This article originally appeared in BEX.
After the extensively drawn-out approval for Greenbelt 88 was finally secured (AZBEX; Feb. 11) and two Arizona Legislators made major waves across the state’s local zoning authorities and development communities with the introduction of HB 2674, a bill that would have stripped municipalities of much of their power in determining project approvals (AZBEX, Feb. 8), I had the opportunity to talk with Jason Morris, partner at land use law firm Withey Morris, PLC and one of Arizona’s most sought-after experts in terms of zoning, land use and entitlements.
HB 2674 caused massive waves in municipal halls of power and in the development community, as it would have set rigid timelines for approvals, assigned building height and density requirements for projects without any local ability to deny, and implement “zoning by right,” creating automatic approvals for developments meeting the law’s generous criteria.
For those readers who don’t follow the approval side of the project development process, Morris is one of the developer representatives whose name pops up most frequently in zoning and approval cases for complicated proposals, large-scale developments and projects – like Greenbelt 88 – that need an expert pilot to help navigate them from proposal to permits.