When Michael Sivertson became principal of Youngker High School in the summer of 2020, he was told that the school’s growth was projected to take off. At the time, it had around 1,700 students, he said. Just three years later, Youngker’s enrollment for fall 2023 will be around 2,180.“We have growth in pretty much every direction,” Sivertson said. Youngker High School is in Buckeye, one of the fastest-growing cities in the country. Once a primarily agricultural area, it has grown from just over 50,000 residents in 2010 to around 105,000 in 2022. And it’s poised to keep growing — the city is only 13% built out, according to Buckeye spokesperson Annie DeChance, and new developments are announced regularly.“Every direction, there’s either new building currently going on, or they’re positioning for it,” Sivertson said. “They’re digging in the dirt … the farmland is gone.” Districts across the southwest Phoenix area, which has two of the nation’s fifteen fastest-growing large cities, are scrambling to accommodate their service areas’ explosive growth. Many are trying to secure funding to build new schools while finding ways to manage more immediate capacity concerns.Less than a mile south of Youngker, homebuilder D.R. Horton is writing seven to 10 sales per week for Estrella Vista, a development that opened last year that will have about 535 homes, according to sales representative Heather Heutmaker. It’s one of a number of housing developments that have cropped up around the school in recent years. About a mile northeast of the school, D.R. Horton is selling single-family homes at Desert Moon Estates, which opened in 2021. For now, the development has built around half of its planned 430 homes.“There was nothing there two years ago,” Sivertson said, pointing northeast from Youngker toward Desert Moon. “All of that area north of us was desert.”When Sivertson arrived three years ago, the first phase to handle Youngker’s growth was to secure portable classrooms, he said. But the school became “tapped out with space,” Sivertson said, and soon needed more growing room. “Moving int …
See the full article on Arizona zoning regulations, or, read more Arizona real estate investing news. It’s up to you!