Deadly crashes soar / p. 14
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Inside This Week
Controversial city zoning changes in Council’s hands BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
F NEWS ................. 3 Tense debate at last week's Tempe Union Governing Board meeting.
COMMUNITY .... 28 Five Ahwatukee Boy Scouts earn prestigious Eagle rank.
GET OUT ........... 41 Love is in the (fondue) pot at Ahwatukee restaurant. COMMUNITY............................28 BUSINESS ................................36 SPORTS .................................. 40 GETOUT ................................... 41 CLASSIFIEDS .......................... 46
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Wednesday, August 9, 2023
@AhwatukeeFN
ollowing a marathon six-hour meeting Aug. 3 that stretched beyond midnight, the Phoenix Planning Commission approved two controversial Zoning Code amendments that both the Ahwatukee Foothills and Desert View village planning committees rejected and that other VPCs either voted down or approved with recommendations for changes. The measures on Sept. 6 go to City Council, which has the option of adopting them, making further changes or sending them
back to the city Planning and Development Department for further study. Some council members in meetings a few months ago expressed urgency in adopting the measures in an effort to meet the city’s goal of building or preserving 50,000 “affordable housing” units by 2030. The only problem, as noted in frequent VPC meetings and last week’s Commission session, is the lack of consensus on what “affordable” means. The meeting last Thursday was prolonged by a lengthy agenda that put the two zoning proposals toward the end of a 17-item agen-
da. Two of the other items each generated hour-long debates on unrelated projects in two different parts of the city. The discussions of both zoning amendments also were lengthy as proponents and opponents weighed in. One measure would allow single-family homeowners to build a detached home in their backyard that could be no bigger than 75% of the square footage of the main house. The Ahwatukee and Desert View VPCs opposed that amendment while six okayed
see PLANNING page 9
St. John Bosco begins a new year with excitement BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
A
s St. John Bosco Catholic School today, Aug. 9, becomes the last Ahwatukee school to start the 2023-24 school year, returning students will find some significant changes from the last time they were on the 48th Street campus. For one thing, there’s more of them. The Pre-K-8 school will have 97 new students this school year, bringing enrollment to an all-time high of 440 students that Principal Jamie Bescak said could rise to 450. K-6 students will be learning English Language Arts through a new curriculum that cost $100,000 of the $170,000 that St. John
see BOSCO page 24
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Saint John Bosco Catholic School kindergarten teacher Rachel Barone last Friday was busy organizing books in her classroom reading corner in anticipation of the return of students today, Aug. 9, for the beginning of the new year at the Ahwatukee parochial school. (David Minton/Staff Photographer)
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