Phoenix General Plan

This is the Planning Department's General Plan Web Site. You can find information about the current General Plan including the General Plan elements, the General Plan map, answers to frequently asked questions as well as historical information about the update process such as hearings held and the Community Survey Summary. The General Plan documents provided are in Adobe® Portable Document Format (PDF)¹.

The updated City of Phoenix General Plan was adopted by City Council Resolution on December 5, 2001 in accord with action taken at its final public hearing on November 7, 2001.

In 1998, the State legislature adopted Growing Smarter legislation, and in 2000, Growing Smarter Plus legislation. These laws required the City to update its general plan elements including adding an infill program to the Land Use Element and to add five new elements: Growth Area, Open Space, Environmental Planning, Cost of Development and Water Resources.

The entire document, including the General Plan Map had to be adopted by the Council by December 31, 2001. Therefore, to be in compliance with the law, the Planning Commission held hearings on the General Plan in May, June, July and September in order that the Council could adopt a General Plan in November.

The elements are formatted with goals, policies and recommendations. They reflect what we would like to achieve over many years. Actual achievement may not be totally possible and will be dependent on community priorities, funding availability and market conditions. The General Plan is based on adopted city policy including the urban village model, the area plans for our growth areas, the Sonoran Desert Preserve, Transit 2000, and all of the other ongoing city policies and programs. It is a comprehensive document that pulls together in one place the work of the various city boards, commissions and departments. The Plan is also based on a scientific sample attitude survey conducted in January 2000 of over 2,000 residents equally distributed in each Council district. Questions in the survey addressed aspects of all 16 elements and were developed by the interdepartmental teams and our survey research consultant.

Amendments to the General Plan may be initiated by a village planning committee, two members of the Planning Commission, by a member of the City Council or by the owner(s) of a property in cases of a land use map change. Privately filed amendments require a fee. On an annual fall cycle, staff reviews the General Plan and will request the Planning Commission to initiate updates to the Land Uses Map and Street Classification Map for consistency with development that may have occurred, but did not required a General Plan amendment.