Five large strides to ease the local housing dilemma were taken at Safford’s regular council meeting Monday night, and within weeks, residents should see the first shovelfuls of dirt being turned for various developments.

The developer of one of the larger planned subdivisions, which was also the topic of the hottest discussion, asked for a rezoning from single family dwellings with a minimum lot size of 10,000 feet to single family with a minimum lot size of 6,000 feet.

This development, the Greenberg II Subdivision, is located west of 20th Avenue and 18th Street in Safford and north of Golf Course Road. The subdivision will have about 140 homes, and one of the main points of access to the property is land that abuts 18th Street. Chuck Greenberg, owner of the property, said he realized when he bought his property that access through 18th Street would a fundamental issue, but according to his deed he has physical and legal access to his property from that street.

“From that moment, we never stopped trying to come up with a solution,” he said.

One of the problems the developer is facing is finding an alternate access road for the subdivision.

Greg Lorang, engineer for Trueline Engineering, said they submitted an application for a road that would cut through Bureau of Land Management land, but an agency archaeologist has to study the proposed easement before it can be approved.

Meanwhile, two residents of 18th Street are asking that the developers find different access roads altogether.

Superior Court Judge R. Douglas Holt lives on 18th Street, and he urged the developer to pursue the easement across BLM land.

“We’re talking about taking a quiet cul de sac and turning it into a major thoroughfare,” Holt said.

“I don’t oppose the zoning change,” he said. “I oppose using 18th Street as either primary or secondary access.”

The developer has brought in a traffic engineer to study the impact on 18th Street, and Lorang said it is his understanding that the street would have been able to handle the increased traffic.

“We can’t sugarcoat this,” Greenberg said. “We cannot disenfranchise 140 residents from using the most expeditious route.”

Councilors Danny Smith and Danny Hoopes said while they support the zoning change, they do not support using 18th Street as a main access road for the Greenberg subdivision.

Safford Mayor Ron Green said he would like to see whatever influence can be used to designate Golf Course Road as the primary and 18th Street as secondary access roads. The council approved the zoning change with six votes.

Greenberg said if the road to Golf Course Road was approved, no large construction vehicles would be allowed to use 18th Street to get to the property.

New mobile home district

The council approved a zoning change from agricultural residential to a conventional mobile home district for the 13.9 acres north of the Safford High School and south of the Lexington Pines mobile home park.

Hancock Enterprises plans to install modular housing units on 6,000-square-foot lots on that property.

Green said the homes would be set on foundations with permanent porches. Danny Smith abstained from voting on the matter.

Montana Vista Estates

An agreement between land owner Eldon Angle and the city of Safford was approved by the council.

Angle, who is developing his property for about 49 homes on the east side of Hwy. 191 below and to the north of Jensen Hill, submitted an application for annexation into the city and for full city utilities.

Angle had previously granted easements at no charge for sewer and water access for customers south of the Montana Vista development.

Councilor Ed Zappia questioned the council’s approval of a development with less than the city’s required 40 feet for roadway. He said it was a matter of fairness.

Councilor Ragland said the city had just saved itself the cost of about 50 septic tanks because sewer will be run through the development from the start.

He said the city and Graham County have discussed working together on standards for properties that would be annexed into the city.

RV park plans, rezoning

Black Mountain Enginee-ring asked for a rezoning of .67 acres to a manufactured housing district and for approval of a development agreement of 8.37 acres for an RV park on the corner of 20th Avenue and Golf Course Road.

The 8.37 acres will hold about 92 RV spaces. The .67 acres is against another acre that will be hold about 49 RV spaces.

Copper Canyon final plat

The final plat plan for the largest development, the Copper Canyon subdivision, was unanimously approved by the council.

Owned by Langley Holdings, which has purchased about 5,500 acres of land throughout the Valley, Copper Canyon is a planned unity development that will have a mix of about 280 homes on various sizes of lots and recreational areas.

Ken Quartermain, developer for Langley Holdings, said his company already has a builder and plans to begin construction within the next few weeks.