On May 13, the Scottsdale REALTORS® association and Greater Phoenix chapter of the Asian Real Estate Association of America hosted a 2024 Housing Opportunities Forum before members, city staffers, elected officials and volunteer leaders.
Arizona Housing Coalition CEO Nicole Newhouse moderated the event. She shared her organization’s support of Housing Bills 2720 (accessory dwelling units; requirements) and 2721 (municipal zoning; middle housing), then touted the annual Arizona Housing Forum, starting August 21 at the We-Ko-Pa Casino Resort.
In her “Building Housing for All Incomes” presentation, Dominium Government Relations Manager Sarah Shambrook gave an overview of Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) which have helped develop more than 58,000 homes in Arizona. She also identified workforce housing barriers such as zoning challenges and common NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) rhetoric about traffic, property values, parking, views, water and crime.
Shambrook said that providing community benefits can improve public support. She cited a successful Goodyear case study where Dominium proposed 657 affordable apartments then offered to xeriscape an adjacent parkway, add community flex space, provide potential school contributions of $600 per unit and commission public art by high school students for college credit. Shambrook also advocated for the Home Is Where It All Starts campaign.
As staff liaison for the Scottsdale REALTORS® Housing Opportunity Committee, Lee Cooley showed how a mixed-use project by Caliber had stalled, despite its intention of providing support housing for essential workers near the Shea Medical Center and having met key sections of the city’s General Plan.
Since maintaining “neighborhood character” can also be NIMBY code for “people like me,” Cooley focused on the Character & Culture portion of the Plan which only allows a Land Use Mixture of 3% for Mixed-Use Neighborhoods, including apartments and high-density townhomes.
According to the project summary, Mercado Courtyards would revitalize a long-vacant office complex with a new residential community that included much-needed workforce housing. It also appeared to check off three Character & Culture boxes:
✅ Land Use Policy 3.2 seeks to integrate housing, primarily in mixed-use neighborhoods, to support a jobs/housing balance.
✅ Residential Land Use/Mixed-Use Neighborhoods allows higher-density housing with complementary office or retail uses.
✅ Arts, Culture & Creative Policy 4.3 sustain community character with partners like the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.
So, what delayed Mercado Courtyards? Opponents said it would block views or use too much water; others didn’t like the design or size of the parking garage, and in December 2022, Scottsdale City Council rejected the project by a vote of 5 to 2.
Like a dog with a bone, Caliber is making a fourth run at the Mercado project which started out in 2021 as Ironwood 92 with 325 units but was recently renamed Mercado Village and downsized to 255 units.
Cooley concluded by citing that Scottsdale is one of the Top 5 cities in the country with a per capita population of 65 years or older, and it has the highest number of residents in that age range for any city with a population over 100,000.
“We need to remember these statistics and support workforce housing in Scottsdale’s ‘Cure Corridor’,” he said.
