The Fountain Hills General Plan mandates that developments preserve the natural hillsides. Daybreak instead levels the hillside into a flat building pad, cuts the hillside down 30 feet and dumps 57 feet of fill into the low-lying areas. Daybreak is clearly inconsistent with the General Plan and should not have been approved.

The Town’s General Plan requires preservation of lands dedicated to open space. Daybreak will remove 11.3 acres of land from the preservation area and make it part of the development.

The General Plan requires multi-family projects to be of “exceptional design.” Daybreak proposes a “flat massing that is boxy and lacks details” (quote from Town’s Planning and Zoning staff analysis), a 2.7-acre expanse of asphalt for parking and a building that is 600 feet long and 40 feet tall. That staff analysis admitted Daybreak was inconsistent with the scale and character of the community and failed the test for “exceptional design.”

The General Plan change for this project eliminates one of the last possible sites in the town for development of hotel projects, thereby limiting any possibility for economic growth in Fountain Hills. The Project’s traffic analysis shows traffic increasing on Palisades by 20 percent; and during morning peak hours by 40 percent. Given the project’s driveway location near a blind curve on Palisades, this traffic increase will result in dangerous conditions.

This project is simply the wrong use for the site and should not have been approved. It is up to the voters of Fountain Hills to right this mistake and protect the character of their community. I urge you to stand up for the things that make Fountain Hills exceptional. Vote “no” on Props 427 and 428 by mailing in your ballot before May 19.