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SIERRA VISTA — In front of a large crowd and after public debate Tuesday at City Hall, the City Council approved a land swap for public access to the Garden Canyon Wash.
The long-term vision is to create a linear park in Garden Canyon Wash. The land swap between the city and a private resident at the end of Kachina Trail is related to that project. The swap provides for city right of way where a trailhead for the natural linear park plan, or at least emergency and maintenance vehicle access, could be located.
The neighbors in the area, which is on the periphery of developed Sierra Vista and near the Fort Huachuca border and state and federal lands, tend to have strong opinions either for or against a trailhead so near their back yards.
About 50 people showed up to hear and make comments on the issue.
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Ultimately, the council unanimously approved swapping a 3/4-acre triangular piece of property on the lot owned by Mr. and Mrs. Carl Batts for about 3 feet of land along the back part of the Batts’ property.
By Arizona law, such a swap must be an agreement voluntarily entered by the government and the private party, Assistant City Manager Mary Jacobs said.
The council has promised not to move forward with respect to the exact form and use of this particular right of way, nor any of the rest of the linear park details until completion of a public input process set to begin in January, Jacobs said.
Area resident Bret Smith addressed the council to summarize history of development along Garden Canyon Wash, which is a geologically historic and important runoff feature in this part of the San Pedro Valley.
Formerly all of the wash area that runs east through town was owned by developer Castle & Cooke, which dedicated that floodplain into city right of way once the real estate was built out in that area of Sierra Vista, Smith said. At that time in the middle 1990s, there was an outcry as the city took into its right of way that floodplain, he added.
That outcry was followed by assurances of a public input process when the linear park designs were eventually cut — his implication being the land swap is related to the park, but its approval Tuesday has removed it from public debate.
The linear park has been on the city development plan for about two decades.
Smith urged the council to respect, heed and properly conduct the public input process that was promised back then.
Nearby resident Laura Snyder said that after approval of the land swap, the public input process planned will be after the fact, at least insofar as she is concerned because she lives so close to the parcel in question.
Snyder believes the council and staff members have their minds made up about the trailhead.
She said she supports access to the linear park, but that access already exists.
“I feel violated by the city,” Snyder said.
Her husband, Brad, suggested that the city is in violation of covenants, conditions and restrictions documentation drafted by the neighborhood developers and held by the homeowners because the access right of way would not be a definitively residential use.
He suggested environmental peril will stem from paving a trailhead.
Matthew Walton, the Arizona Game and Fish Department’s Southeast Arizona access coordinator, said the location is suitable for non-motorized access, and he urged that cooler heads prevail in this process.
Resident Louise Keenan indicated suspicion that the city is unethically trying to get the trailhead done, and the public input process planned for January is only to feign interest.
Neighbor Amanda Tyson said the trailhead design at the location would not provide for horse trailer access. She said the police are already ineffective with respect to enforcement in the area, and illegal immigration and its incidental crime and damage would increase if the access spot comes to be. Terrorists would be more attracted by it, too, she added.
At about the same time as the initial public discourse came to be heard about a trailhead earlier this year, an order from fort command closed the foot gate access to Fort Huachuca property citing homeland security reasons. The unmanned gate is actually in the wash, which was frequently used by hikers and mountain bikers.
Brenda Haynes supports the access and the linear park vision in general.
“I think it would be a boon for the city, but we need trail access,” she said.
Neighbor Steve Saway also expressed his support, citing the interconnectedness that would be furthered by a the access point and the linear park project, which would link multiple use paths with the many Huachuca Mountain trails on U.S. National Forest land and the popular Brown Canyon Trail.
Julia Robertson said the city is using “friendly condemnation” policy that violates the neighbor’s civil rights.
City Attorney Stu Fauver said this process is not a condemnation of any sort.
Before the vote, Councilman Bob Blanchard said he intended to vote for the swap but would never vote for a parking lot in the area nor would he ever vote to pave the road to it.
Mayor Bob Strain thanked everyone at the meeting who spoke “for their thoughtful and heartfelt comments.”
City Manager Chuck Potucek said last week that the land swap gives the city “an option for potential public access in the future, and no decision is going to be made as to that or the type of access, until the results of the public process.”
REPORTER Gentry Braswell can be reached at 515-4680.
to to AZ native wrote on Dec 5, 2007 6:51 PM: