The City of Scottsdale publishes a dataset* that includes planning and development cases dating back to the 1970s. I'm interested in what sorts of trends I can infer about the development of Scottsdale by looking at this dataset.
- How has the volume of cases changed over time?
- the mid-90s and early 00s had the largest volume of cases brought before City Committees
- the recovery period since they 2007/2008 crash has not resulted in an increase of cases
- Which City Councils have the largest number of hearings?
- Development Review Hearings where the most common of all in the mid-90s
- Since 2000, City Council Hearings have been more common that all other councils. This could simply reflect changes in the way the city does business over time.
- What is the general trend in cases being approved/denied?
- Only a tiny fraction of cases are denied, this has remained stable over time
- Are specific City Councils more contentious than others? (more likely to vote against proposals)
- The Board of Adjustments Hearing has consistently been the most contentious of all hearings, although this council contributes a relatively small number of hearings compared to the Development Review Hearing, City Council Hearings, and the Planning Commission. This makes sense since the Board of Adjustment "has the power to hear and decide on appeals from administrative decisions and variances from the provisions of the zoning requirements. The Board of Adjustment makes the final decision on items that come before it; decisions are not passed on to the City Council for final approval".
- Does the count of cases each year track with the development of Scottsdale over time? I.E. can the future development of Scottsdale be predicted based on City Council activity?
- This doesn't seem to be the case. However I need to find a good benchmark as a proxy for the "development of Scottsdale" over time to be able to contrast my analysis against.
- Dig deeper into the voting patterns of the Board of Adjustments to better understand it's role in being the board of final decision.
- Other than "approved" and "denied" case hearings outcomes, a large number of outcomes are reported, e.g. "withdrawn", "continued", "recommendation", "amended", ect. Try to make sense of how these other labels are being used.
*Contains information from the City of Scottsdale Open Database Portal, which is made available here under the Open Database License.