Entrance to Greasewood from Alma School Road.
At its June 24th meeting, the Greater Pinnacle Peak Association voted to voice the organization’s opposition to plans to move Greasewood Flat. The primary reasons for the board’s action were concerns about the impact on the natural environment and the impact on the quality of life of residents.
The board’s vote followed a presentation by Howard Myers, past chair of the McDowell Sonoran Preserve Commission, and Linda Whitehead, the past president of the Coalition of Pinnacle Peak. On May 27th, Myers issued a personal email alert that describes the objections that were presented at the June board meeting. We’ve included the alert for your review.
MAY 27 ALERT
By Howard Myers
Proposal
Carol and Howard Myers
What is being proposed is to relocate Greasewood Flats to part of alarge 120 acre site, owned by the Cavilliere family, that is adjacent to the Preserve, south east of the 128th street and Ranch Gate intersection. This property abuts the Preserve on two sides and is very close to the Tom’s Thumb trail head in the Preserve.
Locating Greasewood there will bring all its traffic through the heart of Troon, via Happy valley to Ranch Gate or Alma School to 108th to Ranch Gate, during both the day and night. We aren’t talking about just cars, but loud motorcycles too. This is also exactly the same route all the Sereno Canyon resort traffic must take as well. You will recall that Sereno Canyon was recently rezoned from 108 units on 350 acres to allow over 1100 units on that 350 acres.
However as bad as that would be, it gets much worse. The plan requires rezoning 472 acres, all of it but the 7 to 10 acres for Greasewood to high density housing, changing the number of units from 154, as allowed by the current zoning, to over 1100 that will be allowed with the new zoning. This represents an increase in housing density of over 7 times what is currently allowed on the site. That is adding a lot more traffic to this same route. They may say all this traffic is going to take Dynamite to 128th street, but we all know that route takes them way out of their way, so they are going through Troon instead. There are no other alternate routes, either currently available or planned.
While we would all like to see Greasewood remain active and in Scottsdale, there are a host of issues with this particular proposal that should make it unacceptable to everyone, not just residents of Troon.
The map included here shows the location of the Cavilliere property, Sereno Canyon, the Eco Resort, and Reata Ranch (red outlined all rezoned for high density), the Preserve (light blue outlines), and the routes people will take to these places (Yellow and Green roads). Note that the Cavilliere property is only 120 acres of the 472 acres they want to rezone with this application, only about ¼ of the total impact.
Map: Proposed New Locations for Greasewood
Issues
Can Greasewood survive even if this is approved? For those of you who would live with the other downsides to keep Greasewood, you should know that many people, including the ones crafting this deal for the Cavilliere family, do not believe it is even possible to move Greasewood to any site, especially one in Scottsdale, due to the condition of the buildings and the necessity to meet newer regulations wherever it is reconstructed. Therefore we could very well wind up with a commercially zoned site adjacent to the Preserve, a lot of high density housing in a very sensitive area, also adjacent to the Preserve, and NO GREASEWOOD.
If Greasewood is actually moved to this site.
- Locating Greasewood adjacent to the Preserve violates all the General Plan guidelines for minimizing human encroachment adjacent to the Preserve. Uses are supposed to be limited to low density residential as a transitional use, which is what the current zoning requires.
- This use will bring noise, light, sound amplification, and lots of human activity to a most sensitive part of the Preserve, the migration bridge between the mountains and the northern part of the Preserve to the Tonto National Forest. Use of the Preserve has to end at sundown because early evening to morning is the PRIME animal foraging and movement time, just when Greasewood really cranks up.
- It will bring lots of noisy traffic THROUGH the Preserve, both day and night, in fact right through the only migration path between the mountains and the Tonto National Forest if 128th street is used for access.
- The noise and light will travel far and wide because the site is higher than surrounding land, particularly to the east down to Rio Verde, but also to the west and Troon. It will no longer be located in a bowl that contains much of the noise and light.
- This proposal actually creates EXACTLY what the family said they were moving to avoid, high density residential adjacent to Greasewood.
With or without Greasewood. The change in zoning will bring a lot more traffic through Troon via Happy Valley and Ranch Gate or via Alma School and Jomax. Either of these routes will also produce a major conflict with the traffic for Sereno Canyon whose ONLY access is via Ranch Gate. This will happen even if Greasewood never makes it to that site, if that 462 acres is rezoned for high density housing, but will certainly be worse if it does. With Greasewood active at that site, it will bring a lot of NOISY traffic through Troon, at all hours.
The Bottom Line: There is Little to NO Benefit to the CITY.
While it certainly is true that IF Greasewood can be kept, it will help the city’s western image, however the city is doing so much more to kill that image. Greasewood doesn’t have nearly the positive impact on the city that Rawhide had, so the question is will any marginal benefit make up for all the negatives?
Rezoning in excess of 460 acres to higher density residential makes absolutely NO sense as it will put residential very close to the noise and light produced by Greasewood. It also violates the whole intent of the Dynamite Character area which was to preserve low residential density and allow horse use in the area to be compatible with adjacent Rio Verde and the Preserve. It will also produce a higher cost to the city than will be compensated by whatever revenues it may produce making current budget issues worse.
The entire site is quite rugged with boulder outcrops and lots of washes so it will be virtually impossible to accommodate even 1 house/acre much less the higher density that will be allowed (up to 3 houses/acre) if passed.
Sewer, water, and especially roads were not sized for all the density increases that have been allowed, including the 3 high density resorts in the area that have already been approved and the potential of 1100 more units if this is approved.
There is an Alternative
It has been suggested to the family that they sell their property to the city for inclusion into the Preserve and use that money to buy land along Dynamite Blvd. to locate Greasewood, and possibly the family residences, in a more suitable location. This would put the Greasewood access off a major road, Dynamite, making it much easier to get to and forcing people to use Dynamite to get there instead of cutting through Troon. The suggested location is just east of the ridge line to protect existing residential uses in Troon. The golf course and the old planned Eco Resort are across the street, much more compatible uses. This site is lower so the impacts won’t carry as far in any direction.
This solution does not involve up-zoning large parcels of land, and all the negative impacts that will result if the allowed number of houses are actually built, but rather just rezoning the small lot needed for Greasewood. All the negative impacts to the city are virtually eliminated with this approach.
Related Articles
Greasewood Zoning Case Meetings
Losing Scottsdale’s Icons
September 4, 2014
We are full year residents of Troon Village and have owned our Scottsdale residence since 1996. When we purchased our home, only a relatively few houses existed to the east of us in this area of north Scottsdale and we were greatly attracted to its relatively undisturbed desert environment. However, we were aware of the then existing approved developments in the area and were comfortable with the City’s General Plan and zoning controls regarding potential future developments to the east of our home.
However, more recently, we have become extremely concerned that the City of Scottsdale acting through the Planning Commission and the City Council has abrogated its responsibility to exert reasonable and appropriate control over the development process and has allowed certain developers to obtain General Plan amendments and rezoning that are not in the best interests of the City, its taxpayers and the residents of the neighborhoods most directly affected by those actions.
Specifically, we cite the City’s recent approval of the Sereno Canyon development which includes 397 proposed units (and potentially hundreds more under the revised zoning), including a proposed commercial resort in the shadow of the Scottsdale voter approved and taxpayer financed McDowell Sonoran Preserve, and the current applications by Taylor Morrison, the Cavalliere family and Greasewood Flat to permit 462 homes (and potentially hundreds more under the requested zoning change) and a commercial entertainment facility just east of Sereno Canyon, surrounded on three sides by the Preserve. Both Sereno Canyon and the proposed Taylor Morrison/Cavalliere/Greasewood Flat developments are within less than one mile of our home. The Sereno Canyon development would not have been permitted to exist under the Scottsdale General Plan, the Dynamite Foothills Character Area Plan and prior zoning without the acquiescence of the Scottsdale Planning Commission and the Scottsdale City Council, nor do the proposed Taylor Morrison/Cavalliere/Greasewood Flat developments currently comply with those regulatory structures that were previously adopted by Scottsdale voters and their elected representatives in order to protect residents against inappropriate development.
As individual residents, we lack the resources to submit objections in a format equivalent to the voluminous professionally produced and legally crafted Taylor Morrison/Cavalliere/Greasewood Flat applications. However, we are able to voice our strenuous objections to these applications and their false assumptions and conclusions. Our substantive concerns regarding these applications are shared by many of our neighbors.
The Scottsdale General Plan Guiding Principles provide, in part, that developments must preserve neighborhood character, and that changes in neighborhoods must harmonize with existing neighborhood character, by enhancing neighborhoods’ defining features and ensuring their long-term attractiveness and economic integrity. We respectfully submit that the Taylor Morrison/Cavalliere/Greasewood Flat applications fail to comply with those requirements in material respects by directly and significantly adversely affecting the neighborhoods adjacent to the proposed developments, including our community.
In particular, the Taylor Morrison/Cavalliere/Greasewood Flat proposals would dramatically degrade our current neighborhood living environment by funneling a developer estimated 764 additional daily vehicle trips through our established neighborhood. (Note that this is the developer’s estimate of additional daily vehicle trips in and out of the development, however we believe that it grossly underestimates the total volume of additional traffic that these proposed developments will generate.) When added to the developer estimated 2,352 daily vehicle trips from the Sereno Canyon development, the combined developments would generate a developer estimated 3116 additional daily vehicle trips through our residential neighborhood on roads that were not intended for, nor constructed to handle, such traffic, including Happy Valley Road. These traffic estimates do not take into account the large number of heavy construction vehicles that can be expected for the next several years while these developments are built out. Suitable non-residential access roadways to these proposed developments currently do not exist and have not been advanced by these applicants. The direct of result of approving the Taylor Morrison/Cavalliere/Greasewood Flat proposals will be a severe increase in vehicle generated congestion, air pollution, noise pollution and light pollution of the night sky. In addition, the proposed Cavalliere Flat entertainment complex will become an attraction nuisance, as numerous cars and noisy motorcycles will migrate from the present Greasewood Flat location to the proposed new one at all hours of the day and night, and generate significant air, noise and light pollution on its own, while severely degrading our current living environment. It is clear that these applications would impose quantifiable environmental and economic damage to the hundreds of residents who purchased homes and whose families live in these neighborhoods in reliance on the prior existing zoning and character of the area.
In addition, we believe that the approval of these applications would be a gross disservice to the efforts of the Scottsdale’s residents who have worked tirelessly over many years, provided their votes of approval and paid their property taxes to acquire and preserve the pristine McDowell Sonoran Preserve for all of Scottsdale’s residents. The requested General Plan amendments and rezoning would impose fundamental and irreversible changes to these sites and result in significant negative impacts to the Preserve, wildlife and adjacent residential areas.
In summary, the Taylor Morrison/Cavalliere/Greasewood Flat proposals will not preserve or harmonize with our current neighborhood character, will not enhance our neighborhood’s defining features, and will not ensure the long term attractiveness and economic integrity of our community. To the contrary, these proposals are guaranteed to significantly reduce the livability, environment and value of the neighborhoods affected thereby.
For the foregoing substantive reasons, we respectfully urge all Scottsdale residents to tell the Scottsdale Planning Commission and the City Council to reject these Taylor Morrison/Cavalliere/Greasewood Flat applications. As we have seen all too often in the past, if Scottsdale’s residents do not mobilize to voice their strong objections to these applications, the developers with their slickly prepared proposals and powerful attorneys will again have their way with the City Council to the profound detriment of the affected communities.