Home » City Council, Community » Eddie Maddock: Massive Sedona 700 Mobile Home and RV Site Rezoning Near Approval

Eddie Maddock: Massive Sedona 700 Mobile Home and RV Site Rezoning Near Approval

Eddie Maddock focuses her Eye on Sedona to the plunder and destruction of El Rojo Grande Ranch in the profit versus preservation of Sedona’s ancient Indian artifacts and red rocks, irreplaceable bird and animal habitat, and possible sewage contamination of the Red Wall Limestone aquifer that supplies water to Sedona, Page Springs and surrounding communities when bulldozers arrive to clear pristine pre-settler land for 700 mobile homes and RV sites at the western gateway.

Sedona AZ Finally the election is OVER – DONE – KAPUT – FINIS! Some are rejoicing over the outcome, others are shedding tears, but if the truth were known, is anyone NOT celebrating the conclusion of this every two year event?

That being said, what’s next on the agenda?

Well, most assuredly a hot topic is reaching a boiling point regarding a pending change of zoning for El Rojo Grande Ranch to accommodate a massive 700 unit development at the outskirts west of Sedona City limits.

It’s best described in the following letter from Karen Reid Offield:

Dear Everyone,

Many of you have driven by the beautiful El Rojo Grande Ranch at the western gateway to Sedona yet you never have visited the Ranch. To you, and all our friends, this letter and website is for you!

This website www.elrojograndesedona.com was specifically created to help save this remarkable, but forgotten gem of Sedona. As a citizen of Arizona, or a visitor on the World Wide Web, you can save it. You can ensure the ranch is preserved as a part of the future of Sedona. Yavapai County will listen to the public comments. Please write a letter. (Note instructions at end of article.)

The buyer – a multi-billion-dollar based Chicago Corporation, Equity Lifestyles (ELS) and the owner of the Sedona Shadows mobile home park is asking Yavapai County to change the zoning of the ranch to allow them to build a huge 688-unit mobile home park (628 manufactured homes/apartments and a 60 RV Park) right next to the Dry Creek Scenic Road at the western gateway to Sedona.

This website will take you on a tour of the Ranch, to see for yourself why it is so important for the Sedona Community to rally around the Ranch, as environmental stewards, and to block a zoning change that will allow the developer to bulldoze its ancient landscape, evict and destroy its rich wildlife and Indian artifacts, and leave it as a scarred example of the type of development that values profit over the preservation and conservation of the treasure that is El Rojo Grande Ranch.

We are urgently asking for your immediate help to rally community support to block this PAD re-zoning, which will replace this priceless scenic wonder with a massive ocean of roofs.

The fragile lands of El Rojo Grande Ranch will be forever harmed by pumping the water from beneath its riparian habitats to the development, and by dumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of effluent back into its creek bed each day, or by injecting that effluent into its underground aquifer. In addition to that tragedy, ELS will dispose huge amounts of surface runoff from their asphalt pavement into the riparian habitats.

The wildlife and bird riparian habitats on El Rojo Grande Ranch will be drained and parched by the massive water pumping station proposed by ELS to supply its mobile home park. ELS has yet to propose a method for disposal of all that waste, which would contaminate the Red Wall Limestone aquifer that supplies water to Page Springs and its surrounding communities.

Thanks to its past owners, most of the Ranch’s 173 acres are in the same pristine condition that early settlers in the Sedona area found it. It is still covered with ancient juniper trees, some of which are 200 years old – trees that were growing before the white man ever came into the Sedona area. It is truly a “step back in time”. Sadly, the beauty of the Ranch has been largely forgotten by those in the surrounding community.

We invite you into this website www.elrojogradesedona.com to enjoy the photographs of its marvelous park, its wedding sites, its community gathering spots, and its equestrian facilities which was built on the 173 acres for the public to enjoy by riding on its beautiful acreage, and onto the beautiful Forest Service land that surrounds it.

We invite you to read about the hundreds of species of birds, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and plants that call its red rock and riparian habitat their home. In doing so, you will learn about the watershed, and the great riparian corridor in Northern Arizona which is currently under great stress, and in danger of being lost by the animals and plants who live here.

To save the Ranch we must first make people in the Sedona area and all neighboring communities and our global friends aware of its existence, its beauty, and its potential contribution to Sedona, as a marvelous blessing for future of our residents and visitors to Sedona and the Northern Arizona region where Old West Dreams live on.

El Rojo Grande Ranch was built to be a horse and cattle ranch. It was, nearly 26 years ago, built to be a working ranch surrounded on three sides by United States Forest Service lands – spectacular and welcoming to visitors from around the world.

Please protect the land, and not allow an inappropriate development to proceed.

Please write a letter to Yavapai County, and say “Please do not change the zoning and allow this ugly and unfortunate development to proceed.”

Please do not allow El Rojo Grande Ranch to become a symbol of what unrestrained development can do in our internationally known center of natural beauty. By allowing this microcosm of Sedona to be bulldozed and turned into a sprawling ocean of mobile homes, we will be showing the entire world that our values of conservation and sustainability are only words – devoid of actions.

The sellers have said themselves that this Ranch is magical! The International Sotheby’s has described this Ranch as pristine and magical! Let’s not let its magic be destroyed by bulldozers, and replaced by a sea of mobile home roofs. Please make this happen, and support – NO CHANGE IN ZONING!

Write a letter today! Randy Garrison, Yavapai County Supervisor, is in change again of these proceedings along with the county commissioners and staff.

Here is mine which you are welcome to cut and paste – click on this link. All letters are due by December 11, 2018.

Thank you!
Karin Reid Offield

 

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252 Comments

  1. Eddie Maddock says:

    @Warren Woodward. Hush, please don’t let it be known but your short message said volumes and I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.

    Thank you.

    E. Maddock

  2. ERG says:

    I third it.Update: Many of you are not Face Book users, but during the opposition it was a useful vehicle to spread the word. When I heard that we needed more Clarkdale and Camp Verde residents to chime in – FB answers that need by pushing the postings into their communities. It was incredibly helpful to us.

    We shut down the Save El Rojo Grande Ranch FB page but it’s still frozen on-line and the comments and posts can still be accessed and read.

    It brings me to the next phase for the website and what I feel could be important for those of you working on the issues and challenges for Sedona.

    Check out the Blog on the website, and if you want to contribute, send us an email that is relevant to the conversations – elrojogranderanchinsedona@gmail.com – Thank you all for your kind words and all the help. Eddie – you are really something! Karin

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