At the corner of 48th Street and Indian School Road, the paved path along the west side of 48th Street heads south past a long run of open ground. That ground is the former R&G Ranch, which dates to the late 1950s. It was a private park for employees of Phoenix Newspapers, Inc. and their families. The site has been sold to a homebuilder. The builder's plan puts the main entrance for 60 new homes on 48th Street, and that entrance would cross the path itself.
The path has dealt with a plan like this before. The first time, the neighborhood stopped it. This time the process is slower, more layered and still near its beginning, and that is why it's worth following closely right now.
A path that exists because a freeway was stopped
The Old Crosscut started as working infrastructure. SRP's canal history says the canal was built near 48th Street to connect the Arizona and Grand canals. Once the New Crosscut opened near 64th Street, the old channel was kept for drainage, emergency flood relief and backup during repairs on the New Crosscut. Upkeep later passed to the Flood Control District of Maricopa County and the City of Phoenix, which increased its flood-control capacity. SRP dates public recreation on Valley canal banks to a 1964 partnership with Maricopa County.
Visit Phoenix describes the Old Crosscut as running along 48th Street from Indian School Road to McDowell Road. The route has public art along the way. Phoenix Magazine lists Visual Puzzles at the Osborn Road pedestrian bridge, Rippling Waters Bridge near Oak Street and the Swimming Dream pedestrian tunnel along the Crosscut multi-use path. Farther south, the City lists a 1.4-mile Crosscut Canal Path in Papago Park, reached from the Hole-in-the-Rock trail. It's a wide, easy path on dirt and concrete banks that runs past the Desert Botanical Garden and the Phoenix Zoo.
This stretch almost became something else. State Route 143 was first planned to run all the way to Camelback Road along the canal, through the land the park now occupies, Arcadia News reported this month. Neighborhoods along the route organized against it. One Arcadia neighbor described that effort to the paper:
"With Arcadia Camelback Mountain Neighborhood Association, Arcadia Osborn Neighborhood Association and then Orangedale just south of us, we were able to activate and stop that whole thing."
The same three-association map is the setting for the current proposal. Arcadia News credits Old Crosscut Canal Park with helping unite the neighborhood in the 1990s, and the park opened a little over two decades ago.
What is proposed at the north end
The project is called Arcadian Square. It's listed with the City of Phoenix as case Z-101-26-6, a Planned Unit Development request at the southwest corner of 48th Street and Indian School Road, paired with General Plan amendment GPA-CE-1-26-6. The applicant is Cullum Homes. The project narrative filed with the city and the Arcadia Osborn Neighborhood Association's Fall 2026 newsletter give these details:
| Item | What the filings say |
|---|---|
| Homes | 60 detached single-family homes, gated |
| Site | About 12.62 acres, roughly 4.75 homes per acre |
| Current zoning | C-1 commercial |
| General Plan change requested | Parks/Open Space to Residential 3.5 to 5 units per acre |
| Main vehicle entrance | 48th Street, midpoint of the frontage, crossing the Crosscut path |
| Indian School curb cut | Removed entirely |
| Estimated traffic | About 670 weekday vehicle trips, roughly 40% heading south on 48th toward Osborn |
| Construction | Could take up to 2½ years |
The traffic estimate needs context. According to the AONA newsletter, the applicant's study found that the 48th Street and Osborn Road intersection already backs up in the morning and will stay congested in 2028 whether or not the homes are built. The study concluded the project adds relatively little traffic and recommended no project-specific improvements. The newsletter also says Cullum Homes holds property rights for access from 48th Street and considers an Indian School entrance unsuitable because it would sit so close to the 48th Street intersection.
The narrative describes the crossing in detail. Cullum Homes says it will install pedestrian safety features where the driveway meets the Crosscut path, possibly including electronic sensors and lighting, signage, speed tables, truncated domes and differentiated paving. The project's zoning attorney has also described a guard house set back from the path and clear sightlines between drivers and path users. The plan includes pedestrian access points from the 48th Street frontage onto the path, another onto the new shared-use path along Indian School, and a bark park inside the community.
The newsletter also explains the baseline. If the rezoning is denied, the parcel keeps its existing C-1 commercial zoning and could be developed for uses that zoning allows. The decision in front of the city is whether to approve this particular plan, including where its cars meet the path.
Four authorities share one strip of ground
A city zoning case doesn't settle the crossing on its own, because several bodies control the land under the path. Arcadia News reports that the Bureau of Reclamation owns the Old Crosscut Canal, and that separate use contracts with the Salt River Project, the Maricopa County Flood Control District and the City of Phoenix each add a layer of approval before anything can change.
Cullum Homes' proposed landscaping improvements along the path frontage are subject to SRP approval, so that new plantings don't conflict with SRP infrastructure. As filed, the driveway safety features, the path-side trees and the crossing are all proposals. None of them has been approved.
The topic has already come up at City Hall outside the zoning process. At the September 24, 2026 Parks and Recreation Board meeting, according to the approved minutes, residents asked for a pedestrian-impact study and urged that vehicles use the existing Indian School Road access instead of a route through the park.
Where the case stands this week
The AONA newsletter originally expected a village committee vote on November 3. That schedule has since changed. Here is the sequence from the city's own records:
- October 6, 2026. The Camelback East Village Planning Committee heard the GPA and the rezoning as an information-only item. Both were presented and discussed, with no recommendation and no vote.
- November 10, 2026. The committee's agenda does not include Arcadian Square. It lists December 1 as the committee's next meeting.
- Thursday, November 12, 2026, at 6 p.m. The Arcadia Osborn Neighborhood Association is hosting its third neighborhood meeting with the developer at Arcadia High School and asks attendees to bring questions. The association notes that the committee's hearing date has not been set.
- After the village committee. The case moves to the Phoenix Planning Commission and then to the Phoenix City Council.
On the city's PUD case list, the rezoning still shows as active at first submittal. That means Thursday's meeting at Arcadia High comes before any public body has voted on the proposal.
The other change, already funded
The second project on the path's calendar is already in the city budget. Phoenix Parks and Recreation has set aside $3.5 million for irrigation and landscaping upgrades along Old Crosscut Canal Park, scheduled for 2028 to 2030. Arcadia News calls it the largest improvement since the park opened. The money comes from the Phoenix Parks and Preserve Initiative. The 1999 law dedicates one cent of sales tax for every $10 in purchases to parks and desert preserves. Voters renewed it in 2008 for another 30 years.
People at neighborhood meetings have asked for more trees along the path and a restroom. The upgrades fall under the city's Parks Master Plan, which began in 2024 as the first citywide parks plan update since 1989.
The two projects fall in the same years. The renovation window opens in 2028, the same year the applicant's traffic study used for its 48th and Osborn forecast. Arcadian Square's construction could take up to 2½ years once approved. If the rezoning moves ahead, the city's landscaping work and a new driveway crossing could be planned for the same stretch of path at roughly the same time. In both cases the plans are still taking shape, and both are open to comment.
We follow changes like this because they shape the parts of Arcadia people use every day, long before anyone thinks about selling. If you have questions about how the Crosscut proposal or the park upgrades might affect your street, The Pontikas Team is happy to talk them through with you, and when the time comes, to give you a free home valuation based on what's actually happening around you.
