By james art 
The economic development of the Eastern Valley has been increasing, with billions of dollars arrived in a new industry in recent years. But there is one problem that can slow this growth.
“Housing is a problem with economic development,” says Dan Henderson, director of Gilbert’s economic development. “This is something we take very seriously.”
New companies continue to arrive for various reasons, including time, educated labor and low taxes. However, if their employees are unable to receive homes at affordable prices, this can make these companies search elsewhere.
“Yes, this is a problem with Economic Development in Chandler,” says Michai Miranda, Director of Chandler’s Economic Development.
Miranda, Henderson and Doreen Cott, Director of Queen Creek’s Economic Development, spoke in the update of the economic development of a trigga in 2025, set by commercial chambers in these three cities.
Miranda said that Chandler has been considering this problem for some time because they are the closest to the construction of the three cities.
The city has developed about 94% of its available land. Most of the remaining are allocated for business or industrial use. There is not much space left for a home.
“The city of Chandler has been in this space for some time and in the past year … The Council has made a number of quite significant changes to the code related to zoning, more special, to allow more density in certain parts of the city,” Miranda said.
“Economic development is very protective on Earth within employment corridors. Perhaps, in the price corridor, it makes sense to make small grounds on the ground floor, office on the second and third floors, and then multi -family above it, so you get more than this employment with mixed use as well as housing life.
“We look at alternatives as part of this general plan.”
Chandler employees are working to update the general plan of the city that employees plan to submit to voters next year.
Even Queen Creek, one of the most recent and fastest growing communities in Arizona, is dealing with the lack of housing.
“When I first started with the city, more than 18 years ago, the multifamila was only allowed in the city center,” Cot said.
“Now we have multi -family projects that are built or under construction or planned throughout the community, and we acknowledge that more than individual homes for an individual family are needed.”
Henderson said Gilbert never had a full home before. However, when this became a priority of the last state legislative session, urban officials decided that they should start working on one.
“We are very lucky and a little lucky to have started this initiative just before some of the mandates that came into this,” Henderson said. “We turned to our utility partners and they very kindly got involved in this role to help the assembly of this.”
Gilbert and Queen Creek still have land to build more housing developments. However, Chandler has only small projects here and there that are more suitable for multi-family apartments or apartments than large single-family homes.
This made Miranda look up.
“This will be a function of the reconstruction and will take this vertical reconstruction,” he said. “Either God creates more land to develop, or we begin to walk vertically in the region, which is likely to happen.”
The three directors were asked if there was anything that could be done to make the home more accessible. That sat silently for about 10 seconds.
“I think we will still be in an extremely competitive home market,” Miranda said. “It’s just offering, searching and economics. So, verticality, probably throughout the region, is ultimately what will help increase prices in affordability. “