City of Buckeye building requirements for new subdivisions are adding months to new development timelines in Buckeye and increasing costs for builders and homebuyers in the City.
Rose Law Group Reporter Staff
The City of Buckeye has implemented a policy that has homebuilders up in arms. This policy is unique among Valley cities we surveyed and requires homebuilders to have fully paved streets in their subdivision before they can move forward with commencing construction of model homes and production homes for sale. This arduous policy means that builders that usually work concurrently on horizontal infrastructure and housing construction must instead stagger their construction so that horizontal infrastructure is mostly complete before they can even begin building homes. As a result, homebuilding and development of new subdivisions in Buckeye is taking longer and costing more money than anywhere else in the Valley.
A survey of 16 other Valley permitting jurisdictions including 14 municipalities and Maricopa and Pinal Counties shows that not a single other jurisdiction has a policy this restrictive. The Valley’s most restrictive policy was adopted at the Buckeye staff level in 2015 and prohibits the use of temporary fire access roads to provide access to areas under construction. Instead, Builders are required to complete road paving before going vertical adding time and additional carrying costs to new home development in Buckeye. It can take 6 months to build a new production home and if builders cannot begin start that construction until after they complete paving, the policy adds all that time onto a Buckeye new home project. The carrying costs over this time period are a drag on new building in the City that isn’t present in the rest of the Valley.
It is unclear why fire access roads that are sufficient to provide emergency access to subdivisions under construction in 16 other Valley jurisdictions are deemed insufficient to provide access in Buckeye. It is illegal for construction traffic to block access on temporary fire access roads and the City has standards in place for the design of these fire access roads. Homebuilders are hopeful that the City will tweak the policy to allow for efficient business to be done and to keep housing prices in check.
