With light rail just more than a year away, some west Mesa residents and business owners are concerned about being steamrolled by new development.
The West Main Street Area Plan making its way to the City Council calls for new housing and businesses along the street, bringing more people and cars to the area.
“There will be no parking places, so everyone will park in the neighborhoods,” said resident Hertha Chellevold. “They’ll have to put up ‘no parking’ signs, and that will hurt the residents.”
The West Main plan focuses on the area between University Drive and Broadway Road and the Tempe border and Country Club Drive.
Light-rail tracks already are being constructed up to Main and Sycamore. Rapid transit is planned for the rest of the street up to Mesa Drive, either in the form of light rail or buses.
Susan Clark, owner of The Fiber Factory, 150 W. Main St., said she was most concerned about what would happen to the businesses along the route.
“Our concern is business access,” she said. “My customer base is largely senior citizens, and most of them don’t ride the bus.”
One mixed-use development already is on its way — West Main Street Village will bring 13 retail units and 42 town homes by next summer.
Mike Marino is worried his home, in Citrus Grove Trailer Park near Alma School Road and Main, will go the same way.
He said the fear of losing his trailer and having to move is making him ill.
“Good people live there,” he said. “I’m tired of being the butt of all the jokes. We take care of each other, and it’s a quiet park.”
The park is not likely to get torn down in Marino’s lifetime, said Nick Davis, of Davis Enterprises, which owns Citrus Grove.
But the area has gone downhill in the past few years and has a significant drug problem, Davis said.
“The city of Mesa is definitely on the right track,” he said. “Light rail isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s the transitoriented development that is at issue here. If done properly, it can work.”
The area has 5,397 housing units, about 60 percent of which are rentals.
The plan aims to increase that number with high-density condo and town house projects.
Fred Woods, architect on the West Main Street Village project, said he received support from the majority of neighbors, but made some changes after hearing their input.
“We scaled down the density and moved buildings farther away from the single-family homes. We also added more landscaping — all as a direct result of the neighborhood meetings,” he said.
The project already has been approved by the council, and Woods said he expects construction to start in January.
The plan for the area also calls for historic preservation and ways to make it easier for residents to improve their homes — all of which are designed to stave off developers from encroaching upon the houses just north of Main.
“I just don’t want to see the city of Mesa forcing the issue via eminent domain,” Chellevold said. “Mesa has a history of that now. People want to know they can live where they want as long as they want.”
