Railway operator’s rejected zoning change request a ‘real problem’ for Maricopa County residents

Whether Maricopa County residents have followed along with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF) rezoning drama or not, president and CEO at Arizona Chamber of Commerce & Industry Danny Seiden said its handling is something “everyone should care about.”

“I think people need to understand where revenue comes from,” Seiden told KTAR News’ The Mike Broomhead Show on Thursday. “This is worth seven Super Bowls a year. That’s how big this project is.”

Seiden was reacting to the county board on Wednesday unanimously voting down a zoning change request by BNSF to create a $3.2 billion railway hub in Wittmann, a rural community about 35 miles northwest of downtown Phoenix.

“Whether you’re a resident or a private business, if you allow government, and even a typically well-governed thing like Maricopa County, to come along and steal your value, that’s a real problem for us,” Seiden said. “That is what we are so upset about with the (Maricopa County Board of Supervisors) yesterday.

“If you don’t like the project, fine. But (BNSF) has every right to their private property rights that the residents have.”

The railroad operator had its proposed hub delayed multiple times by local Wittmann residents already, and Seiden said Wednesday’s vote was only supposed to be about amending the project’s mislabeling of buying residential instead of industrial property. The county board, instead, “turned it into a hearing on the project as a whole.”

BNSF’s Intermodal Comprehensive Plan Amendment, which proposed changing the land use north of U.S. 60 between 211th and 235th avenues from single-family to mixed-use development, was the most recent piece rejected in the ongoing saga.

In Seiden’s eyes, if the county loses a hub of this magnitude and size — proposed 4,230 acres — “it sends the wrong message” to all future prospective land buyers and brings to question all county lawmaking in regards to private property.

More than the project proposal discrepancy, Seiden said there has also been some “misinformation” on the project itself.

As an example, Seiden called out Surprise Mayor Skip Hall for saying the potential job creation from the railway hub wouldn’t be for the city’s “highly trained, highly educated workforce.”

“I don’t know what he’s talking about. This is a logistics supply chain,” Seiden said. “These are highly trained people. These are highly skilled people. These are high-paying jobs that everyone should want. This project supports 50,000 jobs.”

To back up this job growth up, Seiden referenced a similar project in Edgerton, Kansas, that also had “neighbor opposition at first” but since has decreased taxes, helped the town build roads, schools and more.

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