Review: May 14 City Council Meeting
The Sierra Vista City Council approved a proposed Recreational Vehicle Park Overlay District for public comment at its regular meeting on Thursday. It will return to council for final consideration after a 30-day comment period.
The proposal was developed to help facilitate the redevelopment and revitalization of manufactured home parks in the West End. The Sierra Grande, Garden Canyon, Mountain Vista, and Los Arcos manufactured home parks were all acquired by new ownership last year and are now being renovated. The owners are following an aggressive demolition schedule to clear out vacant, non-livable mobile homes, which leaves many empty spaces to fill.
The Recreational Vehicle Park Overlay District offers park owners the flexibility to use spaces for RVs, while also allowing those spaces to be used for manufactured homes in the future without needing a rezoning process. This improves the economic viability of the parks and could help spur additional investment. Currently, manufactured home parks can lease up to 30 percent of the overall spaces for recreational vehicles. The proposed overlay district would remove that cap for parks of 10 acres or more, provided certain standards are met.
Good Living Ventures, which owns the Sierra Grande, Garden Canyon, and Mountain Vista manufactured home parks, worked closely with the City on development of the proposed overlay district and provided a letter in support of it. Good Living Ventures Architecture and Planning Manager Ben Wilde also addressed the City Council at Thursday’s meeting.
“The overlay will allow us to bring RVs into our parks at quicker rate then we could fill them with mobile homes,” Wilde said. He said Good Living Ventures also sees potential in one of their properties becoming a destination for snowbirds and tourists with RVs seeking to stay in Sierra Vista on a short-term basis.
The proposed RV overlay district is now open for public comment before it comes back to the City Council for final consideration after 30 days. The City Council also approved Codification of its Code of Ordinances for a 30-day public comment period on Thursday. To learn more and provide comments on these items, head to engage.sierravistaaz.gov/ or use the Public Comment Items webpage linked from www.SierraVistaAZ.gov.
In other business:
- City Council Member Sarah Pacheco announced her intent to resign from the City Council, which is necessary because she is moving outside the City limits. Details on the process to fill her seat will be announced after Pacheco submits a formal notice of resignation.
- The City Council approved the acceptance of two grants from the Arizona Department of Administration, Office of Grants and Federal Resources, Arizona 9-1-1 Program in support of Southeastern Arizona Communications (SEACOM). The first grant in the amount of $415,529 will cover a variety of costs associated with providing 9-1-1 services through June 30, 2023. The second grant in the amount of $79,576 funds contract services with DATAMARK for Geographical Information Systems data management software and support services.
- The City Council approved an Arizona State Parks and Trails Land and Water Conservation Fund grant application to help fund improvements at the Veterans Memorial Park Sports Complex to include installing artificial turf at the football field, updating the wellsite, and replacing the irrigation system. The grant requires a 50 percent City match and 6 percent surcharge for the $3 million project.
Details on the council meeting items are available in the supporting documents for the Thursday, May 13, City Council meeting. They can be accessed via the “City Council” folder on the City’s document server at docserve.sierravistaaz.gov/.
