Seventeen residents came to speak at a Winslow planning and zoning meeting last week to address their concerns with a new housing development. The meeting dealt with a PAD or planned area of development for a large vacant lot near Winslow Junior High and the I-40 that many Winslow residents associate with the practice fields for little league.
This lot is owned by Stephen Lesondak, a developer who owns 11 rentals in Winslow and this PAD would be for 80 duplexes (or 160 dwelling units). These dwellings will sit on about 14.5 acres, which qualifies it as medium density housing.
Planning and Zoning Officer Jason Sanks said that medium density housing is something that can be hard to get developers to do because often times their strategies involve either high density housing like apartments or low-density housing like single-family detached homes. Sanks explains that this helps satisfy a goal of the recently adopted Winslow General Plan, which calls for more diversity in the density of housing.
Almost all of the criticisms of the plan boil down to two issues: traffic and drainage. This empty lot caps the ends of Mahoney and Gilmore streets before I-40. The vacancy of this lot has allowed many nearby residents to enjoy only local traffic on these blocks which will change once the development goes through. Almost everyone who spoke added a caveat that they would still like to see housing there and build up their local community but 160 units would cause undue stress on those streets. However, the city engineer said that drainage might actually become better when the new development goes in but because of city code would not allow this development to direct stormwater to these streets causing increase flooding on streets that already have no stormwater drainage.
Some residents expressed concerns that affordable housing will bring more crime to the area but there is nothing in the PAD or in any related materials that suggests this is going to be affordable housing. Lesondak says that he plans to rent these units out at $1,350 each a month, all of the units will be three bedrooms and two and half baths.
During the public hearing Sanks did a thorough job of noting every concern made by the residents and giving time to Lesondak, himself or the city engineer time to address it and discuss these issues with the residents even if they disagreed with the outcomes of this development. Sanks ultimately gave his recommendations to council to approve the PAD.
In an interview following the meeting, Sanks stated, “When evaluating rezoning cases, the ZHO (zoning hearing officer) relies heavily on the city’s adopted general plan when making a recommendation to the city council. The 2024 General Plan was thoroughly developed and reviewed by the public and city council for over a year and just adopted last month.
“This 15-acre property is designated in the 2024 General Plan for housing such as duplexes, has all necessary infrastructure nearby and is situated immediately adjacent to the freeway and a junior high school. Winslow greatly needs more housing, and housing diversity, and this project fills the gap between single-family homes and apartments. Recommending denial of a project that meets all of these criteria would be difficult to justify by the ZHO.”
The council will vote on this in their meeting on Sept. 10, at which time there will be another chance for the public to speak and urge a council decision. However, even if the council approves the development that does not mean Lesondak has the right to put shovels in the ground just yet, all it does is it give him a two-year window to submit the final PAD plans at which time council will review and vote on it again in a public meeting.
