The Sedona Planning and Zoning Commission voted 4-2 during their Wednesday, Feb. 6 meeting to approve the Baney Corporation’s proposed Village at Saddlerock Crossing development south of the intersection of Soldier Pass Road and 89A.
The developers are seeking to change the zoning from Commercial and Medium-High Density Multifamily to Lodging. P&Z recommended the zone change and approved the proposal’s development review.
“The development team and the Baney family in particular, are absolutely delighted with the result that we got last night, and the clear recognition from the Planning and Zoning Commission of the merit of this project and the immense benefits that it’s going to provide the city,” the corporation’s attorney Benjamin Tate said on Thursday, Feb 7. “We’re excited to bring this to the city council and delighted with the results we got last night.”
City staff recommending denial of the project was a major focus for the commissioners and developer.
“It’s not often that I don’t know what to say,” Commissioner Sarah Wiehl said prior to the vote. “I love this project. I have been working in the construction industry for 28-plus years.
“This is one of the best projects I’ve seen, as far as well-thought-out, and plans and commitment to sustainability and being engaged in the community. When we got this new packet, I was really excited. I was like, ‘I hope they hit all the marks. And I was hoping to see All yeses,’ because I really wanted this project to happen. But to reiterate what [Commissioner Kali Gajewski] said, I’m baffled at why we’re still having conversations of ways to make it work?”
“I don’t say this lightly,” Tate said. “But to that end, in the seven years that I’ve been doing this, I have never seen a staff report go so far out of its way to highlight every imperfection and blemish of a project while diminishing and discrediting all of the positives and the positive benefits that this project is bringing.”
The project proposal for the 110-room Oxford Suites branded hotel and a 40-unit multi-family residential development is tentatively set to go before city council on Tuesday, March 26. If approved by council, the developer would still need to apply for building permits.
“That’s probably going to be a fairly lengthy process because we’ve got a lot of buildings and a lot of moving parts,” Tate said. “We’re probably looking at nine months to a year for building permit review before we can actually start going vertical on this.”
Two major areas developers addressed was compliance issues and building community partnerships.
“We’re still proposing the same overall buildings [but] we had to adjust some minor things,” Tate later said. “Some of the buildings, we had to make minor adjustments to bring the height into compliance. Then there were other areas where we simply had to provide clearer information as to how we were achieving the height or the alternate standards in order to achieve that height. Just so it was clear to the Community Development staff.”
The major changes include: A vehicular connection to Elk Road was added, as required by the Land Development Code; a 5- foot-wide concrete sidewalk has been added on the west side of Elk Road; and two 50-foot-wide commercial loading zones were added on the south side of the property. Along with operational updates, the property focused on sustainability. Affordable Housing
The nearly five-hour meeting has the distinction of being Sedona’s longest Planning and Zoning Commission meeting in six years. The Saddlerock Crossing discussion followed a 4-1 approval by P&Z to approve a zone change to allow part of the Sedona Cultural Park to be used as a homeless workforce car camping site.
The questions about the affordability of Sedona for its working class from developers and residents continued.
“So much effort is being put into a plan to allow people who are working and productive members of society in the city of Sedona to be able to sleep in their cars,” Tate said. “Yet staff is recommending denial of a project that will include 28 workforce housing units that are income-qualified, that would house many of the people who spoke here tonight.”
“The Village at Saddlerock Crossing will offer 28 workforce housing units divided into two 14-unit two-story buildings and twelve market rate multifamily units,” according to the project’s January letter of intent. “The workforce housing will consist of 24 studio units and four one-bedroom units, and the market rate multifamily will be composed of two one-bedroom units and 10 two-bedroom units.
“In recognition of the fact that short-term rentals have worsened the housing crisis in Sedona, the developer will deed restrict all multi-family residences — workforce and market rate — against short term rentals.”
The hotel is expecting 20 to 30 full-time or full-time equivalent employees and has said that the 28 workforce housing units will be a net increase in the amount of Sedona housing.
“It’s statistically impossible that everyone who’s coming to work at this development doesn’t already have a place to live,” Tate later said. “We are hoping to be able provide housing for any employees who are going to need it. But any way you slice it, there’s no way that every single one of our affordable units is going to be occupied by one of our employees. The most important way to distinguish that is Fair Housing laws. We can we can offer these workforce housing units to employees, as they’re being hired and say, ‘If you’re looking for a place to live, here’s the affordable component of our development, you can live on site … we just need you to apply. But once these units are completed and are available for rent, if somebody comes in and applies to rent one of those units and they qualify we can’t turn that person away.”
“We just sat through a two and-a-half hour presentation [on the] of lack of housing, yet this plan offers us housing,” Commissioner Jo Martin said during her final comments. “When I listen to the residents in Saddlerock, it’s a big concern to lose your viewshed [and] to be concerned with noise and traffic. But I also ask myself, ‘If you had another project would these same concerns come to you? If it was an apartment complex?’”
“It would still have noise,” Martin said. “I am at [a] struggle as I sit here and think about people sleeping in their cars, and think about we could build more housing. … I’m also struggling with the lack of showing proof on the plans of what the intent is.”
Cook’s Cedar Glade Cemetery
In addition to addressing compliance issues the Baney Corporation used the interim for community partnership building which was focused on Cook’s Cedar Glade Cemetery, which the Sedona Historical Society oversees. “Sense of Place” was one of the areas the proposal was found to be fully not compliant in November because it was not providing additional information as to how they were meeting this goal.
“They have accepted our proposal for a $25,000 endowment that will become effective if this project moves forward,” Tate said. “We will continue to work hand in hand with them not only to improve Cook Cemetery and create, as in my conversation with [Sedona Heritage Museum Executive Director Nate Meyers] to make the Cook’s Cemetery feel as important as it is, which is, in large part, the nature of the gift but also our ongoing commitment to work with them to improve not only the cemetery itself, but access to the cemetery.”
Meyers said that he is in the process of finding a landscape architect to put together a plan for the cemetery.
“What we’re talking about is improved walkways and landscaping, improving the fencing,” Meyers later said. “Maybe some sort of red rock pillars with [a] view fence in between wrought iron that gives a sense of what it is as a cemetery.”
Meyers elaborated that he and the developers have talked about putting interpretive and wayfinding signage in the cemetery and improving the gates and the access for vehicles and pedestrians.
This improved access is not shown on the plans,” according to the city of Sedona staff report. “The cemetery is to the west of the project site and … the access/connections from this site to the properties to the east is lacking/does not meet the expectations of the [Community Focus Area]. A connection to the cemetery would also need to go through other private properties and the applicant has not specified if or how they are working with the other affected property owners to improve the connection.”
The Sedona Historical Society is scheduled to install historical exhibits in the Oxford-branded lobby.
Additionally the Baney Corporation’s Oxford Collection of hotels donated $1,000 to the Scorpion Booster Club to assist with their annual Casino Night fundraiser.
Public Comment
The 13 comments made by members of the public during the meeting were roughly evenly split between positive and negative, with major concerns about the potential effect on residents’ viewshed, increased traffic and redundancy in adding another hotel in Sedona. In November, five of the six public comments were in support.
Written comments submitted since November expressed the same concerns and roughly have two negative responses to the proposal for every positive sentiment.
“Everybody in this room tonight would concede that this project is going to be developed as something [because] it is vacant land, it’s private property,” Tate said, which reiterated one of the prevailing sentiments expressed also by the city in November that development at the location is inevitable.
“Unless the city intends to buy this property and turn it into a public park, even then it’s going to be developed as something. The question becomes ‘What is the most responsible form of development for this property? Is it development under its current zoning, or is it development as something else?’”
