PHOENIX – The valley needs more housing.
In order to build homes, the land must be zoned for it. Some regions of the Phoenix metropolitan area are zoned for more housing units than others. Some cities in the valley have little vacant land left, while other cities’ land is 90% undeveloped and ready for development in the future. The Maricopa Association of Government maintains a map of land use across the valley in 2022 that uses broad zoning categories as a proxy for the complex variety of zoning types found throughout the metropolitan area.
ABC15 received and analyzed this data.
Where we live in the valley
According to census data, the valley has a population of about 4.8 million living in two counties, Maricopa and Pinal. Both counties have a combined area of 14,600 square miles, making the Phoenix metro the second-largest census-designated metropolitan area after the San Bernardino-Riverside-Palm Springs region east of Los Angeles.
Despite the enormous area, all 4.8 million residents live on just six percent of this area; 937 square miles are designated for single-family and multi-family homes.
The apartment residents inhabit 60 square miles, or just under half a percent of the valley’s area.
In fact, only 14% of Maricopa County and 5% of Pinal County are zoned for development. Another 14% of Maricopa and 20% of Pinal are privately owned but not yet zoned for commercial or residential use. Another category of land available for development is held by the Arizona State Land Trust.
The majority of the land area (about 55%) is not zoned for development because it is tribal or federally owned land.
Some cities in the Valley have more residential zoning than others. The city with the highest percentage is Paradise Valley. The Phoenix metro’s wealthiest suburb is 77% zoned for single-family homes and 0.2% for multi-family housing. Paradise Valley is followed by Gilbert, Chandler, Litchfield Park and Carefree, with more than half of the available land zoned for residential zoning.
Tempe was the only city in the Phoenix metropolitan area with 10% or more of its land area zoned for multifamily housing, followed by Guadalupe, Fountain Hills, Chandler and Scottsdale as places with the highest percentage of multifamily housing within their boundaries.
The most densely populated places in the valley tend to be the cities with the smallest residential area. The small town of Guadalupe has 0.7 square miles of residential area. According to the population estimate for the 2022 American Community Survey, the population density was 13,000 people per square mile. That’s more than double the city’s actual population.
The only other town in the valley with a population over 10,000 was El Mirage.
The undeveloped land of the valley
When you factor in the land already developed, two-thirds of the Phoenix metro is not available for development in the near future. Any future development would have to occur on the remaining 5,000 square miles available for development, according to the Maricopa Association of Government. Most of this land is either in southern Pinal County, an area closer to the Tucson metro, or on a desolate strip of desert stretching from Buckeye to Wickenburg.
In total, just over half of the developable land in Maricopa and Pinal counties is owned by the State Land Trust. The next largest category is privately owned undeveloped land, which is mostly pristine desert. Agricultural fields make up 15 percent of the land, and the remaining three percent is a mix of other undeveloped parcels and abandoned agriculture.
In several cities in the Valley, available undeveloped land is in very short supply. Tempe has the smallest share, at just three percent. Paradise Valley, Chandler, Guadalupe and Youngtown are also mostly developed. In all four cities, undeveloped land makes up less than ten percent of the total available land. Gilbert is the last remaining original boomtown. There are still eight square miles of undeveloped land left.
At the other end of the spectrum are the Valley cities and suburban communities with vast amounts of land. Four of the five places with the most land are in Pinal County and span hundreds of square miles. 88 percent of Coolidge and 81 percent of Casa Grande are available for development. The only new addition to the top five in Maricopa was the city of Surprise, with about 68 percent of land available.
Zoning and land use are only part of the equation. Development in Arizona must also be accompanied by ensuring long-term water availability.
