According to a Staff Report¹ prepared in January, 2006, the Town of Dewey-Humboldt (D-H) currently has enough commercial and industrial land within the town limits for a total of 2,524 businesses.  The Report uses a rough estimate of 5 commercial buildings per acre to make this calculation.  The Report acknowledges that this number is not too meaningful as the number of buildings will vary with the type of business and the size of the buildings.  It might not be too far off.  Not considering home businesses, most of the current D-H businesses are smaller than 1/5 acre, but a few occupy larger areas resulting in an average that approaches 1/5 acre.

  Currently commercial land totals 158.23 acres, and industrial land totals 346.63 acres.  How much of this land is vacant?  According to the Staff Report, only 10.4% of the commercial land has been built upon, and only 0.4% of the industrial land has been built upon.  This leaves 142.4 acres of vacant commercial land with a potential of 712 more businesses for D-H, and 345.24 acres of vacant industrial land with a potential for 1,726 more businesses.

  Do we need more commercial land?  Former mayor Tom Hintze often stated that he wanted the town of D-H to have all the businesses that people might need.  With just the vacant commercial land we currently have, we could have seven each of 100 different types of businesses.  If some of industrial land is also used for retail and service businesses we could easily have 10 each of 200 types of businesses.  And we would still have vacant industrial land available for hundreds more industrial businesses.

  Will the D-H population ever be great enough to support 2,000 businesses?  According to the Staff Report, the population of D-H at the end of 2005 was estimated at 3,784.  With total build-out of every parcel split as far as possible, and assuming 2.28 people per household, the final population of D-H will be 15,291.  Although that figure might be too high, it certainly is not high enough to support a total of 791 businesses on commercial land and 1,733 businesses on industrial land.  After build-out the number of residents per business on commercial land would be 19.  For the combined commercial and industrial land the number of residents per business would be six.

  After the Staff Report was completed, the Town Council approved the addition of two commercial acres and a change of a few acres from commercial to industrial.  Councilman Savage’s rezoning of his residential land into commercial land was supported by the D-H Planning and Zoning Commission and by a majority of the Town Council.  Although numerous citizens opposed the zoning change, they were ignored.  Did the town government read the Staff Report and conclude that it would be best for the town to have more commercially zoned land?  Or did the Commission and Council take the position that anyone can do what they want with land that they own?  Some might argue that the decision to make unneeded zoning changes that diminish the quality of life and probably the property values of the neighbors represents a "taking."

  D-H might attempt to attract customers from Mayer, Prescott Valley, and other surrounding communities.  How many would we need?  Could we make things work with 100,000 customers coming in from the surrounding areas?  If we return to the five businesses per acre assumption, and we assume that 1/2 of the industrial land would be occupied by retail and service businesses, we would have 1,657 businesses.  With 115, 291 customers we would have a total of 70 people per business.  That would be 31 households per business.  Perhaps we could lure in 200,000 customers and improve things a bit.  Would 57 households per business be enough?  Of course, this wouldn’t work, because the surrounding areas have their own businesses to support.

  Could we rezone enough of our residential lands to increase our population enough to support our future business community?  According to the Staff Report the total acres of residential land in D-H is 8,840.44.  State lands total 1,473.70 acres.  Combining the two gives us 10,314.14 acres.  Let’s assume that we rezone everything to allow 10 households per acre.  That would give us 201,562 residents at build out.  That would be 53 households per business.  And don’t forget we would have enough remaining industrial land for 867 more businesses.

  Without getting into the statistics on numbers of residents required to support a business I think everyone can see that D-H has much more commercial and industrial land than it needs.  Some of this land will eventually have to serve other needs.  It will become residential, permanent open space, or perhaps municipal grounds.  To try to preserve some of the value of their lands, owners of vacant commercial and industrial land should protest any further rezoning of residential to commercial land.

  Does D-H need more commercial land?  The answer is NO!

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1.  Swenson, Roger. January, 2006. Town of Dewey-Humboldt Land Use and Land Development Analysis. Staff Report.