The Phoenix City Council met Wednesday to vote on agenda items which will make housing and transportation more accessible for downtown residents.
The City Council is moving forward with entering into a contract with Dunlap and Magee Property Management to provide services to the city’s affordable housing complexes. Additionally, the city is entering agreements with consulting firms for light rail expansion to begin next month.
The City of Phoenix Housing Department created an Affordable Housing Portfolio, which is an index of the “18 multifamily residential housing properties with 1,270 rental units that provide affordable housing to low-to-moderate income residents,” according to the formal agenda.
One of the housing properties included in the portfolio is Deck Park Vista apartments at 1125 N. Third St.
The 56 unit senior living complex in downtown Phoenix had been approved to be leveled in April earlier this year after recommendations from the Housing Department called to develop the area into a new complex that would expand the affordable housing complex. The council called for proposals for the area that are expected to be reviewed early next year, according to previous reports.
Deck Park Vista is a complex already listed on the Dunlap and Magee Property Management website as one of the 47 companies that the corporation manages.
According to the formal agenda, entering the contract would allow Dunlap and Magee to receive funds from the city in order to fund repairs, maintenance, and operations of the complexes within the portfolio.
Councilmember Carlos Garcia of District 8 said that voting for this contract is a way for the city to tackle the housing crisis.
“We can’t tell developers what to do. The only time we can tell them what to do is if we give them the land or we give them a break on taxes,” Garcia said. “And when we do those things, we can ask them to do affordable housing, so this was one of those situations.”
While most of the agenda items were approved with majority consensus by the council members, there were several items that were placed on hold for further discussion later in the meeting. One of these items pertained to the city council staple, the light rail.
“It’s another exciting motion where we move forward with light rail extensions including south central as a result of the last election,” said Mayor Kate Gallego as she introduced the item.
Light rail expansion will be moving forward with construction and planning due to the City Council’s vote to enter into agreements with 15 consultants in order to provide material testing and construction administration and inspection on-call services for all the light rail extension projects.
Extension projects include the South Central extension, which would extend the light rail 5.5 miles down Central Ave to Baseline Road. The extension would begin at the CityScape Station, ending at the Baseline Station.
“Basically for the light rail to go south and for them to create the connection here they have to create a small bridge from Central to Jefferson. Not a bridge, but like a small rail track. And they’re actually starting next month and that’s why they need to do this inspection,” said Garcia, who also said the inspection was necessary for the project to move forward.
Garcia also said by allowing these consultants to inspect the surrounding areas for all the planned expansion sites at the same time, it would give clearance to all the projects to move forward.
“I’m glad that it’s going to be expanding,” said Daniela Regalado, a student who uses the light rail to commute to the downtown area. “I’m pro light rail expansion because it makes public transportation more accessible. Plus it’s more sustainable than driving and not everyone has a car, so I just think it helps out more people.”
When it came to pass the motion, Council members Sal DiCiccio of District 6 and longtime light rail skeptic Vice Mayor Jim Waring of District 2 voted “no” on the measure, with the rest of the council voting “yes”, passing 7-2.
Contact the reporter at imrosale@asu.edu
