It’s been years in the making, yet Yavapai County Supervisors and the city of Sedona still have not worked out the jurisdiction of the Sedona Airport Mesa.
After the city of Sedona dropped its opposition at meeting Wednesday, July 20, the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors approved the 10-year Venue on the Mesa lease between Harrell Cooley and the Sedona-Oak Creek Airport Authority at the former Masonic Lodge building.
“We appreciate the changes that have been made in this lease, including the changes in Section 111 that require Harrell Cooley to come to the city for a Conditional Use Permit,” city of Sedona City Attorney Kurt Christianson said. “And we also appreciate the change that requires that Harrell Cooley complies with the land use and regulatory approval from the city. So with those changes, we do drop our opposition.”
The county based its approval on many discussions with the city and airport authorities on the lease. Now, the city will require the lessee to go through their Conditional Use Permit process before the event space opens.
“The lease, as it’s now written, would require Harrell Cooley to obtain a use permit from the city of Sedona,” Assistant County Administrator of Yavapai County Jack Fields said. “That is not a concession by the Board of Supervisors or Yavapai County that the city actually has jurisdiction. But it is an agreement by the county that the citizens of Sedona, as through their government, should have a say in what happens on that mesa at this particular venue.”
And so, this discussion and approval from the county pushed back the more important issue of the mesa’s jurisdiction in either the county or city.
“Rather than have that fight, the county has taken the position that the citizens living near that airport through the city process will have their say about what should be happening on that mesa,” Fields said. “Things like noise, hours of operation, traffic, those kinds of things. That’s why the recommendation to the board today is to go ahead and let the city of Sedona go through its process.”
Back in February, the initial letter of opposition from the city stated that the last time the discussion arose, the county and SOCAA agreed that non-aviation businesses at the airport are subject to city zoning and permitting. The city argued that due to the precedent set by the city’s involvement in the past, the city and its residents should have the opportunity to raise concerns around the potential event venue.
Now the jurisdiction discussion will be moved to whenever the Venue on the Mesa elects to add a restaurant and bar to the existing event space, which would require a zoning change from the city of Sedona.
“There is still the one concern about if Harrell Cooley decides to construct a restaurant or bar that is not an allowed use in that zoning district,” Christianson said. “That event venue is with the conditional use permits that we feel like can be worked through if they decide to go further and construct a bar or restaurant that would require a rezone.”
Since the initial proposal, residents near the airport area expressed their concerns about the venue. And despite the new requirement for a review process from the city, many residents will still oppose the event space.
“Regardless of what Mr. Fields has said, whether you start small and build to a complete restaurant, bar and outdoor amphitheater, or whether you descend on us all at one time with a venue like that, it’s not, in the end, going to make a whole lot of difference to the residents,” Sedona resident Maria West said. “Visitors come to Sedona because of the peaceful environment, because of the views and because they can get things in our town that maybe they aren’t able to get in other towns. And yes, we make accommodations for people who come to visit, but there doesn’t have to be an entertainment venue tucked into every corner of our residential neighborhoods.”
Harrell Cooley has yet to accept the new requirements of the lease. The 10-year lease would lock the venue in, even if the space failed.
“It is my recommendation that we do not let that particular issue hold up approval of that lease today,” Fields said. “That’s an issue that can be dealt with down the road, again through negotiation. How I would imagine that would work out is the county would agree that the city could go ahead and have that process go through and that the county would accept it.”
