Written by Cliff Hamilton
“A better land deal could never happen,” they say. “The local ranger district is against it because the Coconino Forest Plan is against it.” But if new circumstances come together and the council opens a Pandora’s box with annexation, the local decision It may become invalid. Here’s how and why it happens.
First, the annexation brings more than 3,000 acres of scenic forest land, a classic Sedona address, and the promise of city services within the new city limits. This gives developers and decision-makers at the top of the federal government the impression that the city wants to expand Sedona. Much of western Sedona was created through Forest Service land deals. (That’s why we have subdivisions like Foothills South and Foothills North, North Slope, and Thunder Mountain.) Second, new Foothills West and West Slope in the newly expanded western Sedona city limits, and Bear Mountain. Imagine the development of something like Once this wooded area falls within city limits, wealthy developers with money and political connections will start salivating.
Second, consider that today there is more rural land for sale than usual across the western United States. Many have good timber resources, grazing suitability, recreational appeal, and watershed values. Some of it is private land surrounded by Forest Service land. These would be attractive acquisitions for the Forest Service if offered in exchange for dry, low-resource-value forest land west of Sedona’s current city limits. This above-average land inventory for sale in the Western United States is also a new phenomenon. Heirs to long-established ranching businesses are looking to become ranchers, to live on rural land, to make a living from it, and to take their families away from modern conveniences, entertainment, social contact, and consumer products. Less and less willing to feed. And family ranches that children don’t want to inherit are put up for sale when their parents get older and can no longer manage them. Yes, this has been happening in rural communities for a long time. But now the wave is even bigger, creating a larger-than-usual inventory of attractive real estate available for potential deals.
Next, add a new national government that will take office in the coming weeks. This new group has little interest in tradition, precedent, and established norms. Land trade provisions in forest plans will be easily ignored in the new resource-extractive political climate. New resource and land management appointees will be required to be “trained” to extract, exploit, and exploit federal lands and resources in unprecedented ways, under new orders from higher levels of government.
The City of Sedona’s obligation to provide city services to new housing subdivisions would be expensive. Since there are no city property taxes to cover these costs, additional costs such as additional city staff, police, and sewage treatment must be met from existing sources. As water supplies decrease in a warmer, drier climate, water demand and costs will inevitably rise. This will be on top of the 48 percent water rate increase that the city’s main water provider already plans to cover current demand and upgrade aging infrastructure. And Sedona’s traffic problems are already legendary. Increasing the city size by another 30% with the same road structure will only make the situation worse.
Of course, city councils can also control some development through zoning restrictions. But time and time again over the years, when the right kind of legal bribes are offered in the form of “community benefits,” developers’ proposals have been upheld and such regulations have evaporated. Zoning restrictions are not even guaranteed for the lifetime of the Legislature that created them. Future councils are in no way bound by any guarantees given to the community by previous councils.
Beyond the risk of initiating land transaction activity again and the unintended consequences it would bring, the City Council could avoid Yavapai County’s resistance to the city building a bus repair facility at the sewage treatment plant and possibly preserve Cottonwood’s survival. It justifies the annexation proposal in order to stop it. Annexation of land that includes all or part of that area. Concerns about Cottonwood’s annexation are based on the idea that the city may someday want to “develop” land called “The Dells,” which is currently used for wastewater treatment. But what does the city actually want to develop on the land?
More than a decade ago, the City Council considered the issue of developing low-cost housing, athletic fields and recreational facilities there. All of these options were considered bad or unfeasible for various reasons. But beyond those reasons, a more definitive reality emerged. The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) says Highway 89A in the area is a divided, four-lane, 65 mph expressway. Sometimes at night, dozens to perhaps hundreds of cars at once could be speeding toward Sedona or across two lanes of high-speed traffic toward Cottonwood. It was not safe to allow access to the road. The council’s rationale for annexation, that it would protect the land for future “development,” is bogus. That will never happen, regardless of who owns, parcels out, or claims control of the land.
Then there’s the irony of the whole thing. Annexations to protect the City Council’s authority to develop land will inevitably lead to more sewer connections and increased wastewater expenditures each day as land transactions and subdivision development cycles begin again. This leaves the city with no more land available for “development” that would have been protected by annexation, even if ADOT allows access to the highway, which could be used to treat more wastewater. be forced to use all the available land (and probably want more).
Preserving land for “development” is a pretext, not a reason, for annexation. That would leave only the conflict with Yavapai County and its associated risks justifying large-scale annexation. Forget about annexation. It’s time for the City Council to take Yavapai County’s contract disputes to a judge or arbitrator, obtain a ruling, and build upon or move on to other options for the city.
Ultimately, the risk that increased land transactions and their effects pose to Sedona cannot be justified simply by alleviating bureaucratic conflicts over buildings. Our City Council has lost perspective on annexation and most of the reasons for doing it. They’re trying to swat a fly with a sledgehammer, but the unintended consequences could be even worse.
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