The Town of Fountain Hills has a desire to continually upgrade commercial, industrial and multifamily projects and has identified a number of characteristics to achieve the objective. The guidelines in this document are to advise developers, property owners and users on the criteria that will be used in reviewing commercial development plan applications.

The guidelines set forth herein are purposefully general in nature and avoid dictating specific design treatment although the preference is to encourage projects that support styles associated with the southwest environment. The belief is that creativity and design expertise lies more appropriately with the private sector and that the proper role of the Town is to ensure uniform and fair application of these design guidelines.

These guidelines are applicable for commercial, industrial and multifamily projects. Because of the extreme variance in the size and nature of such projects, it is not possible to develop a list that can be used for every site. Therefore, not all of these guidelines will apply to every application. Some guidelines describe situations that will only occur in large projects and will clearly not be applicable to small projects on small parcels. Other guidelines will only be used for specific types of commercial uses or at specific locations. However, most of these guidelines can still be achieved, regardless of project size, type or location.