Following a little more than three hours of discussion, the Sedona City Council was just about to vote on a parking garage when the bells began to ring.
City hall’s fire alarm went off, which startled everyone in council chambers on Wednesday, Sept. 15.
Council, staff and the public left the building for about 12 minutes before Sedona Fire District crews arrived on the scene to give the all-clear.
According to city staff, the alarm had gone off earlier in the week as well.
Once all returned to council chambers, council voted on a Major Community Plan Amendment to the Future Land Use Map to change one parcel from Single- Family Low Density to Commercial and a zone change from single-family residential to mixed use activity center to allow for the development of the Uptown parking garage.
Both items passed 6-1 with Mayor Sandy Moriarty, Vice Mayor Scott Jablow, and council members Kathy Kinsella, Tom Lamkin, Holli Ploog and Jessica Williamson in favor and both dissenting votes coming from Councilman Jon Thompson.
He suggested a pause to allow time to re-evaluate the location and need for the parking garage based on other projects in the works such as the Forest Road Extension and citywide public transit.
In order for a Major Plan Amendment to be approved, no more than two members of council could vote against it. In addition, a member of the public filed a legal protest with the city which, according to City Attorney Kurt Christianson, means the vote must pass with a minimum 5-2 vote.
With a legal protest, 20% of neighboring property owners must dispute the rezoning in writing. The last time a legal protest like this was filed with the city was six years prior, when the CVS store was approved to be built on Airport Road.
The city purchased property located at 430 Forest Road in April last year. Council approved purchasing the adjacent 460 Forest Road for $410,000 two months later in June. The proposed 272-space parking garage, with some electric car spaces, will straddle those two lots on a combined 1.24 acres.
The garage is estimated to cost $11.5 million, which includes construction and the land acquisition.
Council has directed staff to create a design for a two-story, three-level parking structure. The bottom story would be below ground level, or subgrade, a ground level floor and uncovered parking on the third-level roof. In all, it would look like a one-story structure nearly 12 feet high.
The garage project will need to go back to the Sedona Planning and Zoning Commission again for development review. It will appear before council during Sedona In Motion updates and approval of a construction contract.
If all goes as planned, City Engineer Andy Dickey said the city expects starting construction in July 2022, and completion would be approximately a year later in the summer of 2023.
Staff and council pointed out that discussion of a parking garage in Uptown dates back more than two years, and that there have been several opportunities for public input. It’s just been in recent months that staff has received the bulk of those concerns that include:
■ Neighboring property owner concerns regarding visibility of the garage.
■ Garage will defeat the purpose of the Forest Road extension, especially for residents.
■ Garage will encourage visitors to bring their cars into Uptown.
■ Garage is not in the right location.
■ Residents don’t favor any zone changes.
■ Process did not survey residents.
■ Concerns over evacuation time in the event of an emergency.
■ Area doesn’t need any more two-story buildings.
■ Should be a surface lot, not a garage.
■ Should require hidden garages integrated into new development.
■ There is no parking problem in Uptown.
■ Purpose of garage should be for employees.
“This is probably one of the most extensive public processes we’ve done outside of our Community Plan and Community Focus Area efforts,” Senior Planner Mike Raber said.
On those lines of public outreach by the city and public input, Mayor Sandy Moriarty said the accusation that the public hasn’t had several opportunities to weigh in is not accurate.
“All of a sudden we got 20-plus emails and now we have to totally rethink everything,” she said. “The emails followed the propagation of a website, totally anonymous, with what I consider lies on it, saying that we have not had any citizen input. You heard today, enumerated, the number of times we not only had citizen input but opportunities for it.”
