Hobbs sides with Axon over Scottsdale voters, signs bill to cancel election challenging HQ project
Gov. Katie Hobbs has signed legislation to give law enforcement technology company Axon a carve-out in state law that will let it avoid voter review of its planned massive headquarters and housing project in north Scottsdale.
Axon came to the Capitol in 2025 aiming to bar voters in every city and town in Arizona from being able to challenge zoning and development decisions. But that bill failed to garner enough support, so the company and its allies pivoted instead to merely stripping away the right of Scottsdale voters to challenge the police weapons manufacturer’s HQ project near Hayden Road and the Loop 101.
In addition to the firm’s international headquarters, the project will include a luxury hotel and roughly 1,900 apartments.
With Axon pledging to leave Arizona if the election was allowed to stand — Scottsdale voters are notoriously anti-development — their bill earned support from a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers who feared the homegrown firm would leave for another state.
https://azmirror.com/briefs/hobbs-sides-with-axon-over-scottsdale-voters-signs-bill-to-cancel-election-challenging-hq-project/