By Teri Carnicelli

    The city of Phoenix went from seven to eight Police Precincts last month, with the opening of the new Black Mountain Precinct on Cave Creek Road.

    The opening of the new precinct marks the final division of the Desert Horizon Police Precinct, formerly the largest in the city in terms of square miles. While previously the area to the city’s far north, including Anthem and New River, was largely undeveloped desert, in recent years more housing and more retail has moved in, stretching the Desert Horizon officers thin as they patrolled nearly 144 square miles. Now, they will cover closer to 75 square miles with an approximate population of 311,770 residents.

    It was a year ago this month that the city and Police Department officials held a series of community meetings to get input from residents and neighborhood leaders about proposed new boundaries for split-up Desert Horizon, as well as some adjustments to other precinct boundaries including the adjacent Squaw Peak Precinct, which serves a chunk of the heart of central Phoenix.

 

After receiving input from the community, the city made one or two final tweaks to the final plans for the new precincts—including one that came at great relief to members of the North Central Phoenix Homeowners Association. The association is bounded by 7th Avenue to 7th Street and Northern to Missouri avenues.

    At one point, the city was proposing moving all but a fraction of the neighborhood out of the Squaw Peak Precinct and into Desert Horizon, leaving a small area—from Bethany Home south to Missouri—inside Squaw Peak’s boundary. While NCPHA representatives would have preferred remaining in Squaw Peak as a whole, since they had over the years built strong ties to their police contacts, nonetheless they fought for the next-best plan: to move all of their neighborhood into Desert Horizon, leaving no one behind.

    The new boundaries for the Desert Horizon precinct are 19th Avenue on the west to approximately Scottsdale Road, and Union Hills Drive south to Dunlap Avenue, except for a small dogleg addition that encompasses Dunlap south to Missouri Avenue, and 19th east to the Interstate 51 freeway. It is this very bottom section that is now patrolled by officers in the Sunnyslope Substation, which opened in October 2009.

    The rest of the area will continue to be served by the Desert Horizon Precinct, with its station located on 56th Street south of Bell Road.