SAFFORD — The Safford City Council took a step toward reducing the housing pressure facing the city.
During Monday’s meeting, the council unanimously moved forward with the first reading of an ordinance that will rezone a parcel of land near Safford High School to allow for multi-family housing development.
The property owner, Jerry Fisher, is seeking to change his 16.5-acre property on 14th Avenue, just south of Bulldog Boulevard, from Agriculture Residential (A-R) to Multiple Family Residential (R-2).
The change to R-2 will allow for development of homes on minimum 6,000-square-foot lots rather than 43,560-square-foot lot minimum lots as required under the A-R zoning. R-2 zoning would also allow for development of high-density housing, such as duplexes and triplexes, townhomes and apartment buildings.
Embick added that the zoning change would allow for housing for different income ranges.
“What we’re having right now is there’s a large lack of middle housing, workforce housing. We don’t have anything in the middle price range,” Embick said. “We also don’t have very many rental units available for apartments or executive housing or anything of that nature.”
The City Council will take final action on the rezoning request at the second reading of the ordinance at a future meeting.
