A little over a decade ago, the East Valley was embroiled in a ‘mini’-scandal surrounding the sale of homes by unscrupulous realtors which were directly in a ‘high noise area’ of what is now called Phoenix/Mesa Gateway Airport. At that time, buyers were told that the ‘air base’ was closed and there were no plans on the ‘books’ to re-open it.
Indeed, some of their literature attested to this scenario.
However, as was discovered by a very concerned local group — nothing could have been farther from the truth.
This group reviewed the environmental impact statement filed by the Air Force and also its Recommended Usage for the Surrounding Lands document. These documents clearly stated that these lands and those extending farther out under the landing and take-off routes would be subjected to very high noise pollution and reduced air quality. The recommendation was to limit these areas for commercial/industrial development only... Many meetings were held with those individuals involved, the airport and also with the Mesa City Council — urging compliance with the reports. Unfortunately, to no avail. In fact, these previously zoned ‘agricultural” lands were re-classified to ‘residential’ and the building boom commenced. A lot of developers got rich; a lot of folks got ‘conned’ (despite “caveat emptor”); some homes had to be fitted with better sound proofing; a few realtors even lost their license. With the increasing air traffic and ‘new’ local housing developments — does anyone else see history repeating itself?
Rick Temple
Mesa
Bluepoet posted at 1:37 pm on Fri, Feb 15, 2013.
Rick, I recall a lot of what you described, but I'm a bit confused by your question. Are you saying that, once again, houses are being built in this noise corridor, while consumers are being conned? I would think it pretty obvious, this time around, since the airport is very much alive. Caveat Emptor, indeed...
ram1009 posted at 1:39 pm on Fri, Feb 15, 2013.
Someone please tell me why it isn't law that residential property withyin some distance of an airport MUST be sold only to deaf people. And...how stupid are people who fall for this?
truth posted at 3:18 pm on Fri, Feb 15, 2013.
Not only do we have a spam system that is not working but we have a GOP police at the Tribune that deletes post after they have been posted which are proper truthful and use no language that would be considered offensive.
Arizona Willie posted at 8:40 am on Sat, Feb 16, 2013.
About a dozen years ago we were looking at a place near there, and I was somewhat concerned about that. But, of course, the salesman is ' oh no problem it isn't that busy ' but he had to stop talking because of the noise from a plane taking off [beam]
I googled it and was astounding to discover there were a couple thousand takeoff / landings PER DAY!!
And that was way before they got the commercial airport in there.
A good rule in Arizona real estate: Don't buy any house built in the last 15 years or so.
Leon Ceniceros posted at 5:49 pm on Sun, Feb 17, 2013.
Sadly, many, if not most of the homebuilders have the morals and scruples of a "snake oil salesman".
But when politicians and Church groups (paid off by the homebuilders with free land) turn a blind eye to the greed and avarice displayed by these homebuilders and real estate companies.....only the innocent home buyer will suffer.
downtownresident posted at 7:53 am on Tue, Feb 19, 2013.
There will always be conflicts of use and less than full disclosure of adverse qualities of a house, as long as there are salesmen.[beam]
Tatertot posted at 3:28 pm on Sat, Feb 23, 2013.
We live directly south of PMG. When we bought our house the builder told us about the airport, the noise we should expect and even gave us a map showing us exactly where the flight patterns were going to be. We had full disclosure.