McMillan Mesa Conservation Alliance offers another choice for residents
   By Lisa Rayner
   (Longer Web Version)

    Six million years ago, an erosional landscape of red 200 million-year-old Moenkopi Sandstone stretched across what is now Flagstaff. Then our present volcanic era began. Lava poured like warm molasses out of vents now covered by the Dry Lake Hills. The lava blanketed low areas of sandstone in 6-10 foot-thick black basalt. The surrounding softer sandstone continued to erode, while the sandstone capped with hard basalt resisted erosion, eventually creating a high plateau. Faults and stream erosion split the plateau into pieces. The eastern portion became McMillan Mesa. The high mesa, which sits in the center of Flagstaff, separating the city into east and west portions, offers unparalleled 360-degree views of the city, the San Francisco Peaks, Mt. Elden and the Dry Lake Hills.

As development has sprawled across the once expansive ponderosa pine forest with houses, roads, power lines and commercial buildings, McMillan Mesa has managed to remain mostly open, its ecosystem relatively intact.

Now the City of Flagstaff has began a four-month process to determine the future of McMillan Mesa as part of the new Regional Land Use and Transportation Plan. The Regional Plan currently calls for “mixed-use development … including commercial, office/business park, residential, institutional and open space” on McMillan Mesa. However, the Regional Plan also says, “It is highly likely that as a result of public input and other determining factors, such as protection of wildlife habitat, viewsheds, and preferred and optimal uses, the land use plan for this area may change.”

Regional Plan Task Force members had been unable to reach a consensus on the question of what to do with McMillan Mesa. The city has now hired the consultant Moule & Polyzoides for $185,000. The consultant is reviewing three staff-generated options for the Mesa that offer varying levels of development and open space protection. The consultant is also seeking public input on the proposals

Moule & Polyzoides is "an urban design and land use planning consultant with offices in Pasadena and Albuquerque.” The firm was hired to “facilitate public participation and prepare a specific land use plan and design guidelines for McMillan Mesa." The firm has a New Urbanist philosophy — a preference for pre-World War II-style mixed-use designs that are pedestrian-friendly and that conserve open space, rather than perpetuating urban sprawl.

The first proposal would retain a narrow swath of open space along the Forest/Cedar Avenue corridor. The second would maintain all City-owned land as open space. The third would have very limited designated open space. One vision for the third proposal, as presented by a member of the Flagstaff Parks and Recreation Committee, includes a large array of recreational facilities such as a municipal golf course, ball fields, a pool and a YMCA, to be sited on city land in the east-central portion of the mesa and along Turquoise Avenue north of Forest Avenue.

Public input is being solicited at a series workshops between now and December when the consultant hopes to issue a final report. Workshop I: The Neighborhood Pattern was held September 24-25. Workshop II: The Blocks and the Buildings will be held Oct. 29-30, and Workshop III: Bringing It All Together is scheduled for Dec. 10-11. Read about the results of each workshop at www.mcmillanmesa.net.

The final recommendation will be adopted into the Regional Plan. The Regional Plan will then be voted on by the City Council. If approved, the Regional Plan will come before the voters in May 2002. If passed by voters, the Regional Plan will be ratified into law, cementing in place all of the land use designations.

A new local group, the McMillan Mesa Conservation Alliance, has sprung up to provide another proposal, “The Open Space Scenario: Preservation of Natural Open Space on McMillan Mesa.”

for the mesa: setting aside a maximum of the mesa’s land as designated open space. Group members are rushing to develop and advocate for their alternative proposal in the next couple of months.

John Grahame, the MMCA Proposal/Design committee chair wrote in the group’s newsletter, “We intend to change the question (the consultants) have been asked by the City, ‘How best to develop McMillan Mesa?,’ to a different question: ‘How best to  not   develop McMillan Mesa?’”

According to Neil Cobb, chair of the Natural Resource Committee, the only type of development that should occur on the mesa is “Development that enhances the open space experience,” such as improved urban trail access.

Alliance members began meeting in August. Friends of Flagstaff’s Future is providing some administrative assistance to the group.

MMCA has been designated as a “stakeholder” in the decision-making process, along with the mesa’s private landowners. Alliance members are participating in stakeholder meetings with the consultant.

MMCA’s mission statement says, “The McMillan Mesa Conservation Alliance is dedicated to the preservation of natural and open space on McMillan Mesa to serve current and future inhabitants of the City of Flagstaff in access, education and enjoyment of this unique and beautiful place. As concerned citizens we will actively participate in the planning process, working with Flagstaff City Council, staff, consultants and other citizens in the pursuit of this goal.”

A letter from the group to city officials says, “MMCA is comprised of a growing number of Flagstaff Citizens living both on and off the Mesa who hold an allegiance to the vision of protected open space on the Mesa. Our goal is to represent a majority voice and vision to the consultant so that together we can constructively produce a McMillan Mesa proposal representative of Flagstaff’s best long-term interests.”

Some of the City-owned land on McMillan Mesa is currently zoned as Public Land, an open space designation. Other undeveloped City land on the mesa that is now open space is actually zoned Rural Residential, which permits low-density housing. The City’s Growth Management Guide 2000 used Rural Residential zoning as a “holding” designation, but there has not been a way to prevent development on private land zoned Rural Residential. The Regional Plan will designate land throughout the Flagstaff area as open space. MMCA is nominating nearly all the remaining undeveloped private and public land on the mesa as designated open space.

MMCA is proposing a “Buffalo Park South” centered on the open space on either side of Cedar Ave. The group compares the proposed park to Central Park in New York City — a refuge in the middle of Flagstaff that many residents can walk or bike to, an alternative to getting in a car and driving outside the city to find peace and quiet. People who live on the outskirts of Flagstaff have direct trail access to the surrounding forest. People who choose to live in higher density neighborhoods in the city center should also have that opportunity preserved, group members say.

The group wants the proposed park to provide low-impact recreational opportunities for people of all income levels and the disabled. Their proposal would improve trails connecting the mesa to the east and west sides of Flagstaff, offering a needed link between the two sides of town. The new Mountain Line Transit system already has a bus stop close by on Cedar Ave., making the park easily accessible using alternative transportation.

Steering Committee members Kathy Marron and Kara Kelty are “unsure how the development of a land use plan for McMillan Mesa will fit into the Regional Plan, in both constitution and time frame.” Kelty and Marron express support for the Regional Plan, and voice the concern that the issue of what to do with McMillan Mesa could negatively affect voter support for the Plan.

Historian Platt Cline documents in   Mountain Town   that each time the question of whether to develop McMillan Mesa has come up in the past, voters have resoundingly rejected city proposals and soon after removed from office those elected officials who were in favor of development.

The most recent trouncing was in 1996, when voters rejected the Peaks Parkway, a proposed four-lane highway that would have bisected the mesa and touched a corner of Buffalo Park, extending Enterprise Road to Highway 180. The Parkway was meant to relieve road congestion in downtown Flagstaff from tourists traveling to the Grand Canyon.

Saving the Lockett Trust and Madeleine Babbitt properties to the north and east of Buffalo Park, and the southern end of McMillan Mesa, was part of the proposal. Bicycle and pedestrian paths were also planned for the road corridor. Some voters felt that the deal was a good compromise. Twice as many felt the deal sacrificed too much.

The Lockett land is zoned Rural Residential. A high-end residential neighborhood containing many second homes is now under construction. The other lands that would have been protected are currently available for development.

In 1990, voters had rejected two-to-one a proposal for the City to buy the 700-acre Lockett Trust land outright for $1.9 million in local tax revenue, along with $1 million from a land trade and another $1 million from the State Heritage Fund. Many residents apparently believed the owner was inflating the land’s value. Others wanted to see a road through the mesa.

In 1986, voters had rejected a stand-alone roadway, the Gemini Parkway, that would have cut through the middle of Buffalo Park.

A similar roadway that would connect Route 66 to Cedar, running from Enterprise to Gemini Drive is still included in the Regional Plan. Most of the proposed road corridor is private land. Only a small piece in the middle is City-owned. Therefore, if developers build the north and south segments, the City will likely be pressured to rezone the City segment to make a continuous roadway.

MMCA is asking that if community consensus on what to do with McMillan Mesa cannot be reached by December that either the May vote be put on hold or the mesa be removed from the plan.

Marron and Kelty say that while Alliance members think infill development is good and that the group is “not anti-development,” the mesa is a large and valuable chunk of open space in the center of the city. “The mesa is priceless,” says Kelty.

A letter from MMCA to city officials says, “We believe that through active citizen input and cooperation with City officials and private landholders, a sensitive development plan for McMillan Mesa can be constructed which best reflects the expressed current and future interests of Flagstaff Citizens and therefore insures passage of the Regional Land Use and Transportation Plan.”

City Council member Bill Jeffreys says that the City seems ready to separate the McMillan Mesa plan from the Regional Plan if community consensus cannot be reached by December.

At a Sept. 13 tour of McMillan Mesa sponsored by Friends of Flagstaff’s Future, Jeffreys said, “What’s in the Regional Plan now will clearly change. Whether it changes substantively before the vote … or whether it’s just changed to say, ‘We don’t know what’s going to happen on McMillan Mesa. There’s a planning process that hasn’t finished yet,’” we don’t know …

Former City Council member and current President of Friends of Flagstaff’s Future Nat White says, “Private lands on McMillan Mesa as well as the rest of the city may develop under existing zoning or owners may request a zoning change. The latter process requires approval by Planning and Zoning and City Council, not the voters.” 

White says that land owned by the City would not be required to go before the voters either, but that he thinks it would be a good idea.

Jeffreys is unsure whether or not a separate Small Area Plan specifically for McMillan Mesa would be voted on by citizens.

The land use designations on McMillan Mesa have changed considerably over the years. In Flagstaff’s early years the mesa was grazed and timber was cut. Then much of the land became part of Forest Service holdings. Land swaps later transferred the Forest Service parcels to the City.

The City currently owns much of the mesa’s 900 acres, including some of the open space visible to the north and south of Cedar Avenue. The Ponderosa Parkway neighborhood sits on the mesa’s southwestern edge. USGS has a research complex next to Buffalo Park on the north side of Cedar. Three private landowners have undeveloped parcels concentrated on the west and southern parts of the mesa: Dr. Stan Ritland, also owner of the land at the top of Switzer Canyon where a medical complex is currently under construction; and the Mesa Verde Development; and Gemini Flagstaff.  The City has cinder pilings for road use across Cedar Avenue from the USGS complex.  The piles will be moved to Pulliam Airport. A section of the Flagstaff Urban Trail System begins at the end of Hemlock Way to the north of Ponderosa Parkway and then turns north and follows the eastern edge of the mesa.

At various times in the past few decades, some of the land parcels were rezoned as higher-density and commercial zones as part of Small Area Plans. The rezonings contained “sunshine” clauses that caused the zoning to revert back to Rural Residential when the parcels were not developed within a specified period of time. Some of the private parcels still have higher-density zonings and may be developed without further City input.

The McMillan Mesa Conservation Alliance is asking the City to obtain all Ritland and Mesa Verde land paralleling Forest/Cedar Avenue either through land swaps, direct purchase, or deed. The Alliance notes that Prescott has a 1 percent city sales tax that goes into an open space acquisitions fund. Flagstaff currently has a small City-funded open space acquisitions fund containing just $435,000.

MMCA’s attempts to meet privately with Ritland have been unsuccessful.

MMCA is also asking the city to refrain from building two planned roads through the heart of what is now open space, saying the roads would “jump-start development.” The lack of road access is a deterrent to development, because developers must pay for new roads themselves. Developers are also required to pay to extend water and electric utility infrastructure from Route 66. Furthermore, the basalt bedrock is close to the surface, making excavation, construction and landscaping costly.

Kelty and Marron emphasize that they do not wish to become entangled in a “soccer fields vs. no soccer fields” or “golf course vs. no golf course” type of debate. They feel that these issues need to be discussed separately from the decision about what to do with McMillan Mesa. However, some group members and others have proposed alternative sites for all of the proposed recreational facilities.

Dan Burden, an anti-sprawl planner brought to Flagstaff by Friends of Flagstaff’s Future in September noted during his public slide show that clumping too many recreational facilities together in one place forces people to drive from all over town to use them. He suggested instead that such facilities are better spread around a city in different neighborhoods so that all residents, including children and the elderly, can easily walk or bike to them.

McMillan Mesa Public Workshop II will happen Oct. 29-30, at City Hall, 211 W. Aspen Ave. Time is to be announced.

Friends of Flagstaff’s Future Executive Director Becky Daggett emphasizes that “It’s really important for people to get out to these meetings and provide your input and tell the City what you want.”

Moule & Polyzoides consultant: www.mparchitects.com/

City Planner Martin Ince, 779-7632, x257, mince@ci.flagstaff.az.us

Additional information is available at the City Web site www.mcmillanmesa.net.

Copies of the McMillan Mesa Conservation Alliance Proposal can be obtained by e-mailing       
   azyoung@flagstaff.az.us.