By Kenny Quayle | Maricopa Monitor
MARICOPA — The city held a comprehensive Future Planning Meeting this month, and stakeholders had much to share about the current state and possible future of Maricopa.
The day-long meeting Feb. 13 kicked off with a presentation from a land attorney about how regulations around land use could possibly change in the coming year, and how that would affect the city and the General Plan. From Senate bills to worries about erosion of local governmental power, the presentation certainly gave city officials lots to think about for the future of Maricopa.
The Maricopa Association of Governments sent out Executive Director Ed Zuercher and transportation staffer Arminta Syed to provide a project cost update to the gathered city officials.
The crux of the presentation was that inflation, among other things, has driven up the cost of projects previously planned by the city as well as any future building projects. From materials to labor and everything else involved, costs have gone up. Even the state of the construction industry and immigration laws play a role, ultimately leading to the costs everyone is feeling today.
However, due to the lack of scope and relatively high estimated cost of improvements to the State Route 347 widening project in the Maricopa County portion, the estimated cost has actually decreased from $90 million to $75 million. Despite this, Zuercher and Syed were sure to emphasize that these estimates will likely not go down any further, and that the materials and labor costs for all these projects overlap, so costs will rise across the board.
