Attachment E - Opposition - Z-67-22-3.pdf

ATTACHMENT E

April 27, 2023
Grease Monkey
1730 W Bell Rd
Phoenix, AZ 85023

City of Phoenix Planning & Development Department
Zoning Section

200 W Washington St., 2" Floor

Phoenix, AZ 85003

Via email to: Adrian.zambrano@phoenix.gov

Re: = Z-67-22-3
To Whom it May Concern:
Grease Monkey opposes the re-zoning request for three primary reasons:

1. The project presents an unacceptable safety risk for business and residents.
Vagrancy, theft, litter, customer confrontation, homeowner assault, drug dealing,
and a host of other safety problems have been knowingly and willfully caused by
vagrancy in this area. This project will increase the vagrant and willfully un-
employed population.

2. There is a concerning lack of transparency by the Ocotillo Project. We have thrice
written the Ocotillo Project asking for additional information, including the names
of the actual individuals behind the company. Ocotillo has never provided this
information. This secrecy is concerning and foreshadows a lack of transparency
and honesty in operation.

3. There are better locations for this project that are not within a residential
envelope. While Bell Road itself is a commercial corridor, residential housing
occurs immediately north and south of the corridor.

Business owners and residential homeowners have banded together as the Bell Road
Business Alliance to try to restore the safety and cleanliness in this area that once existed. One
of the prime causes of this problem was the Victory Inn - which is now renamed the Ocotillo
Project. Grease Monkey understands the need for this sort of project, but there are dozens of
empty buildings and spaces in Phoenix better suited and not within an exterior envelope of 25k
residential homes.

Grease Monkey team members have had to intervene with vagrants/homeless verbally
assaulting children, customers, and physical assaults against our own team members. To

increase vagrancy/homelessness in this area would erode safety and cause financial harm to
residential and business owners alike.

There are multiple comments regarding the Ocotillo Project to be seen at
ocotilloproject.com. The comments are overwhelmingly against the project. Many of the
comments left by community members echo the concerns Grease Monkey has related to safety
of the surrounding community. The website offers no explanation of how the Ocotillo Project is
planning to provide safety to the surrounding community without burdening and already
overburdened police force, no explanation of how they intend to ensure the cleanliness of the
areas immediately surrounding the Project, no explanation of how they will ensure their project
doesn’t bring more unhoused persons to the area, and no explanation of the services they intend
to offer other than “Job Placement, Health Care and Mental Health Care Services”.

We encourage the City of Phoenix Planning and Development Department to deny the
zoning change indefinitely or until such time as the Ocotillo Project can provide adequate
assurances to the surrounding homeowners, business owners, and the City of Phoenix that they
have a workable and proven plan to discourage an increase in vagrancy, theft, litter, assault, and
drug dealing by their proposed residents.

nk you.
istina Selby

Business Manager
Grease Monkey, Phx