PHOENIX — The Valley needs more housing.
To build homes the land must be zoned for it. Some regions of the Phoenix metro are zoned for more residential units than others. Some Valley cities have little vacant land remaining while the land of others is 90% vacant and is available for development in the future. The Maricopa Association of Government maintains a map of land use throughout the Valley in 2022 that uses broad zoning categories as a stand-in for the complex tapestry of zoning types found throughout the metro.
ABC15 obtained this data and analyzed it.
Where we live in the Valley
According to census data, the Valley has a population of about 4.8 million living in the two counties of Maricopa and Pinal. Both counties have a combined area of 14,600 square miles. Making the Phoenix Metro the second largest census-designated metro area behind the San Bernardino-Riverside-Palm Springs region located east of Los Angeles.
Despite the large area, all 4.8 million residents live on just six percent of that land; 937 square miles are zoned for single and multi-family residential housing.
Those residents who live in apartments live on sixty square miles, a little less than half of a percent of the Valley’s land.
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In fact, only 14% of Maricopa County and 5% of Pinal County is classified as being in a developed zone. Another 14% of Maricopa and 20% of Pinal are owned privately but are not yet zoned for commercial or residential use. Another category of land available for development is held by the Arizona State Land Trust.
The largest category of land, about 55%, is not zoned for development as it is land owned by tribal entities or the federal government.
Some Valley cities have more residential land use than others. The town with the highest share is Paradise Valley. The Phoenix Metro’s wealthiest suburb is zoned for 77% single-family residential use and 0.2% multi-family use. Following Paradise Valley with more than half of their available land going to residential zones is Gilbert, Chandler, Litchfield Park, and Carefree.
Tempe was the one city in the Phoenix metro that had 10% or more of their land use allotted to multi-family dwellings. It is followed by Guadalupe, Fountain Hills, Chandler, and Scottsdale as the places with the highest share of multi-use residential zones within their borders.
The most densely populated places in the Valley are mostly the cities with the smallest land area dedicated to residential zoning. The tiny town of Guadalupe has 0.7 square miles of residential zoning. Using its population estimate for the 2022 American Community Survey, the population density rate came out to 13,000 people per square mile. More than double the town’s actual population.
The only other city in the Valley with a population density rate over 10,000 was El Mirage.
The Valley’s undeveloped land
When accounting for land already developed two-thirds of the Phoenix Metro is unavailable for development any time soon. Any future development would have to occur on the remaining five thousand square miles the Maricopa Association of Government data says is available for development. Most of this land is either in southern Pinal County, an area closer in miles to the Tucson metro, or on a desolate strip of desert that extends from Buckeye to Wickenburg.
In total, a little over half of developable land in Maricopa and Pinal counties is part of the State Land Trust. The next largest category is privately owned vacant land that is mostly untouched desert. Agricultural fields make up fifteen percent of land and the remaining three percent is a mix of other undeveloped parcels and abandoned agriculture.
Several Valley cities are running very short on available undeveloped land. Tempe has the smallest share with only three percent remaining. Paradise Valley, Chandler, Guadalupe, and Youngtown are also mostly built out. In all four, undeveloped land makes up less than ten percent of the total available land. Gilbert is the last remaining original boom town. There are eight square miles left of undeveloped land.
On the other end of the spectrum are Valley cities and towns on the outskirts of the metro with massive amounts of land available. Four of the five places with the most are located in Pinal County and in the hundreds of square miles. Eighty-eight percent of Coolidge and Eighty-one percent of Casa Grande are available for development. The only entry from the top five in Maricopa was the City of Surprise with about 68% of land available.
Zoning and land use are just one part of the equation. Developing in Arizona also must come with assurances of water availability in the long term.
