One of the nation’s largest homebuilders is eyeing the Club West Golf Course for 573 single-family homes.
But pre-application documents filed with the Phoenix Planning and Development Department show DR Horton must clear a series of significant planning hurdles before a more detailed plan can move through the city’s approval process.
Those hurdles include a rezoning, amendments to the city’s General Plan and Foothills Planned Community District, and revisions addressing open space, hillside protections, traffic and other issues.
The base plan for 573 homes is over three times the number of houses that the former course owner, The Edge, pitched in 2020 before it became enmeshed in a four-year legal battle it eventually won.
That battle ended with a judge’s ruling that whoever owns the course can do what it wants with the 162-acre parcel rather than be required to keep it only for golf.
The Edge, which bought the property from Wilson Gee in 2019 for about $750,000, sold the course last month to a consortium of 15 investors called Community Harmony Coalition LLC for $2.1 million.
Gee closed the course in 2016 because of the high cost of city potable water to irrigate it and the unavailability of gray water. A potential buyer returned it to a lush golf course from late 2017 to February 2018, but he eventually went broke over city water bills totaling over $200,000.
DR Horton, which has not bought the land from Harmony, faces a long road in getting approval to develop a total 162 to 167 acres at the southeast corner of 17th Avenue and Chandler Boulevard.
So extensive are the issues it must resolve that planners already have suggested that DR Horton consider early outreach to city Councilman Kevin Robinson, residents, neighborhood organizations and the Ahwatukee Foothills Village Planning Committee chair.
The developer would have to obtain an amendment to the General Plan as well as a rezoning – which both would require City Council approval, based on recommendations by the VPC and city Planning Commission.
D.R. Horton is the largest homebuilder by volume in the country, capturing roughly 10% to 12% of the total U.S. housing market and about the same market share in the Valley – making it Arizona’s largest homebuilder.
In March it paid Blandford Homes nearly $36 million for 52.8 acres of the 373-acre Upper Canyon development next to Club West. It is one of three homebuilders – along with Blandford and Pulte Homes – on that project.
While the Club West documents DR Horton has filed offer the first glimpse at the proposal’s scale, they do not represent an endorsement by city staff or even a firm plan by the builder.
Instead, those documents identify the issues DR Horton must address before submitting a formal rezoning application.
Hurdles include policy
Perhaps the biggest obstacle is that Phoenix’s long-range planning documents do not currently envision the property being used as proposed.
Planning staff wrote that the project is “not consistent with the General Plan Land Use Map designation” and will require a General Plan amendment changing part of the site to residential land use.
Staff also noted updated master plans will be required as part of the rezoning process.
In plain terms, DR Horton must persuade city officials to recommend approval of General Plan and zoning changes. And planners made it clear in the builder's initial filings that they want far more detail on how the development would function than what DR Horton has provided.
Among other requirements, staff said the rezoning application must include a detailed site plan showing the neighborhood layout, circulation and open space.
The developer is seeking to change the property’s zoning from its current designations to R1-10 Planned Community District, which would allow the proposed single-family neighborhood.
Open space a concern
Open space has emerged as an early concern.
One of the most pointed comments from city planners involves parks and common areas.
“This site plan does not show or list any open space,” planners said in their initial review, directing the developer to redesign portions of its plan before moving forward.
City planning documents list the project’s density at 3.53 dwelling units per gross acre. In evaluating that ratio for compliance with city development standards, planners said it would require more open space than normal.
Staff also indicated enhanced landscaping and buffering should be incorporated along the project’s perimeter.
Hillside regulations also come into play.
Because portions of the former golf course lie near South Mountain, the proposal must also be evaluated under Phoenix’s hillside development regulations.
Those rules are intended to protect environmentally sensitive areas and often impose stricter development standards than those applied to conventional subdivisions.
City planners specifically recommended early coordination with the city’s Hillside Coordinator as the proposal advances. They also recommended the builder talk with the Water Services Department.
Traffic also an issue
Traffic will almost certainly become another major issue.
Phoenix requires every rezoning applicant to submit a Traffic Impact Analysis before a rezoning application is considered complete and before any hearings can be held.
That traffic study must be based on the maximum number of homes DR Horton wants to build even if it reduces that number.
The documents submitted so far by DR Horton are among the earliest steps in Phoenix’s rezoning process. No public hearings have been scheduled, and the city has not taken a position on the project.
Instead, the pre-application comments serve as a roadmap of the issues planners believe must be addressed before DR Horton can formally seek permission to redevelop the former golf course.
The Edge’s plan in 2020 never even got as far as a pre-application submission.
It had proposed to finance a course re-do by selling three pieces of the golf course to builder Taylor Morrison for construction of 164 single- and two-story houses.
But when some residents objected to the plan, citing partly the homes’ impact on their mountain views, Taylor Morrison dropped out.
What followed was a lawsuit first by the Club West homeowners association, which said the rights to develop the land belonged to the HOA. A judge rejected that claim.
Then a group of homeowners that banded together under the name of the Club West Conservancy said the course’s CC&Rs required the site always be a championship golf course.
It also said prior homebuilders UDC Homes and Shea Homes had promised to keep it a golf course in sales agreements with early homebuyers.
A judge ruled the CC&Rs did not require the site to be used only for golf and that the Conservancy could not show sales agreements required that either. The judge's decision, however, did not detail the land's possible uses, as that will be up to the owners of the course.