PHX Reporter

Residents of the rural West Valley community are feeling the squeeze of new development, ABC15 reported.

In Wittmann, an unincorporated town of 800 people in Maricopa County, an unnamed developer wants to build 1,500 homes. He asked to change the zoning from one house per acre to three to five per acre.

"That changes the dynamic of a rural community," resident Sherry Krueger told ABC15. "That now means complaints about your horses, and I don't like cattle, I don't want flies and I don't want dust. Country-type people want to grow their own food and they want to ride horses, and it's just a different breed of person. There's nothing wrong with either one. It's just two different breeds."

Ranchers are also complaining about the influx of new residents.

"Up until five years ago or so, we never had any problems," Bob Haymes, owner of B Bar D Ranch, told ABC15. "At the rate it's going now, you're gonna see more and more problems. More and more cows getting hit on the road. More and more people complaining [about] cows in their yard, tearing up their lawn and their trees ... I'm gonna fight this deal until I can't fight it any longer. And I'll have cows here until I run out of cows or they throw dirt in my face."

Danielle Corral, manager of the Farmland Preservation Program with Local First Arizona, discussed the impact of the residential development.

"When you lose a farm, from a personal perspective, someone's lost their livelihood, their business, where they live, their culture," she told ABC15. "They usually also can be a multi-generational farmer. So, they've lost that legacy. And then, as citizens, as community members, we've lost that direct connection to our food source, to learning about where food comes from."

There needs to be a plan to preserve the rural character of the area, she said.

"So, if you're saying we're going to change something from a rural denomination to something that can be totally built up, how are you planning for that?" Corral said. "How are you going to accommodate how this changes the rural environment? If you don't plan for it, that's when we run up to two cultures are butting heads, and you're trying to have an urban environment in a rural [area]."