When the council rezoned the corner and the land to its west in 2020, it capped housing across the combined site of about 50 acres at 500 units.
The Acero apartments next door took about 476 of those, leaving room for roughly 24 more, staff wrote.
The developer, Creation Equity, is asking for a new cap of 250 units on about 6.5 acres at the site's southern edge, with buildings up to 70 feet or five stories. That is 20 feet below the 90-foot height the current zoning permits. Counting Acero, the two projects would total 726 apartments, or about 14.5 units per acre across the larger site.
Staff say no builder has been identified for the apartment parcel, and it would still need its own site plan approval. An earlier version also placed apartments at the northwest corner; that idea has been dropped, and a proposed condition would bar multifamily housing there.
The commercial parcels in the middle and northeast of the site already have site plan approval, according to the staff report.
The developer's narrative lays out four parcels: apartments on one, commercial on two others, and a fourth for commercial use including a hotel and offices.
