I have yet to meet anyone living here in Fountain Hills who really wanted to live in Scottsdale and somehow couldn’t. Most people express a relief when they come up over the hill and leave all the congestion and rat race. We have a magic place where a half-hour drive will get you to the thick of 6 million people and everything is available, yet you don’t have to live in it.
Pollution is simply too many people living in too small an area. Whenever a suburb of a strong metropolitan area limits their growth their property values soar. Take Boulder, Colorado, for example. They made it almost impossible to get a building permit and now their values are three times the same in adjacent communities. Developers will always want to profit off the residents of Fountain Hills; why would we let them?
I’m sure you’ve heard some silly arguments about more people means more tax money and equals more services. More people require more services. What they equal is more crime, more congestion and more pollution.
With regard to Daybreak, why would we want 600 more people to trip over at Safeway? If you are a business owner and your plan presumed growth to survive, sorry, you will just have to provide better service than your competitor. If the people of Fountain Hills are dissatisfied with the level of services, they will vote in more taxes.
Urban planners have been selling the story about “the tighter you pack people the more cost-effective services you can provide them.” The council needs to realize that people who don’t value the small-town feel and want to be stacked five high and three deep are welcome to move to Scottsdale.
