Light Rail Transit Station Area Planning

12th St. & Washington/Jefferson

The 12th St. & Washington/Jefferson Light Rail stations consist of two METRO platforms. The eastbound platform is located on Jefferson St. and the westbound platform is located on Washington St. The station planning area consists of a ½ mile area around the stations contains a mix of commercial, residential, religious institutions, government uses and undeveloped land. The community has a unique opportunity to create a plan to create new exciting development within this station area.

Community Meetings

The Station Area Plan will be the community's vision for how the area around the METRO Light Rail Station should develop in the future. The Station Area Planning process will bring together property owners, residents, business owners, developers and all interested persons to work together to create a plan for this Station Area. A series of community meetings will be held to create the Station Area Plan for the 12th St & Washington/Jefferson METRO Station. The introductory meeting was held on November 4, 2004 at the Shaw Elementary School.

Meeting Summaries

Introductory Meeting: Approximately 25 people attended the introductory meeting at Shaw Elementary School on November 4, 2004. A presentation (1.0 MB, PDF¹)about the area around the 12th St. & Washington/Jefferson METRO Station was provided and is available in Adobe PDF format.

1st Community Workshop: Approximately 15 people attended the second Station Area Plan meeting held on February 16, 2005 at the Shaw Elementary Cafeteria located at 1342 East Washington Street. This meeting was designed as a Community Workshop to begin establishing priorities, goals and objectives for the 12th Street and Washington and Jefferson Street Area Plan. Principal Planner Sandra Zwick began the meeting by reviewing the Station Area. Planning process and recapping major themes of the previous Introductory meeting. Next she presented a slide show illustrating variations of successful Transit Oriented Development around the country as well as here in Phoenix.

The participants were divided into 3 working groups in which planning staff facilitated a discussion regarding neighborhood characteristics and the following themes: Mixed Use Development, Housing & Density, Pedestrian Acessways, Public Spaces, Art & Markets, and Signage. After nearly an hour of discussion, each group had a chance to share their findings with the larger workshop. Comments included favoring additional neighborhood services, design that was sensitive to existing neighborhood features, preserving historic neighborhood character, focusing on vehicular congestion around the station while creating safe spaces. Some of the group expressed concerns regarding neighborhood preservation and others voice optimism regarding future development for the surrounding station area.

Panel of TOD Experts: Approximately 30 people attended the Transit Oriented Development Panel of Experts Meeting at the Gateway Community College on April 19, 2005. The three panelists, Ed Lewis, Butte Properties, Jim Pederson, Pederson Group, and Tim Sprague, Portland Place presented and answered questions from the audience on future development around the light rail stations. They addressed the importance of identifying development opportunities early, as well as the change in housing demand with the decrease in "traditional" families and the increase of smaller families. In addition, the speakers discussed developers' responsibility to answer to a range of interests, transportation as a household expense, increasing development costs for mixed use projects, TOD as a lifestyle, and the need for high density to keep units "affordable" to offset land costs. The audience showed a high level of interest and understanding of the importance of their involvement in a successful Stationary Area Plan.

2nd Community Workshop: On July 27, 2005 a community workshop was held at Shaw Elementary School. The community workshop was critical in the development of the station area plan. Planning staff reviewed the discussion of the previous visioning workshop and handed out copies of the visioning results.

Workshop participants identified opportunities and constraints impacting development within the station area. In addition, participants reviewed a preliminary land use plan and recommended land use alternatives and heights for new development within the station planning area.

Opportunities identified included:

• Close proximity to transportation, downtown, sports venues, medical facilities, schools, churches
• Vacant land available for development
• Eastlake community park
• Historic neighborhoods

Constraints identified included:

• Crime, drug use, transients
• Open land uses and storage
• Noise
• Bad signage
• Blighting conditions
• Vacant lots
• Not enough activity in the evening

Workshop Participants Would Like to See:

• Reduction of blight conditions
• Mixed use development with commercial and residential uses
• More vitality 24/7 uses
• More houses
• A community identity to build upon existing neighborhoods
• Area become a destination location not just a drive through corridor
• Strengthen single family neighborhoods
• More pedestrian access and shade
• Incorporate local history/heritage into design of development and station

Community Meeting: The community meeting was held at Shaw Elementary School. Twenty-five people attended the meeting. Because it had been some months since the last meeting, planning staff reviewed the past workshop's accomplishments. The past workshops included

• creating vision statements for the station planning area
• assessing community opportunities and constraints
• identifying what the community would like to see based upon the vision and positive and negative aspects of the station area. (Please see previous workshop results for this detailed information)
• creating land use alternatives for the station planning area.

Staff also updated the participants about the community review of the Eastlake Neighborhood Plan. The Eastlake Neighborhood Redevelopment Plan was scheduled to sunset in 2006. At the request of the community the city council extended the plan for four years in order to review the plan in coordination with the creation of the 12th & Washington/Jefferson St. Station Area Plan. Staff from Planning, Neighborhood Services and Personnel worked with stakeholders from the Eastlake, Special and Booker T. Washington neighborhoods over a period of 6 months identifying changes in the community affecting the existing plans, reviewing the plan goals, objectives, land use and zoning. A new land use map was approved by the community working group for the Eastlake, Special and Booker T. Washington areas. The community group was not able to reach agreement on height for these areas.

The station area land use plan includes the land use map as approved by the community group. Also included on the station area land use map are height and density limits. The height and density limits are as recommended by planning staff.

Staff reviewed the proposed land use, height and density map for the station planning area. There were several questions concerning security, land use changes and zoning. Staff will mail out to the community copies of the proposed land use, height and density map as well as a summary of the changes from the existing plans. A follow-up community meeting will be held in about a month to review the proposed map after everyone has had an opportunity to study the recommendations.

Looking northeast across Washington Street	Looking southeast across Jefferson Street