By Mark Moran | East Valley Tribune
Developer Jason Barney had visions of creating a welcoming new residential area right across the street from the new and expanded Founder’s Park in Queen Creek, featuring a cluster of new townhomes.
“The housing would have been facing the park – kind of a ‘neighborhood-y’ vibe to it,” said Barney, part of the same family that has been farming and developing land here since the 1940s.
He also planned an apartment building and an assisted living facility that town officials said would add 662 new units to an area where it already had okayed 495 units.
But just a few hours after an early morning meeting of the Town Economic Development Commission last week, Barney withdrew his application to rezone roughly 36 acres at the corner of Ryan and Signal Butte roads from Industrial to Neighborhood.
“I got a good enough read on the mindset of the town on the politics of the town and they’re not ready to support that at this point.” Barney said.
