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HB2452 - 572R - H Ver
House Engrossed
comprehensive plans;
data centers; nuclear
State of Arizona
House of Representatives
Fifty-seventh Legislature
Second Regular Session
2026
HOUSE BILL 2452
AN
ACT
amending section 11-804, arizona revised
statutes; relating to county comprehensive plans.
(TEXT OF BILL BEGINS ON NEXT PAGE)
Be it
enacted by the Legislature of the State of Arizona:
Section 1. Section 11-804, Arizona Revised
Statutes, is amended to read:
START_STATUTE
11-804.
Comprehensive
plan; contents
A. The commission shall formulate and the board of
supervisors shall adopt or readopt a long-term comprehensive plan for the
development of the area of jurisdiction in the manner prescribed by this
article. The comprehensive plan, with the accompanying maps, plats,
charts and descriptive matter, shall show the commission's recommendations for
the development of the area of jurisdiction. The comprehensive plan
shall be made with the general purpose of guiding and accomplishing a
coordinated, adjusted and harmonious development of the area of jurisdiction
pursuant to the present and future needs of the county. The
comprehensive plan shall be developed so as to conserve the natural resources
of the county, to ensure efficient expenditure of public monies and to promote
the health, safety, convenience and general welfare of the
public. The comprehensive plan may include studies and
recommendations relative to the location, character and extent of highways,
railroads, bus and other transportation routes, bicycle facilities, bridges,
public buildings, public services, schools, parks, open space, housing quality,
variety and affordability, parkways, hiking and riding trails, airports,
forests, wildlife areas, dams, projects affecting conservation of natural resources,
air quality, water quality and floodplain zoning
and electric
power production and demand, including small modular reactors and data centers
. In
the preparation of the comprehensive plan, the commission shall make surveys
and studies of the present conditions and prospective future growth of the area
of the jurisdiction. The comprehensive plan shall be a public
record, but its purpose and effect shall be primarily as an aid to the county
planning and zoning commission and to the board of supervisors in the
performance of their duties. The comprehensive plan shall include
provisions that identify changes or modifications that constitute amendments
and major amendments to the plan.
B. In addition to the other matters that are
required or authorized under this section and this article, for counties with a
population of more than one hundred twenty-five thousand persons, the
comprehensive plan shall include, and for other counties the comprehensive plan
may include:
1. Planning for land use that designates the
proposed general distribution and location and extent of uses of the land for
housing, business, industry,
energy, mining,
agriculture,
recreation, education, public buildings and grounds, open space and other
categories of public and private uses of land appropriate to the county.� The
land use plan shall include:
(a) A statement of the standards of population
density and building intensity recommended for the various land use categories
covered by the plan.
(b) Specific programs and policies that the county
may use to promote compact form development activity and locations where those
development patterns should be encouraged.
(c) Consideration of air quality and access to
incident solar energy for all general categories of land use.
(d) Policies that address maintaining a broad
variety of land uses, including the range of uses existing in the county at the
time the plan is adopted, readopted or amended.
(e) Currently identified sources of aggregates from
maps that are available from state agencies, information from the Arizona
geological survey on how to locate existing mines, consideration of existing
mining operations and suitable geologic resources, policies to preserve
currently identified aggregates sufficient for future development and policies
to avoid incompatible land uses, except that this subdivision does not affect
any permitted underground storage facility or limit any person's right to obtain
a permit for an underground storage facility pursuant to title 45, chapter 3.1.
(
f
) Designation
of the proposed general distribution, location and extent of the uses of the
land for the construction and operation of data centers and data center
facilities appropriate to the county. The designations shall be
sufficient in location and extent as to not prevent or prohibit the effective
use of land for the construction and operation of data centers and data center
facilities in the county.
2. Planning for circulation consisting of the
general location and extent of existing and proposed freeways, arterial and
collector streets, bicycle routes and any other modes of transportation as may
be appropriate, all correlated with the land use plan under paragraph 1 of this
subsection.
3. Planning for water resources that addresses:
(a) The known legally and physically available
surface water, groundwater and effluent supplies.
(b) The demand for water that will result from
future growth projected in the comprehensive plan, added to existing uses.
(c) An analysis of how the demand for water that
will result from future growth projected in the comprehensive plan will be
served by the water supplies identified in subdivision (a) of this paragraph or
a plan to obtain additional necessary water supplies.
4. Planning for
energy use that:
(a) Encourages and
provides incentives for efficient use of energy.
(b) Identifies policies and practices
for greater use of renewable energy.
(
b
) Designates
of the proposed general distribution, location and extent of the uses of the
land for construction and operation of thermal and nonthermal electric
generating units appropriate to the county, including small modular reactors. The
designations shall be sufficient in location and extent to not prohibit or
prevent the effective use of land for the construction and operation of small
modular reactors in the county.
C. In addition to the other matters that are
required or authorized under this section and this article, for counties with a
population of more than two hundred thousand persons, the comprehensive plan
shall include, and for other counties the comprehensive plan may include:
1. Planning for open space acquisition and
preservation. The open space plan shall include:
(a) A comprehensive inventory of open space areas,
recreational resources and designations of access points to open space areas
and resources.
(b) An analysis of forecasted needs, policies for
managing and protecting open space areas and resources and implementation
strategies to acquire additional open space areas and further establish
recreational resources.
(c) Policies and implementation strategies designed
to promote a regional system of integrated open space and recreational
resources and a consideration of any existing regional open space plan.
2. Planning for growth areas, specifically
identifying those areas, if any, that are particularly suitable for planned
multimodal transportation and infrastructure expansion and improvements
designed to support a planned concentration of a variety of uses, such as
residential, office, commercial, tourism and industrial uses.� The mixed use
planning shall include policies and implementation strategies that are designed
to:
(a) Make automobile, transit and other multimodal
circulation more efficient, make infrastructure expansion more economical and
provide for a rational pattern of land development.
(b) Conserve significant natural resources and open
areas in the growth area and coordinate their location to similar areas outside
the growth area's boundaries.
(c) Promote the public and private construction of
timely and financially sound infrastructure expansion through the use of
infrastructure funding and financing planning that is coordinated with
development activity.
3. An environmental planning element that contains
analyses, policies and strategies to address anticipated effects, if any, of
plan elements on air quality, water quality and natural resources associated
with proposed development under the comprehensive plan.� The policies and
strategies to be developed under this element shall be designed to have
countywide applicability and shall not require the production of an additional
environmental impact statement or similar analysis beyond the requirements of
state and federal law.
4. A cost of
development element that identifies policies and strategies that the county
will use to require development to pay its fair share toward the cost of
additional public facility needs generated by new development, with appropriate
exceptions when in the public interest.� This element shall include:
(a) A component that identifies various mechanisms
that are allowed by law and that can be used to fund and finance additional
public services necessary to serve the development, including bonding, special
taxing districts, development fees, in lieu fees and facility construction,
dedications and privatization.
(b) A component that identifies policies to ensure
that any mechanisms that are adopted by the county under this element result in
a beneficial use to the development, bear a reasonable relationship to the
burden imposed on the county to provide additional necessary public facilities
to the development and otherwise are imposed pursuant to law.
D. The water resources element of the comprehensive
plan does not require:
1. New independent hydrogeologic studies.
2. The county to be a water service provider.
E. In applying an open space element or a growth
element of a comprehensive plan, a county shall not designate private or state
land as open space, recreation, conservation or agriculture unless the county
receives the written consent of the landowner or provides an alternative,
economically viable designation in the comprehensive plan or zoning ordinance,
allowing at least one residential dwelling per acre. If the
landowner is the prevailing party in any action brought to enforce this
subsection, a court shall award fees and other expenses to the landowner. Each
county shall incorporate this subsection into its comprehensive plan and
provide a process for a landowner to resolve discrepancies relating to this
subsection.
F. The policies and strategies to be developed under
these elements shall be designed to have regional applicability.
G. For counties with territory in the vicinity of a
military airport or ancillary military facility as defined in section 28-8461,
the commission shall also consider military airport or ancillary military
facility operations and shall identify the boundaries of any high noise or
accident potential zone as defined in section 28-8461 in its
comprehensive plan for purposes of planning land uses in the high noise or
accident potential zone that are compatible with the operation of the military
airport or ancillary military facility pursuant to section 28-8481,
subsection J.
H. For a county that
contains any portion of the influence area of a military installation or range
or Arizona national guard site, the commission shall also consider respective
installation, range or site operations and shall identify the influence area
boundaries in its comprehensive plan for the purposes of planning land uses in
the influence area that are compatible with the operation of the
military
installation
,
or
range or
arizona national guard
site. For the
purposes of this subsection, "influence area" and "military
installation or range or Arizona national guard site" have the same
meanings prescribed in section 11-818.01.
END_STATUTE
Sec. 2.
Comprehensive plans; amendment; counties
Each county that meets the population
threshold prescribed by section 11-804, subsection B, Arizona Revised
Statutes, as amended by this act, shall amend the county's comprehensive plan
pursuant to section 11-805, Arizona Revised Statutes, to comply with the
requirements of section 11-804, Arizona Revised Statutes, as amended by
this act, within two years of the effective date of this act.