The Sedona City Council voted 6-1 to proceed with annexing 3,422 acres of U.S. Forest Service land and cityowned property within the county at a public hearing on Tuesday, Jan. 14.

City Attorney Kurt Christianson confirmed to council that no property within the proposed annexation area is privately owned and that the three property owners within the annexation area, the city of Sedona, the Arizona Public Service electric utility and the Coconino National Forest, hold only property with no assessed value and therefore are not required to approve or vote on the annexation.

Christianson also said that three entities have leases or other rights associated with assessed property values within the annexation area: APS, EDP Renewables, which operates the solar panels at the city’s sewer plant, and Lumen Technologies.

“Of the three, we’ll need two of the three to sign in support,” Christianson said. “A majority of the property owners and a majority of the properties’ assessed value. EDP Renewables and APS have already indicated they have no issues with the annexation and would support it.”

“There will be a policing impact on city services but otherwise no impact on city services,” Christianson said, observing that the Sedona Police Department currently receives “hardly any calls for service” to the area, although the sewer plant is already under SPD jurisdiction pursuant to the city’s agreement with Yavapai County.

If annexed, the land within the annexation area will be automatically zoned single-family residential. City Manager Anette Spickard said that transfer of ownership of that land from the USFS to a private owner would be “technically possible” but “highly unlikely.”

“The Forest has a very strict policy and criteria that govern how any of the Forest land in this district could go out of Forest ownership,” Spickard said. “It has to either have an act of Congress request or they have to be eligible under some very specific federal acts to ask for an exchange. Even if a proposal came in out of one of those three things, they have to meet substantial criteria … and the city would have a say in that, because it has to meet a community need.”

Three residents spoke during the public hearing, only one of whom expressed a definite opinion on the proposal.

“I’m wondering if the city would consider placing a deed restriction on the entire property to prevent commercial development and residential development forever,” Oak Creek Canyon resident Rick Black said. “Placing a deed restriction on it tells the world, tells everybody, tells the city and its citizens that the property cannot be developed.”

Nena Barlow, owner of the Barlow Adventures Jeep tour company, asked that city staff consider devising a better way for off-highway vehicles to cross the highway as part of the planned redesign of the State Route 89A intersection at the Sedona Wastewater Reclamation Facility, which is within the annexation area.

“I’d like to focus more on the reasons why you’re pursuing this,” said Cliff Hamilton, a former Sedona vice mayor. “You’re concerned that Cottonwood may be trying to leapfrog annex more in our direction … the other one being, of course, this issue with Yavapai County having to do with building the bus barn out there at the wastewater plant. Starting with the first one, looking at that particular area, any sort of public infrastructure that you might want to think about in terms of future development, I would say personally is never going to happen … there were really none of them that really were suitable or appropriate for that area … Any kind of public infrastructure development out there was something that [Arizona Department of Transportation] told us they would not tolerate … they would not grant the city access to the road for that sort of thing.

“If you’re looking at this issue with Yavapai County and want to sort of get around them to build this bus facility out there, that seems a pretty thin reason to me,” Hamilton continued. “This looks more to me like trying to swat a fly with a sledgehammer.”

“While it changes jurisdictional boundaries, it doesn’t change ownership of the land,” Christianson clarified following the hearing. “There’s no possibility for the city to place a deed restriction on the Coconino National Forest land. It doesn’t own it.”

With regard to the city’s property within the annexation area, “if the city places some deed restriction on it, the city could just take it off,” Christianson added.

“One council can’t constrain a future council,” Councilman Brian Fultz said. “It kind of feels like we would be doing that by putting a conservation easement on that property, so I’m not really in favor of that … I don’t see a reason why we would want to preclude an opportunity to develop in future.”

“If development in the future … occurs on the Dells, and if that includes housing, then those people have a right to have a voice in Sedona,” Councilwoman Melissa Dunn said. “Unless we do this annexation, they will have no voice, because they will be living in the [Yavapai] County.”

“If there is to be residential development, then the people who live there should have a say in their government because it would be city-owned land,” Vice Mayor Holli Ploog said.

“Whether or not this property is annexed has no effect on whether there’s going to be a land swap,” Councilman Derek Pfaff said. “It doesn’t make it any more or less likely that there could be a land swap. If at some point in the future the standards for a land swap are loosened, and a land swap does take place, I’d rather we have jurisdiction over it than someone else.”

“I’m supporting this annexation with a preservation mindset for this area,” Councilwoman Kathy Kinsella said. “There’s land to still be built on in Sedona.”

Mayor Scott Jablow said that Yavapai County’s zoning guidelines are less “restrictive” than those of Sedona and commented that if “we’re going to do any kind of project, 20 years, 30 years from now, hopefully I won’t see that,” but should a future council allow development of the Dells, he also wanted potential future voters to be located within the city.

Councilman Pete Furman continued to protest the annexation proposal.

“This to me looks like a rushed — what I will call a major change in public policy in Sedona,” Furman said. “It was a very unheralded element in our Community Plan that changed for the first time in years and years and years and years without really a public debate. I would bet that 99% of our population does not know that public policy was changed by the Community Plan. I remain puzzled by the need and the timing … I’m also worried about unknown decisions by future council.”

“Leave a good thing alone,” Furman concluded.

Following a motion by Ploog to proceed with the annexation process, the council voted 6-1 in favor, with Furman as the sole dissenter.

A date has not been set for staff to bring the signed petition back to council for approval.