{"id":401046,"date":"2025-11-24T09:41:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T09:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/401046\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T09:41:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T09:41:13","slug":"scottsdale-reaches-deal-with-axon-on-apartments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/401046\/","title":{"rendered":"Scottsdale reaches deal with Axon on apartments |"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four-way chess mixed with big-money poker, anyone?<\/p>\n

After complex \u201chigh stakes\u201d strategizing and last-minute negotiations, one thing is clear after Scottsdale City Council\u2019s Nov. 17 meeting:<\/p>\n

Axon stays.<\/p>\n

A deal has been reached that apparently \u2013 though there is some dispute over this \u2013 satisfies multiple parties: Axon, city leaders, state lawmakers and the group suing the city and state on the Axon issue.<\/p>\n

Thus, after years of threats to leave Scottsdale due to challenges of its expansion plan, Axon will remain in North Scottsdale. At an inconspicuous office there, the maker of Taser stun guns and police body cameras has flourished \u2013 now approaching $3 billion in worldwide sales.<\/p>\n

Axon agrees to reduce its \u201cworldwide campus\u201d expansion plans from 1,882 apartments to 600 apartments and 600 condos. The site remains 74 acres of undeveloped, former state land bordered by the Loop 101, Hayden Road and Axon Way (formerly known as Mayo Boulevard).<\/p>\n

After intense public debate and private wheeling and dealings, a 4-3 vote reduces the scope of Axon\u2019s project by more than a third.<\/p>\n

The vote happened after Josh Isner, Axon\u2019s president, called out \u201cmisinformation\u201d from Mayor Lisa Borowsky regarding negotiations.<\/p>\n

Isner displayed a text saying \u201ccan u guys agree to 500 now & 200 in next 60 months\u201d \u2013 which, Isner stressed, \u201cI can prove to you was from TAAAZE.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shortly after Isner\u2019s comments, the mayor called a :recess.\u201d<\/p>\n

Returning to public after an extensive delay, Borowsky apologized to a packed \u2013 mostly with Axon employees \u2013 Council Chambers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve been busy in very serious discussions about how we can resolve this,\u201d the first-term mayor said.<\/p>\n

With a negotiated deal on the table, Borowsky was the crucial \u201cswing vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councilman Adam Kwasman, a key player in the negotiations, and fellow representatives Solange Whitehead and Maryann McAllen expressed strong support for the deal.<\/p>\n

Outspoken against the deal were representatives Barry Graham, Jan Dubauskas and Kathy Littlefield. The latter is the wife of former Councilman Bob Littlefield, leader of a group trying to block Axon\u2019s original plan.<\/p>\n

Kathy Littlefield and Graham \u2013 who questioned the new plan\u2019s details before declaring the agreement \u201cweakens requirements \u2026 such as waiving water requirements\u201d \u2013 voted against Axon\u2019s original plan last year. Whitehead voted for the rezoning allowing up to 1,882 apartments at the end of 2024.<\/p>\n

Hours before last week\u2019s meeting, Borowsky said she would vote against a Kwasman-brokered plan for 750 apartments and 750 condos.<\/p>\n

But new numbers were apparently proposed during the private meeting, and Borowsky changed her tune.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing from nearly 1,900 apartments down to 600, I think, is a positive result \u2013 especially with all the other moving parts,\u201d Borowsky said before her tide-shifting vote.<\/p>\n

She noted a pending referendum was nullified by a newly crafted law allowing Axon to move forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven with the election, no matter the outcome, under the state law, (Axon) can do the 1,900 units or more.\u201d<\/p>\n

The negotiated deal \u2013 Borowsky implied the group Taxpayers Against Awful Apartment Exemptions agreed to drop a lawsuit challenging the state law\u00a0\u2013 \u201ccreates finality on this issue,\u201d Borowsky declared.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gets the conversation moving in a direction of, let’s break ground and start construction and let’s go build a great project.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bob Littlefield, however, told the Progress he did not support the deal. \u201cIt\u2019s still too many\u201d apartments, he insisted.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy bottom line is no apartments without voter approval,\u201d Littlefield said the morning after the council vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cTAAZE isn\u2019t agreeing to anything. Our lawsuit is still alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bob Littlefield said Axon is afraid of what voters would decide.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this gets to the vote,\u201d he predicted, \u201cit\u2019s going to go down.\u201d<\/p>\n

The deal<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to a city release hours after the vote, the memorandum of understanding (MOU) reduces previously-approved residential density from 1,882 units to 1,200\u2014split evenly between 600 apartments and 600 condominiums.<\/p>\n

\u201cAxon must also construct supporting infrastructure, including road improvements, water and sewer upgrades, a public dog park and a 1-mile pedestrian and bicycle trail encircling the campus,\u201d according to Holly Peralta, a city spokeswoman.<\/p>\n

Axon also will give Scottsdale \u201cfive years of no-cost access to a Real-Time Crime Center, offering advanced video, mapping and analytics technology to support public safety operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the same 4-3 votes, Council approved several related\u00a0 ordinances, including \u201ca new permitting option that allows qualified architects and engineers to certify building plans and inspections for large international headquarters campuses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though bypassing the typical Planning Commission\/Development Review Board process, the ordinance \u201cmaintains city oversight through audit and enforcement authority,\u201d according to the release.<\/p>\n

Council also voted to repeal the zoning ordinance a very different council approved last year \u2013 which TAAAZE is challenging.<\/p>\n

Background<\/strong><\/p>\n

The matter of an \u201cinternational campus\u201d with a North Scottsdale office \u2013 designed to look like a spaceship, to underscore the futuristic vision \u2013 surrounded by apartment buildings and a hotel is complex, to say the least.<\/p>\n

Clearance for Axon\u2019s plan of some 1,900 apartments by the 2024 Scottsdale City Council hardly proved lasting.<\/p>\n

The five \u201caye\u201d votes were still echoing when Bob Littlefield and TAAAZE launched a successful signature drive that forced the issue to the ballot \u2013 to be decided not by elected leaders, but Scottsdale\u2019s general voters.<\/p>\n

After months of compromise meetings with newly-elected city leaders failed, Axon found more willing ears at the state level, crafting and winning passage of a law that allowed its job-rich plans \u2013 and rendering the pending referendum moot.<\/p>\n

Bob Littlefield and his Taxpayers Against Awful Apartment Zoning Exemptions took one look at the law and said \u201csue that!\u201d<\/p>\n

Challenging the Arizona constitutionality of \u201cthe Axon law,\u201d the lawsuit\u00a0 thus became the board for the four-way chess game, involving Axon, TAAAZE, Council and the state.<\/p>\n

State leaders have been quiet observers.<\/p>\n

In the days leading up to the Nov. 17 City Council meeting, intense meetings took place with Isner and other Axon representatives, Kwasman, Borowsky and representatives of TAAAZE.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t part of any negotiations,\u201d Bob Littlefield insisted.<\/p>\n

As Borowsky put it, she met with \u201cthe anonymous funders of Taxpayers Against Awful Apartment Zoning Exemptions (TAAAZE) to agree to a further reduction of apartments totaling 500 units with an agreement not to seek a referendum on the deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luis Santaella, the interim city attorney who was called on several times during the Nov. 17 meeting, responded to several requests for clarification from the Progress.<\/p>\n

His responses:<\/p>\n