The number of building permits issued by the city of Sedona for single-family and multi-family housing has declined significantly since the early 2000s, concurrently with an increasing shortage of housing and particularly workforce housing in the area.

At the same time, the average number of inspections performed per permit issued has risen.

Permits Down

Sedona’s Community Development Department issued a total of 1,176 permits for new single-family detached dwellings during calendar years 2000 through 2022, plus an additional 81 permits for single-family attached homes. From 2000 to 2004, the city issued an average of 97 permits a year for new single-family homes, accounting for 39% of all single-family home permits issued between 2000 and the present.

Beginning in 2005, the number of single-family home permits issued by the city began to decline, falling to 19 permits in 2009 and 13 in 2010. While the number of permits granted began to increase again in 2011, as the Great Recession came to an end, between 2005 and 2022 the city issued an average of 43 single-family home permits per year, including those for both attached and detached units, less than half of the 2000-2004 rate.

During this period, the city also issued 109 permits for manufactured homes, for an average of less than five permits per year.

In addition, the city has granted 23 permits for multi-family dwellings in the last 23 years. The last permit for a multi-family dwelling of three or four units was issued in 2011; the last permit for a multi-family dwelling with five units or more was issued in 2006.

From 2000 through 2022, the city granted 149 permits for hotels or timeshares, 41 permits for guesthouses and bed-andbreakfasts, 37 permits for offices and 32 permits for general commercial buildings. In 2013, the permitting statistics were altered to exclude a breakdown of the different types of commercial building permits granted, making long-term comparison of commercial permitting types more difficult.

The average annual number of building permits of all kinds issued in Sedona in the 2000-2022 period was 574. The largest single category of building permits issued by the community development department is not any type of construction permit, but rather permits for fences, utilities and miscellaneous activities regulated by city codes.

Inspections Up

The total number of inspections the city performed also increased by 40% from 2018 to 2022.

From 2000 to 2007, the number of inspections performed by the city remained consistent, averaging 3,045 per year, which works out to five inspections per permit granted. Between 2008 and 2018, this number dropped to an average of 2,078 per year while the number of permits granted per year was 536, causing the rate of inspections to decline to 3.9 per permit issued. In the last four years, however, the city has issued an average of 619 permits and conducted an average of 4,275 inspections per year, for an average of 6.9 inspections per permit — an increase of 43% over the previous decade.

The city of Sedona adopted the 2018 International Building Code as its building code in 2019, replacing the previously-used 2006 version of the IBC.

Although the IBC is referred to as an “international” code by its developers, the International Code Council, the ICC itself was formed in 1994 by the merger of three regional U.S. code development organizations and its membership is composed entirely of American representatives. The IBC is rarely used outside the United States. Its drafters described it as an international code in a purposeful attempt to encourage other nations to adopt it and in order to avoid having it referred to as the “U.S. Building Code.”

The Size of the Problem

Sedona’s November 2020 Housing Needs Assessment concluded that the city had 6,450 housing units, with single-family homes and mobile homes accounting for 87%. Conversely, the city contains only 257 apartments and 211 attached or townhome units. The study concluded that Sedona would need to add 1,480 to 1,515 housing units by the end of 2025 to meet demand.

Currently, 58% of Sedona’s renters pay more than 30% of their household income in rent.

Solutions

The city’s housing needs assessment identified the requirements of the city’s land development code as one of the obstacles to constructing affordable housing in Sedona.

“Some of the requirements may result in an extraordinary expense for an affordable housing complex that make it challenging to construct affordable units,” the report’s authors stated. “The city should evaluate and review the land development code requirements relative to the potential cost of the design enhancements and public art investment and determine if some could be modified or waived.”

The assessment suggested other procedural solutions to provide incentives for affordable housing, including the waiver or reimbursement of impact, permitting and planning fees; a reduction in the number of required parking spaces; and a reduction in forest protection requirements.

The assessment did not, however, consider repeal of or a significant reduction in the complexity of the land development code and building code, although these codes add between $100,000 and $200,000 to the cost of each new home in Sedona [see the Sedona Red Rock News for Jan. 6].

The report offered examples of alternative housing solutions that have been successful elsewhere in Arizona, such as a tiny home community organized by the local school district in Vail, south of Tucson: “The district invested $200,000 in the site for infrastructure improvements and leases the land to each tiny home for $125 per month including utilities and internet,” the report outlined. “The 400-square-foot homes are either sold for $60,000 to $70,000 or rented for $700 per month including the land rent. Rented homes are owned by local investors interested in helping the school district.”

A similar model could subdivide city of Sedona’s publicly-owned parcels into individual lots, lease the lots to residents and waive the building code for owner-built units under 200 square feet. The city’s of Sedona property portfolio currently includes just over 47 acres:

• 10 acres at 555 Soldier Pass Road
• 8.5 acres at 2070 Buena Vista Drive
• 2 acres at 260 Schnebly Road, currently used for tourist parking
• 1.6 acres at 401 Jordan Road
• 3.5 acres at 250 Brewer Road, partly occupied by historic buildings
• 0.7 acres off East Park Ridge Drive
• 1.2 acres at 430 and 460 Forest Road, originally slated for a tourist parking garage
• 18.2 acres east of Jordan Road
• 0.8 acres at 65 Brewer Road n 0.7 acres at 121 Brewer Road

Dividing these parcels into 4,000-square-foot lots would permit 10 tiny homes per acre — fewer than the Sedona Community Plan’s limit of 12 units per acre for multi-family residential housing, which the city admits has been “a stumbling block for the type of housing development … that provides more diverse and affordable housing options” — for a total of 470 housing units.

If the two parcels in Uptown formerly planned for the Jordan Lofts project were developed in collaboration between the city and current property owner, 65 more units could be added for a total of 535 units — but this would only be one third of Sedona’s estimated projected housing needs.

Another location for affordable housing many Sedona residents and leaders have suggested is the city’s 160-acre property at the Dells. As it is outside city limits, the land is governed by Yavapai County building codes, which could not be waived by city officials