Mesa council questions notice process after neighbors say they weren’t notified about Price Manor rezoning

Mesa City Councilmembers spent part of their Sept. 22 study session examining whether residents received legally required notice of a proposed rezoning for the Price Manor project after several neighbors said they had not been notified.

Senior Planner Jennifer Merrill told the council the city requires three forms of public notice before a Planning and Zoning Board hearing: mailed notices sent at least 15 days before the hearing as required by state statute, a sign posted on the site, and a notice published in the newspaper. Merrill said the city supplies an address list that covers a 500-foot radius and registered neighborhoods and homeowners associations within one mile; the applicant mails the letters and provides the city an affidavit attesting the mailings and signposting were completed. “There are 2 essentially 2 steps with citizen participation. The first 1, we call it the Hey Neighbor letter, and thatletter,” Merrill said, describing the informal outreach, and she described the formal required notices and required affidavit.

Council members pressed staff on whether the Lehigh Community Association, a registered neighborhood, was on the cityneighborhood list and whether its members had actually received notices. Merrill said the neighborhood is on the city list and that the city had an affidavit from the applicant saying the letters were mailed; she acknowledged the city does not independently re-mail or individually verify every recipient. “We provide that address list to the applicant and they gave us the affidavit that says that the letters were mailed,” Merrill said.

Council member Adams noted conflicting accounts: some applicants provide an affidavit that letters were mailed, while a number of neighbors say they did not receive notice. “When I started playing Little League, we had that thing called tie goes to the runner. And I would I would generally side when a large number of people say, we didn't know about it,” Adams said, pressing staff for past precedent and options.

Staff said the city also records other forms of evidence in the citizen participation report: the address list submitted with the application, a record of emails and phone calls received during the Planning and Zoning Board process, and attendees at neighborhood meetings. Planning staff said the Planning and Zoning Board hearing for Price Manor included representatives from the Lehigh neighborhood who voiced concerns there, and the citizen participation report was updated to include additional constituent emails and names collected after the mailing.

Council members also discussed project design and neighborhood impacts as part of the conversation. Council member Spilsbury and others said immediate neighbors to the east supported redevelopment and that the plan had been modified to restrict eastbound access through the Lehigh Shadows neighborhood, routing project traffic to exit to the west on Center Street. Staff said that change appeared to increase support from nearby residents but acknowledged some people farther from the site opposed the project.

Council members asked that the applicant be prepared to comment at the council meeting upstairs and flagged verification and transparency concerns about the affidavit-based notice process. The council did not take final action on the Price Manor rezoning during the study session; the item was to be discussed at the regular council meeting that night.

The record of the discussion shows the council asked staff and the applicant for clearer documentation of who was notified and for the citizen participation report to reflect follow-up contacts.