Campgrounds in Coconino County, Arizona: Public Needs & Partnerships in Recreation
By Zach Schwartz
Coconino County covers over 18,000 square miles and within its boundaries are some of the most beautiful and unique places on earth. Home to the Grand Canyon, Vermilion Cliffs, San Francisco Peaks, Oak Creek Canyon, the Coconino, Kaibab, and Apache-Sitgreaves national forests and the cities of Flagstaff, Williams, Sedona, and Page, residents find a great deal of satisfaction living, working, and playing in Coconino County. With these world-renowned natural places and quaint towns, it’s no wonder that residents share this place with millions of tourists each year. Tourism is a big attractor and a big industry in Coconino County, largely due to all of the beautiful places located within the County boundaries. County planners understand that camping can function as an economic stimulator with a symbiotic relationship to the environment—a win-win for residents and tourists alike.
Though camping is a very popular activity in northern Arizona, commercial campgrounds were not always supported by the Coconino County zoning ordinance. Historically, commercial campgrounds were only allowed in a few areas on private land. Until a sweeping rewrite of the zoning ordinance in 2019, campgrounds were only permissible in commercial zones and subject to approval of the Planning and Zoning Commission as part of a conditional use permit public hearing process. Commercial zones were not only few and far between in much of the County, but they were also smaller properties often directly adjacent to major thoroughfares with incompatible, intensive uses. One campground in Coconino County, a KOA, is directly adjacent to Highway 64 and a few dozen feet from a busy gas station. These are not ideal areas for even the least authentic camping experiences. For years we heard an exponentially growing number of local developers asking for commercial campgrounds in areas where we knew the existing zoning would not allow and our zone change process would not support.
In addition to customer requests, the Coconino County Comprehensive Plan, a conservation-based plan, contains many goals and policies that support commercial campground development. As a conservation-based plan, most goals and policies relate to environmental stewardship and reduction of impact related to development on natural resources and the natural environment in general. A new economic development element added in 2015 calls for increasing economic development in Coconino County’s robust tourist sector in ways that are compatible and synergistic with the breathtaking natural environment of the county. Consistent with these policies, campgrounds set up with mostly tent camping have little ground disturbance, noise impact, or dark skies impact, and they encourage campground managers to preserve the natural environment around their campgrounds. Campgrounds with RVs and cabins, when appropriately planned and regulated, have only slightly more impact depending on the site’s specific characteristics. Staff found that commercial campgrounds can meet the community values expressed in the Comprehensive Plan’s goals and policies and encourage environmental stewardship. In fact, attracting new campers might help to firm up these values in the community for the future. What better way for a person to learn to appreciate and want to preserve the natural environment than to immerse themselves in its beauty and solitude?
Another consideration allowing new commercial campgrounds in areas where they had not been allowed before was that Coconino County had been seeing a dramatic increase in unpermitted campgrounds and people living in RVs and travel trailers, especially in the Valle (pronounced ‘valley’) area between Williams and the Grand Canyon. Both public lands and private lands (notably, with zoning not allowing campgrounds) were being inundated with illegal campgrounds. The Code Compliance Manager and staff provided information about several illegal campgrounds with very poor conditions over several years. Cesspools, unmanned fire pits adjacent to large fuel sources, dangerous lean-tos, and less than desirable shanty-town aesthetics from the county’s scenic corridors were just some of the issues that were becoming more prevalent. After compliance action took place, one or two other illegal campgrounds would pop up. One example was unpermitted campgrounds where tourists from Asia had paid large sums of money to camp over forty miles from the Grand Canyon in tiny shacks and with only one dilapidated out-house. Planning staff believed that there might be a reduction of illegal campgrounds through the creation of a legal method for their approval. Staff felt that making a legal method for approval might protect the health, safety, and general welfare of the public in a better way than completely banning them in areas where there was demand for them.
Courtesy of Under Canvas Grand Canyon
Prior to moving forward with sweeping zoning ordinance amendments to allow commercial campgrounds significantly more widely in Coconino County, staff worked with a zone change case for a ‘glamping’ campground in the Valle area. As many western planners might know, the term ‘Glamping’ combines the words ‘glamorous’ and ‘camping’ and generally refers to a campground with large, elaborate and fanciful tents or cabins with all of the amenities of a four star hotel, including toilets, showers, and power. Staff worked with Under Canvas Glamping Partners, LLC to provide an approval recommendation to the Board of Supervisors for customized zoning standards in a master planned campground. Staff looked at density, general aesthetic of tents and community structures, large compatibility setbacks from neighboring large-lot (10 acre) single family residential lots, emergency access and ability for fire response, traffic, wildlife impact, and other issues in order to make a project-tailored conditional zoning approval specific to the Under Canvas application. This served as a pilot project for moving forward with new zoning ordinance requirements.
There was justification to allow new commercial campgrounds in areas where they had not been permitted before and a pilot test of Under Canvas to learn from, so staff moved forward with draft amendments to the zoning ordinance and gathered partners for assistance with this project. The desired zone for the new allowance was the General Zone, a 10-acre minimum rural and agricultural zone where single-family residences were also permissible. Much of the private land, especially in the General Zone, interfaces directly with public land, making staff’s partnership with public landowners especially crucial for the zoning amendment. Though the County is the second largest in the contiguous US, only 12.27% is private land under the jurisdiction of the zoning ordinance while 39.11% is tribal land, 27.19% is US Forest Service, 9.42% is owned by the Arizona State Land Trust, 5.09% is BLM, and 6.87% is other sorts of public land. US Forest Service (USFS) contacts noted that their improved campgrounds were always in high demand and that this zoning amendment could create other areas to recreate without eating up additional public lands. However, they also wanted to manage entryways into the USFS when adjacent to private campgrounds. Coconino County funds half a position with the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFD)—the Urban Wildlife Planner—to consult on hearing cases with the Community Development Department. The Urban Wildlife Planner felt that their normal consultations as part of the Conditional Use Permit process would be very important as far as adding conditions about retention of large caliper trees, limiting fences or having only wildlife-friendly fencing, and preserving wildlife corridors through managed placement of development. Coconino County does not have a county-wide fire or emergency responder service, so different districts and local departments were consulted as well. Their concerns were predominantly about the possibility of catastrophic wildlife and their ability to access these properties to respond to emergencies, considering that they could be in the wildland/urban interface areas and sometimes remote. Staff made sure to include a review of all of these items on a case-by-case basis in the Conditional Use Permit process for campgrounds in the General Zone. These included a requirement for a firewise and emergency plan, a requirement for location on a County maintained road or other form of road maintenance agreement, and a Conditional Use Permit requirement to determine and address the other site-specific concerns related to USFS and AGFD concerns.
Though not affiliated with public land, home-owners associations (HOAs) and other neighborhood groups were consulted as well. General Zone parcels are sometimes located directly adjacent to or within active neighborhoods. From their consultation, it was found that the other benefit to the Conditional Use Permit process is that community character and negative impacts to nearby neighborhoods, such as traffic, sound, or aesthetic, could be considered for campgrounds in the General Zone. The Conditional Use Permit process includes robust outreach to the neighborhood and allows for those opposed to speak on the case in a public forum, potentially providing enough information about potential impact that could have a drastic effect on approval or denial of the case or under what conditions the use would be approved under.
In December 2019, the complete zoning ordinance rewrite was approved along with the campground amendments that would allow campgrounds in commercial zones subject to an administrative permit and General Zone campgrounds to be approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission with a Conditional Use Permit (our zoning ordinance, specifically Section 3.18, Campgrounds and can be found at Coconino.az.gov). Though a few cases have been approved with very thorough conditions, and we feel confident that they will be good examples, we have yet to see the full result of this drastic change. The Under Canvas case and new cases for commercial campgrounds in the General Zone will continue to drive our staff to modify the site-specific partners that are needed for input on each individual case and conditions that the campgrounds need to be operated under, but generally we are optimistic that increasing our allowances for the campgrounds will have a positive impact in our County. We feel that we’re helping to realize the goals and policies of our Comprehensive Plan, reducing the amount of dangerous and impactful illegal campgrounds in our jurisdiction, and generally providing the opportunity for more people to appreciate and respect the natural beauties of northern Arizona.
Zach Schwartz was born and raised in the Metro Detroit area. He graduated from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona in 2012, where he interned in land use planning for Coconino County and transportation planning for the Northern Arizona Intergovernmental Public Transportation Authority (NAIPTA). Now Senior Planner for Coconino County, Zach volunteers on the City of Flagstaff's Pedestrian Advisory Committee and participates in the American Cancer Society's Climb to Conquer Cancer up the San Francisco Peaks annually.