Industrial outdoor storage site plans in Arizona

What the state sets for a storage yard

Arizona's state layer for an industrial outdoor storage yard is mostly procedure, and it changed at the end of 2025. HB 2447, enacted as Laws 2025, Chapter 31 and signed March 31, 2025, turned the permission in A.R.S. 9-500.49 into a duty: cities must authorize staff approval of site plans and plats without a public hearing, from and after December 31, 2025 ^[1]. Under the statute, a city's site plan decision on a yard already zoned for it goes to staff; the hearings that remain in the record below attach to rezonings and county use permits ^{[1, 8, 9]}.

The review clock. A.R.S. 9-835 requires each municipality to post an overall time frame that states administrative completeness and substantive review separately, treats an application as administratively complete when no completeness or deficiency notice issues within the administrative period, and allows one comprehensive written or electronic request for corrections during substantive review ^[10]. Under the 2019 text as reproduced by Justia, a municipality that misses the overall time frame or an agreed extension refunds the fees it charged ^[11].

Seals and the small office. Under A.A.C. R4-30-304(D), a registrant seals a document before it goes to any regulatory or review body unless the document is marked preliminary, draft or not for construction ^[12]. A.R.S. 32-144(A) lets a nonregistrant design a one or two story building of no more than 3,000 sq ft that is not occupied by more than 20 persons continuously, with spans of 20 ft or less unless engineered trusses are used ^[13]. The Arizona site plan page carries the rest of the state's seal and licensing rules.

Construction stormwater. The AZPDES Construction General Permit AZG2025-001 took effect August 29, 2025 and expires August 28, 2030; it covers construction that disturbs 1 or more acres, or is part of a common plan, with a discharge to a water of the United States or an MS4, and coverage takes a new NOI and fee ^{[6, 14]}. Its erosivity waiver is limited to sites of 1 to 5 acres that are not near impaired waters or Outstanding Arizona Waters ^[6]. On ADEQ's FY27 schedule, the NOI fee is $377.70 for 1 acre or less and $527.93 for more than 1 to 50 acres, SWPPP review is $1,509.75, and annual fees continue until a notice of termination ^{[15, 16]}. A No Discharge Certificate carries no fee ^{[6, 16]}.

Groundwater and drainage. A.R.S. 49-241 requires an Aquifer Protection Permit for discharging facilities, a list that names surface impoundments, injection wells and dry wells ^[17]. A yard drained to dry wells therefore sits inside the permit's scope ^[17].

Water supply. In an Active Management Area, a subdivision needs a Certificate of Assured Water Supply or service from a designated provider, and ADWR has designated 15 municipal providers in the Phoenix AMA, including all large cities ^[18]. The ASU Kyl Center explainer reads the requirement as reaching subdivisions of lots for sale, so a commercial yard that does not subdivide stays outside it ^[18].

Rezonings and Prop 207. A.R.S. 12-1134 gives an owner just compensation when a land use law adopted after acquisition reduces fair market value, after a 90-day written demand and within a three-year filing limit ^[19]. Arizona cities routinely ask for a waiver of that claim under 12-1134(I) when they rezone land, so a yard that needs an industrial rezoning should expect one; Eloy publishes its waiver form ^[20].

Where a yard is allowed: district and path by jurisdiction

The district that fits a yard, and the body that hears it, change at each jurisdiction line:

Each of these paths ends in a different hearing. In Pinal County, the Industrial Use Permit is decided by the Board of Supervisors on the Commission's recommendation ^[9]. In unincorporated Maricopa County the Commission recommends and the Board of Supervisors acts: on MCP2023010, an existing yard for shipping containers, semi-trucks and trailers, the Commission recommended approval subject to conditions 'a' to 'i' on a 7-0 vote on October 24, 2024 ^[8]. In Phoenix, review fees attach after the second resubmittal of development review documents ^[27], which puts weight on a complete first set.

Screens and stored height: the numbers that differ

The screen is the rule that most changes a yard plan from one Arizona jurisdiction to the next:

Hearings add to the code numbers. On MCP2023010 the City of Buckeye opposed the county request and asked for a solid wall along the freeway so that travelers would not see the outdoor storage ^[8]. On February 20, 2025, Pinal County commissioners asked the applicant on PZ-017-24, a 160-acre GR to I-3 solar rezoning, to consider a 6 ft CMU wall around the entire facility, and disapproved it 5-2; the same meeting approved PZ-016-24, a 2.84-acre GR to C-3 rezoning for RV and boat storage, 7-0 ^[29]. The section a screening case turns on is drawn from the nearest street or freeway, and the flex and industrial rendering page covers the views that go with it.

Dust, surface and stormwater: Maricopa against Pinal

The two counties that hold most of the Phoenix metro run their own dust programs, and the yard's disturbed area is tested against both the county line and ADEQ's:

In Casa Grande, the DSA-22-00148 narrative brought trucks in through a gated drive and across a scale on entry and exit, coated the yard behind the fence in an all-weather material and paved the parking and entry drive with asphalt ^[25]. Maricopa County conditions require lighting "shielded so that it is directed downward below the horizontal plane of the fixture and does not trespass onto adjacent properties" ^[8].

Two West Valley constraints sit on county land near Buckeye. Land in the territory in the vicinity of a military airport under A.R.S. 28-8481 may need a Military Compatibility Permit in unincorporated areas, with noise attenuation under A.R.S. 28-8482(B), and MCP2023010's position within the 65 Ldn area limited development to what Luke Air Force Base would approve ^[8]. Development in FEMA Zone A takes a floodplain use permit issued with the building permit, and structures sit at a regulatory flood elevation the engineer determines ^[8].

The Phoenix metro

In the Phoenix metro, the demand for IOS land concentrates near the core. Newmark's September 8, 2025 report puts Phoenix, Memphis and Atlanta at the top of its IOS rent growth list ^[35]. Zenith IOS bought an eleven-property Phoenix portfolio within seven miles of Sky Harbor International Airport ^[36], and Steel Peak, announcing its first Phoenix IOS purchase, cited about 466 million square feet of industrial inventory in Phoenix and "limited industrial land, zoning constraints" in Central Phoenix ^[37]. In the city itself, Phoenix Building Code Sec. 3105.4.5 governs industrial shade canopies over hazardous material storage, so a canopy over stored hazardous material follows that section ^[38].

The model projects

Two model projects work these rules through a single site. The Buckeye model project places a 5 to 15 acre truck, trailer and equipment yard with a small office in the I-2 Heavy Industrial district ^[21]. The Pinal County model project tests a yard against unincorporated Pinal County and Casa Grande, where both codes publish outdoor storage rules ^{[4, 5]}. Each carries its approval path, standards and site data, so this page does not repeat them. The industrial outdoor storage hub sets out the yard program and the screen and surface rules from other states, and RV park site plans in Arizona shows the same state layer applied to parks.

What the preliminary plan carries for an Arizona yard

The preliminary site plan for an IOS yard lays out the stalls by type, the drive aisles and truck circulation, the screen line, the gate, the office or flex building, the retention area and the yard surface, and sums them up on a site data table. In Arizona that table leads with the lines the state and the counties test:

• disturbed area against the 0.1 acre dust permit line in both counties, the 1 acre ADEQ line, the 2 acre trackout line and the 5 acre coordinator line in Maricopa County ^{[2, 3, 6, 30, 31]};
• screen height on each frontage against the local number: no more than 6 ft in unincorporated Pinal County, at least 6 ft in Casa Grande, 6 ft plus up to 2 ft toward the street in Buckeye's overlay ^{[4, 5, 21]};
• the height of stored trailers and equipment against the wall where Buckeye's overlay or Goodyear's code caps it ^{[21, 7]};
• surface by area, against the sealed recycled asphalt condition in unincorporated Maricopa County ^[33];
• site area and building coverage against Goodyear's 5 acre I-2 minimum and 50 percent coverage cap ^[7];
• the no-storage setback zones in Casa Grande ^[5].

The concept plan goes in marked "preliminary" under R4-30-304(D) ^[12]. At the zoning stage in Buckeye, the exhibit is titled "Conceptual Overall Site Plan" and carries the note "Site plan/plat has not been reviewed or approved," while a legal description and exhibit are signed and sealed by an Arizona registrant before rezone approval ^[39]. Maricopa County's zoning conditions state that "Engineering review of planning and/or zoning cases is for conceptual design only," and that detailed grading and drainage plans are submitted with the application for building permits ^[8]. The plans are preliminary, and engineering is by your engineer of record, who builds the sealed grading, drainage, utility and building set on them, along with the dust control plan and the SWPPP. Related reading: the IOS site plan guide, the IOS development guide and where unsealed site plans are accepted. To start an Arizona yard plan, send the site.