Some people would call the Santan area a sleepy suburb, but moves are being made to wake up the community to being more organized. Local real estate agent Bambi Sandquist said she is taking the first step toward an effort to create a city or town in the area. Two past efforts failed.

Click on the graphic to view the area attempting to incorporate

The drive to incorporate could include the 46,000 people estimated to live in the Santan area - in neighborhoods south of Queen Creek such as Johnson Ranch, Circle Cross Ranch and San Tan Heights.

"It's about local control," Sandquist said. "It's local, local, local.

"You can't spread it out into a county of this size ... somebody gets left out."

Sandquist's efforts, backed by what she describes as a "loose-knit group" that's seriously looking at the issue, comes on the heels of the announcement of a recently formed group aimed at giving the Santan area a voice.

That group, the Greater San Tan Area Coalition, is co-chaired by Jack Malpass, former San Tan Area Chamber of Commerce chairman, and Gordon Brown, a community activist. Five developers and four members of the San Tan Area Chamber of Commerce make up the core of the coalition.

Brown recently said that he doesn't necessarily see the Santan area incorporating. His group is focused on organizing the area, which is described by people who live there as a series of suburbs with no sense of community.

The organization will give them a voice if they are annexed by Florence or Queen Creek or remain in Pinal County, he said.

"In a nutshell, we're not concerned with whose flag is going to fly," Brown said. "What we're concerned about is what they are going to do."

Sandquist, for her part, acknowledged that incorporation might not be the right answer.

Brown has opposed other incorporation efforts. He's expected to attend a meeting exploring options hosted by Sandquist this weekend.

"Well the importance of that is that we have been at odds before about which way this area should go," Sandquist said.

She said the goal of incorporation would be to bring industry and commercial businesses to an area that is presently an endless series of rooftops.

"We may find out that there is no way to make it work," she said.

"There could be no space for industrial and commercial development. What are the impact fees left to collect?"

Johnson Ranch's Tim Bushnell, on the homeowners board, said that a decision on whether to incorporate or not is "a long ways before a decision can be made."

He said he is concerned about basic infrastructure, such as roads that have not been built by Pinal County to support the area. Better transportation could lure businesses and free the area from being solely a bedroom community.

He agreed that nothing binds the Santan area other than the fact that he has thousands of neighbors.

"I think ... location, that's the binding factor," he said.

He added that he likes Brown's group because it is nonpolitical.

"They're not making a decision upfront," Bushnell said. "They'd rather look at the options and figure out what is best for this group."