Sedona City Council may be illegally considering a Cline Road abandonment action
Sedona AZ (October 28, 2013) – The following is a letter to the SedonaEye.com editor in opposition to an application to the city of Sedona for the abandonment of a portion of upper Cline Road in favor of an adjacent landowner:
On Tuesday, November 12, 2013, at 4:30 PM, the Sedona City Council will vote on a proposal to abandon a 30 ft by 200 ft strip of Cline Road to an adjacent landowner, Desert Sun Holdings Land Trust, which will effectively stop hikers, bicyclists, equestrians, and other public access from Soldiers Pass area to the USFS hiking trails under Coffee Pot. This, if enacted, will be without any compensation to the City coffers from Desert Sun Holdings Land Trust other than a possible benefit from increased tax revenue.
Desert Sun Holdings Land Trust is proposing to build a large one story building on their recently acquired two acre parcel. They claim this building would require annexation of Cline Road to satisfy setback requirements. They could accomplish the same, on the proposed envelope, with a variance for which they have not applied. They want a strip which will reduce Cline Road to 20 ft width by 200 ft length. The 30 ft they want is the existing graded road, and the remaining 20 ft (to serve as a trail or road adjacent to the proposed home) is basically a narrow arroyo with rocks shrubs and cactus. This is very unfriendly travelling for a hiker, if not impossible for the biker or horse.
Platt Cline dedicated this land to the public in 1972, for the public interest, and it subsequently became Cline Road which was annexed by the City of Sedona. Undeveloped upper Cline Road serves as a possible future connection for USFS fire protection and other of their activities, as well as a possible conduit for APS vehicles which service the electric power lines above and adjacent to Cline Road. Should this application be approved, Cline Road will not have the required 50 ft of width for any future road development. As a road, Cline will not exist in its entirety, having two segmented parts separated by a 20 ft width by 200 ft length. Arizona law requires at least 50 ft in width for it to be considered a road.
The Sedona City Council should not even be considering this dubious application, but since they will, on 12, November, 2013 at 4:30 PM, an affirmative vote by the Council may be inviting litigation, now and into the future, that our tax dollars will be used to defend. That is, so that Desert Sun Holdings Land Trust can build a nice home where they choose.
Let our voices and submissions be heard and stop this egregious proposal which may be illegal under Arizona law.
Bill & Lesley Pattison Sedona, AZ
Anybody from City staff or Council going to explain why this is on the agenda if it’s illegal? Who’s the name behind that false front land holding company name? Anybody know? Is it somebody that sits on the Council or works at the city?
Liked this article on Facebook.
This is just a hunch but could this signify a precursor of forthcoming trends?
Last Friday (10/24) there was a letter in my mailbox, hand addressed and properly postmarked. However, two inches had been chopped off the left end thereby eliminating a return address as well as two inches from the right hand side of the two sided letter enclosed, thus making it difficult to clearly interpret the message although the gist was well defined.
The subject was “Draft New Community Plan” and throughout what I was able to read reference was made to “LAND USE ACTION PLAN” and development by the City Attorney of a “brand new bag of Property Acquisition tools.”
There appears to be a plea to advise property owners to pay attention to what will soon be a finalized production of the proposed “New Community Plan” which will go before voters in March of next year.
This very afternoon, Wednesday, October 30th, at 3:00 PM in Council Chambers, the “Special Business” at hand is “Public hearing/discussion regarding the October 2013 Draft New Sedona Community Plan as forwarded by the Planning and Zoning Commission.” It will be aired on Cable Channel 4.
The contents of the letter I received further cautioned that P & Z now has other plans for those “PLAN” designated properties and refers to the new tools in motion as “a blank check to acquire Private Property Development Rights.”
Because of the “missing text” my report here is sketchy at best but IMO well worth sharing especially in light of the article under which this comment is posted.
Please property owners, residential and commercial, pay heed to what is before us. Sedona has seen many changes since incorporation but from what little I’m able to ascertain from this letter it may very well only be a drop in the bucket of things yet to happen.
When I took the letter to the Post Office the Postmistress wasn’t available but one of the clerks made a copy of the envelope and torn up contents and I had already offered the date it was received.
Although the sender remains unidentified apparently due to damage caused by the mailing process, this is an opportunity to express my appreciation for having received a very abbreviated (due to missing contents) of a message that appears to obviously be critical to the residents and property owners of incorporated Sedona.
Eddie S. Maddock
The Sedona City Council voted 6-1 to deny the application to gift the property to the landowner. Councilman Dan McIlroy was the only vote in favor.