You probably heard that in the last few months the City has purchased 450 acres on the east side of town (Picture Canyon) and 2,280 acres on the west side of town (Observatory Mesa). Both of these large parcels are permanently reserved as open space – no development.
Many of you have asked me two good questions: (1) Where are we getting these millions of dollars; (2) Is it wise to be surrounding the city with undevelopable land when we already have a problem with having enough available land?
As to the funds – Picture Canyon cost $5.3 million and Observatory Mesa cost $12.4 million. Both of these were purchased from the State Land Trust at a public auction. They were purchased for the minimum bid acceptable to the state. Because the City was willing to put the land into permanent conservation areas, we qualified for a grant from the State Parks Fund for about 50 percent of the purchase price.
So the City actually spent $9.3 million. Where did that come from? It was all from bonds approved by the voters in 2004 specifically for open space purchases. Those bond funds are just about exhausted now.
The second question is whether it is wise to buy land for permanent open space on both the west and east edges of town. Are we further restricting our potential growth? We are pretty well hemmed in already by federal land.
The fact is these parcels were not very developable. Picture Canyon is a canyon near the Wildcat sewer plant east of the mall. Observatory Mesa, west of Thorpe Park, has significant utility challenges, although it has fabulous views.
The fact that the state considered these good parcels for conservation and gave us the grants, and the fact there were no other bidders for the land, both indicate that maybe open space is the logical use.
Where are we going to grow? It looks like the growth is going south — between Little America and Pine Canyon and south on the west side of I-17. And clearly now we will always have plenty of area close at hand to hike, bike and enjoy the forest. FBN
Jerry Nabours is Mayor of the City of Flagstaff.