The Sedona Planning and Zoning Commission conducted a work session on RD Olson Development’s application for a development review for its proposed Oak Creek Heritage Lodge off Schnebly Hill Road on Tuesday, Nov. 21.

No action was taken during the meeting.

Heritage Lodge

The project proposes the construction of a 70-room hotel with a 4,600-square-foot restaurant, a 3,300-square-foot spa and 1,900 square feet of meeting spaces on eight parcels totaling 11.58 acres north of Schnebly Hill Road and south of the Rancho Sedona RV Park. The site will also include four studio apartments for hotel employees and 90 parking spaces. These facilities would be dispersed among 13 two-story and 14 one-story buildings covering 8.9% of the property area.

The lodge would be located in the Oak Creek Heritage Area special zoning district, which requires future developments to make special efforts to reflect the area’s historic agricultural uses.

“Small buildings are clustered to assist in the agrarian scale of the project,” the developer’s most recent letter of intent stated with regard to the zoning requirements. “Buildings are setback and a large contiguous open space zone is provided along Schnebly Hill Road … a great majority of the trees within the site and right-of-way are preserved to maintain the current naturalized look along the street edge. All buildings and site circulation are proposed based on saving existing native trees … Single-story cabins are proposed at the higher site and other prominent areas whereas two-story structures are set further back into the lower portions of the site.”

“The whole intent of the team was to push those two-story units as far away from Schnebly [Hill Road] as we can, down the grade, and therefore the rooftops are lost in the trees,” architect Greg Villegas told the commission.

Of the 945 trees currently on the property, 505 would be retained and the remainder removed, and an orchard would be planted adjacent to the site’s historic irrigation channels.

Vice Chairwoman Charlotte Hosseini noted that an earlier version of the proposal placed the parking within the orchard, asking “Has that disappeared?”

“Yes,” RD Olson vice president Tony Wrzosek said. “It sounded like a greater idea than it really was … we realized that fruitbearing trees in a parking lot probably isn’t very wise.”

Instead, canopy trees will be used to shade the lot.

To make way for the hotel, the existing single-family homes on several of the properties will be demolished.

“I would like to ask you to seriously consider retaining the structure — I think it’s at 65 Schnebly,” Chairwoman Kathy Levin said. “It was built 70, 80 years ago. It’s funky, it doesn’t meet the standards for having complete integrity to be listed as a local historic landmark …You haven’t taken the very structure on the property that speaks to the families that lived there and grew fruit trees … please take that seriously.”

Wrzosek replied that their site survey had not found that building to be historic due to the alterations that had been made to it over the years.

“That doesn’t rob it of its historic relevance to the site. I feel very strongly about that,” Levin said.

The developer has also offered the city an easement to allow the city to connect a trail through the property to a future pedestrian bridge across Oak Creek.

“Every single project, I have concerns that there’s not adequate infrastructure in Sedona for water,” Commissioner George Braam said. “It’s going to be a terminus drain on Arizona water and also on all the residents in the future.”

Braam also had concerns about parking and traffic in spite of the developer’s proposal to put together a traffic mitigation plan for the project. “Regardless of what the numbers say, it’s going to be horrendous with an additional 600 vehicles [per day] in that intersection,” Braam commented.

“I think it’s a pretty smart thing that you decided to have some workforce housing, but how did you land on four?” Commissioner Will Hirst asked. “I’m not quite sure what four does as opposed to none.”

“It just seemed like the right fit, and four is better than zero,” Wrzosek said. “

What would be taking place in those meeting rooms?” Levin asked.

“Small meeting groups, executive retreats … social events … smaller meetings,” Robert Olson replied.

Cabins

Members of the public expressed concerns that the hotel would increase backups at the Schnebly Hill Road roundabout and that the proposed architecture does not conform to the design requirements for the special zoning district.

“I like the development,” neighbor Chris Husa said. “The problem I still see is traffic … it isn’t 4.9 seconds [delay], it’s more like 15 minutes … Until this is addressed, I don’t see how this is even feasible.”

He added that the area’s traffic problems cannot be solved without the removal of the State Route 179 crosswalk between Tlaquepaque and Tlaquepaque North.

“The actual resort itself looks wonderful, but it doesn’t work because the traffic doesn’t work,” neighbor Pandora Harris said. “The other thing we were sold on was that there was going to be a creekwalk, and that the developer was providing that. That’s not happening.”

“They spent a lot of time tonight calling it cabins, and they focused in on those little ones in the front, but the ones in the back — tell me this is a cabin?” Anne Kelley asked, holding up a photo of one of the lodge’s proposed cabin designs next to a photo from the Schnebly Hill community focus area plan. “There’s pictures in the CFA … they’re little cabins. This is not a cabin … The CFA doesn’t say you can have large buildings as long as you can’t see them from the road.”

Historic Ditch

David Tracy, who formerly owned one of the parcels that RD Olson has since acquired, and architect Max Licher argued for the importance of intelligent water management in a letter to the commission.

“At previous P&Z Commission meetings on this project, concern was raised over pumping water from Oak Creek,” Tracy wrote. “I believe that the community benefits outweigh the disadvantages and pumping should continue … Creek water is used to irrigate locallygrown fruit and nut trees … Creek water is also used to irrigate lawn grasses and other flora … The grasses and trees moderate the heat sink effect of near-by asphalt roads and concrete surfaces … It might be possible to revive/restore the old FarleySteele irrigation ditch using these historic water rights. This would greatly enhance the experience for visitors and residents traversing the pathway along Schnebly Hill Road. Oak Creek water which is not used locally to help keep the Verde Valley green becomes the property of Salt River Project, which can then be sold at a profit to residences down in the Valley to fill swimming pools and hot tubs.”

“Leaving Oak Creek and its associated dry washes and the riparian corridor in their natural state, i.e. unmanaged, poses an increased risk to the community of flooding, erosion, and wildfires,” Tracy added.

“Using Oak Creek water for reactivating the historic ditch would be essential both to the historic vision, and for the environmental/ sustainable goal of landscaping with edible trees and shrubs,” Licher wrote. “I’m sure someone could do the math on all the ditches along Oak Creek and show that that amount of agriculture would have little effect on the overall flow of the surface waters.”