A group of Bear Wallow Road residents and an Uptown resident have filed appeals of the Sedona Planning and Zoning Commission’s April 16 approval of a development review for the proposed Oak Creek Heritage Lodge.

The planned 70-room hotel would be located on eight parcels totaling 11.58 acres northwest of Schnebly Hill Road just past the Schnebly Hill roundabout. The first public hearing for the project was held on Dec. 7, 2021, and additional hearings and work sessions took place on May 17, 2022, and Nov. 21, 2023.

Bear Wallow Appeal

The first appeal of the commission’s decision was filed on April 30 by a group of residents whose properties are located in the vicinity of the proposed development. Their appeal argues that city staff failed to properly evaluate the proposal for community plan conformity, its effects on neighboring property owners, the capacity of utilities and public service providers to serve the project and its ability to secure a sufficient water supply, and that staff allegedly acted unethically and allegedly with bias in approving the review.

“Many of the findings and evaluations in the DD [Development Department] staff report are unsubstantiated, false, misleading and/ or incomplete,” the group’s appeal stated. “The planning commission abused its discretion in approving the development.”

Quoting from the 2024 Sedona Community Plan, the appeal stressed that development decisions should favor “those who live and work in the community” and asserted that “it has been the vested interests of residential land users that have preserved and protected this unique area, as opposed to the nefarious interests of those now seeking commercial development of the area for profit.”

“The only residents who asked for the insidious [community focus area] plan and resulting [Oak Creek] Heritage District Zoning are those property owners who have been seeking allowances for commercial development of their properties in this previously residential zoned RS-10 area,” the appeal added.”

Suggesting that the area be used for single-family homes instead of a hotel, the neighborhood group noted that they “fail to see how eight residential dwellings built on the eight proposed parcels would be less suitable for the location than the 26 commercial and accessory use buildings being called for by the proposed resort hotel development.”

Their appeal further asserts that “the Planning Commission failed to inquire about the proposed project’s estimated water usage demands and availability, despite public pleas to do so” and that the proposed hotel “will draw an untold amount of water from our shared potable water supplies.”

The project’s developer, RD Olson Investments, provided will-serve letters from utility providers with their application, showing the availability of needed services, along with a water usage estimate of 21,600 gallons per day. The Bear Wallow appeal twice referred to these letters as “outdated” and described the estimate of water use as “false and misleading.”

In this context, the appeal quoted a passage from the Community Development Department staff report to the effect that “‘staff believes that adequate public service and facility capacity exists to accommodate the proposed development.’”

“This ‘belief’ of the development department staff is unsubstantiated and does not satisfy the criteria of [Land Development Code] Section 8.3E(5)(k),” the residents wrote. “Development Department staff has no authority to make such assertions, and has failed to perform its duties and due diligence in assuring that the developer applicant has presented credible documentation.”

Likewise, the appeal stated that “the proposed project has failed to specify how much surface water it intends to draw from Oak Creek.”

The available project documents do not mention any plans for the hotel to draw water from the creek.

The neighbors’ appeal also called attention to staff alterations to the wording of city code in the development review. “In discussing this [LDC] section, the staff report misstates the code language itself, substituting the word ‘surrounding’ with the word ‘adjoining,’” the appeal states in reference to the code requirement that development “minimize impacts on surrounding property owners.”

“This deliberate modification made by [development department] staff is particularly troublesome, a clear ethical violation and dereliction of duty, as the wording of this code language has significant legal implication. The code language has been modified in the section caption, in the recitation of the LDC Section 8.3E(5)(e) and in the paragraph discussing citizen participation,” they wrote.

“The appearance of bias and undue influence surrounding this proposed project is glaring and is not lost on the appellants,” the appeal added. “The seating of Development Department staff at the same table as the developer representatives at the Planning Commission hearing on April 16 is a crowning example in the long history of getting this proposed project to this current development review stage.”

TenBroek Appeal

Uptown resident Mark TenBroek also filed a 137-page appeal of the development review on May 1. TenBroek argued that the scale of the proposed development is inconsistent with the Schnebly Hill CFA plan and that the development does not provide the protection of the environment required by the CFA plan.

“The Schnebly CFA includes some examples of what this type of lodging should look like, and that would appear to be a series of single-room, singlelevel rustic structures as shown on page 26 of the Schnebly CFA,” TenBroek wrote. “It appears that this vision would be consistent with what most people would consider a cabin or a cottage. By contrast, the developer has supplied drawings in the most recent development package that are mostly two-story multiple-suite units with plentiful glass window area … In spite of the obvious difference between what the CFA indicates as examples of lodging accommodations and what is proposed, the developer has repeatedly referred to their structures as ‘cabins or cottages’ during their presentations, perhaps believing that if these structures are called this enough, they will become a cabin or a cottage.”

The zoning requirements for the Oak Creek Heritage Area define “modestlyscaled buildings” as buildings up to 5,000 square feet in size.

TenBroek also argued that the boundaries of the floodplain adjoining the property were imperfectly described, creating a safety hazard, and that having some of the planned structures overhanging the floodplain would “prevent light from penetrating to the available riparian habitat.”

Next Steps

The Sedona City Council will consider the appeal during its regular meeting at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 25.