Every decade cities, towns and counties in Arizona are required to draft, publish and adopt — and in some cases ratify with a public vote — a community plan that state loose but legally binding guidelines for growth, development and zoning in the decade to come.
By law, specifically Arizona Revised Statute §9-461.06, towns and cities have to include a broad dissemination of proposals and alternatives, provide for the opportunity for written comments, hold public hearings after effective notice, host open discussions, communications programs and information services and have a process for consideration of public comments.
For most towns and cities in the Verde Valley this consists of discussions between planning and zoning commissions, the town or city council, committees of residents, feedback from the public and then adoption of the plan
In Sedona the debate has been far more extensive, comprehensive and labor-intensive with a multi-step process that lasts several years before a draft plan is voted on by the council, then subsequently adopted after ratification vote by the public.
Per ARS §9-461.06.M, towns and cities must put their plan to a vote under two conditions:
- If they have more than 10,000 residents or
- If they have between 2,500 and 10,000 residents in addition to a 2% per year growth over the previous 10 years.
Sedona no longer has that option, legally speaking. The 2020 US Census found that Sedona’s population again fallen to 9,684, below our historical high of 10,192 in 2000 and below 10,031 residents in 2010. Our growth rate is -3.5%, so we don’t fit in the other category either.
We Sedona residents have lost the legal ability to vote on our community plan because the changing conditions of our city is pushing our population to leave for other communities, some nearby.
While some residents may want to point the finger at the glut of vacation rentals pushing out long-time renters, the population drop began long before the passage of Senate Bill 1350 in 2015. Short-term rentals exacerbate the problem, but did not cause it.
However, we can legitimately make the case that due to the lack of affordable housing, the high cost of living, the exodus of families, especially working class families, being replaced by an influx of part-time second homeowners and well-off retired singles and couples without children at home means we have suffered a loss of input on our local democracy. Demographic changes have consequences.
Our neighboring communities have absorbed Sedona’s workers due to lower rents.
Our population now makes Sedona the median community of the Verde Valley — bigger than Jerome and Clarkdale but smaller than Cottonwood and Camp Verde, which is the largest city in the Verde Valley. We are also smaller than the Verde Villages — the unincorporated residential community abutting Cottonwood to the south.
The unfortunate fact is that the U.S. Census tends to under-count rural and minority communities, with the 2020 count compounded by delays and problems related to COVID-19, which means we might be far closer to 10,000 than the official count reveals.
We’ll never really know.
That said, because we have no public ratification of the draft Community Plan voted on the Sedona City Council alone, residents who are interested in having a say must attend public meetings and have their voices heard in order to have any impact in the eventual plan — considering we will not have any voice what happens after the fact.
The one upside is that the Sedona City Council, which does vote on the plan, will have to take full ownership of what it eventually states.
Being held accountable for their actions probably terrifies council members more than the loss of democratic input that terrifies us.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
