City staff and consultant J2 Design presented draft standards proposing required recreational amenities and maintenance considerations for new residential developments.
Jose Guzman, director of development services, said the city hired J2 Design to help define goals and standards after council directed staff to create requirements. Shane Hanneman of J2 Design said the firm audited parks provision practices in other Arizona municipalities and produced a checklist of required amenities based on park size bands commonly expected in local subdivisions. Hanneman said the draft identifies four guiding goals: satisfying community recreational needs and the parks master plan, ensuring long‑term maintainability for city ownership or management, meeting safety and ADA guidelines for playgrounds, and moderating costs so requirements are not an undue burden on developers.
Hanneman described typical park-size categories his team used (2–3 acres, 3–4 acres, 4–5 acres and 5–5.5 acres) and said the checklist provides a vendor catalog of site furnishings and playground options so developers have consistent, maintainable choices. He said the draft aims to keep the per‑acre cost for amenities reasonably consistent across park sizes and that, overall, the proposal sits below the statewide mean of public-sector offerings in the consultant’s audit.
Council members and a few speakers asked for clarity on maintenance budgets and affordability. A council member urged the consultants to consider communities with much smaller tax bases than large cities and to ensure the city can maintain any amenities the standards produce. Staff said the draft is a 47‑page document attached to the agenda and that the next steps include public hearings and stakeholder comment; staff said council could request changes before adoption.
No adoption vote occurred at the session; staff said they will proceed with the adoption process that includes public hearings and stakeholder outreach.