Balancing Cultural Traditions with a New (Old) Land Use

by Melissa Shaw, AICP

Coconino County is a place of world-renown natural beauty and wide-ranging landscapes, boasting sites such as the Grand Canyon, the red rocks of Sedona, Vermillion Cliffs, the Painted Desert, and the San Francisco Peaks.  It is also home to 13 Native American tribes with a record of human occupation spanning 13,000 years.  Culture and cultural traditions provide context for understanding how people have and continue to interpret and interact with the landscape, and respect for cultural traditions are embodied within the conservation-based framework of the County’s Comprehensive Plan.  Conceptualizing a new take on old land use provided project developers and planners an opportunity to navigate intersections of tradition, cultures, and land conservation.

When Better Place Forests applied for a “memorial forest”,  a conservation-oriented cemetery alternative, on 160-acres of privately owned, residentially-zoned property located approximately seven miles north of Flagstaff, Arizona, County planners paused to determine how that land use fit into allowed uses.  The proposed memorial forest did not fall neatly into either the County or the Arizona Department of Real Estate’s definition of cemetery.  A typical cemetery is considered a type of subdivision, with surveyed burial plots sold for internments.  The concept for a conservation memorial forest, which apparently has roots in Great Britain, combines the spreading of ashes, or cremains, with ecological conservation, preservation, and restoration, promoting the concept of preserving a place for future generations. While spreading of ashes on land does not create a cemetery in Arizona, County planners determined the proposed project land use to be most similar to a cemetery and processed the application as a cemetery conditional use under County zoning regulations.

The site consists of five contiguous, largely undisturbed parcels that include Ponderosa-pine forest, groves of quaking aspen, and meadow environment.  The parcels are completely surrounded by Coconino National Forest and are accessed via a Forest Service Road.  Zoning standards would potentially allow the separate parcels, zoned General residential with a 10-acre minimum parcel size, to be divided into 16 ten-acre parcels.  The project application proposed to combine the parcels and minimize impact by preserving “open space and restore a local forest while providing the option of a natural resting place for the regional population”.  The business concept allows customers to select a dedicated memorial tree around which cremains (ashes) are mixed with local soil and spread.  Other than customized survey markers to identify the dedicated memorial tree site, the forest and meadow around each site are left undisturbed.  

Physical site improvements proposed to provide access throughout the property include a forested trail network, renovation of an on-site cabin to serve as offices, a visitor center and storage.  A minimum amount of parking was required based on low visitation estimates.  In addition, a management plan that addresses forest health, fire, natural resources, noxious and invasive weed management, soil and watershed, vegetative forest resources, and wildlife was provided to guide the natural and environmental restoration aspect of the project.  This comprehensive approach to land conservation supports many of the goals and policies identified by the County’s conservation-based Comprehensive Plan and initially seemed to provide substantial justification for recommending project approval.  However, this seemingly benign and environmentally beneficial land use concept highlighted substantial cultural differences among views on burial traditions and practices.

The project is located within an area proposed for designation as a “traditional cultural property”, or TCP.  The term TCP is generally understood to mean “properties of traditional religious and cultural importance”.  TCP’s may be eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.  This site was found to be within the boundaries of the San Francisco Peaks TCP, an area that is National Register-eligible but whose nomination and boundary determination is still pending.  If approved that designation would apply to federal land, not privately owned land.  Additionally, while federal projects may be subject to evaluation as a TCP, at the state level Arizona does not use this designation.  This left the project subject to review by the County as a conditional use permit.  More information about TCP’s and inclusion of those sites on the National Register of Historic Places may be found here:  https://www.nps.gov/history/tribes/documents/tcp.pdf.  

Although not required by the County’s Zoning Ordinance, County staff identified the need for additional information and outreach.  A Class I Cultural Resources Inventory was submitted with the application and identified that this property is located within the proposed TCP boundary.  (In Arizona, a definition of Class I Cultural Resources Inventory is in Appendix B of the “Standards for Inventory Documents Submitted for SHPO Review in Compliance with Historic Preservation Laws”, linked here: https://statemuseum.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/SHPO_Survey_Report_Standards.pdf.)  In this inventory the term culture is described “to mean the traditions, beliefs, practices, lifeways, arts, crafts, and social institutions of any community, be it a Native American tribe, a local ethnic group, or the people of the nation as a whole”, and that the “significance of traditional cultural properties must be determined by the community that values them”.  The inventory noted that the TCP is significant to 13 Native American tribes, many of whom have “strong cultural beliefs regarding death and human remains”.  News of the pending project had also been reported on by the Arizona Republic and that article cited members of local tribes as opposing the project.

Coconino County’s Comprehensive Plan goals and policies strongly support preservation of cultural sites and tribal coordination.  Both the applicant and County determined that understanding the cultural views and interpretations on burial to be of substantial importance in order to fully understand the impacts of the project, and the applicant and the County initiated simultaneous consultation and outreach with the Tribes.  The applicant’s outreach included email communication and in-person meetings with several Tribes, while the County utilized the Government-to-Government Consultation Toolkit (G2G Toolkit), a resource developed by Arizona State Historic Preservation Office and the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community.  This site provides detailed contact information for sending formal notification and requests for consultation.  The website address is: https://sites.google.com/view/az-consultation-toolkit/home. 

Responses to the project varied between tribes.  Some expressed support for the project based on the conservation benefits, while others opposed the project due to cultural concerns over the burial aspects.  To address tribal concerns the applicant developed a “Cultural Heritage Preservation Policy and Standard”, incorporated as a condition of project approval.  This policy is intended to initiate ongoing consultation with Native American Tribes and to “engage with tribal representatives and experts to develop a plan for respecting and incorporating relevant local native history and culture into the property”.  The policy was intentionally designed to be flexible and continuously revised to allow expression and exercise of traditional cultural practices as new information, based on consultation, becomes available.  Several specific strategies, identified as components of the plan, will include incorporating specific information about structures, ceremonies, and plant collection into interpretive materials that promote respect of cultural traditions.  Compliance with this condition will be confirmed in a yearly update to the County.

County planners are optimistic that this effort to achieve balance between policy, ordinance, and cultural differences will result in a project that is beneficial to the environment and forest health, and at the same time will promote respect and understanding for Native American beliefs and traditions. 

About the Author

Melissa Shaw, AICP works as Coconino County’s Long Range Planner, where she partners with local communities to update and develop area plans, develop new zoning regulations, and promote learning about community planning. During a short career in the human resources arena Melissa made an instant decision to pursue planning after reading an article about land use planning and in particular, how the work that planners do can make a difference in their communities. She has never looked back and is constantly inspired by the dedication and creativity of planners she meets. Melissa received her Master of Urban and Regional Planning at Virginia Tech and then left the Blue Ridge to head west. She is an AICP certified planner who has been fortunate to gain over 20 years of planning experience working in diverse environments around the west, ranging from the Grand Canyon, Sonoran Desert, the Sierra Nevada and Lake Tahoe. She now lives in Flagstaff, Arizona and enjoys the outdoor lifestyle Flagstaff is known for.