“I’ve had a young man who crawled up my embankment and tied a 50-foot extension cord onto my fence to use it as a swing into the water,” Camp Verde resident Julie Scott told the Town Council last week. “Summers are a nightmare for us as we feel like we are being held hostage in our backyard.”
Scott described the impacts trespassers have had on her property as they access a popular swimming hole in West Clear Creek that is, in part, on her property. She, along with her neighbor Jim Baugh, shared their experiences with the Camp Verde Town Council at their May 19 meeting and asked them to approve a revision to a town ordinance restricting access to recreational areas that must be accessed through private property.
The council unanimously approved their vision, which prohibits recreators from accessing open spaces, trails and waterways that are only accessible by trespassing through private property. The revision also allows the town to develop and manage designated recreational sites on property the town already owns, giving people a place to recreate legally and without disturbing nearby property owners.
Community Development Director Melinda Lee, who brought the proposed revision to the council, said the town has received multiple complaints about people congregating along waterways in neighborhoods and playing loud music, having illegal campfires and littering, among other things.
“We’ve been dealing with nuisances related to this for quite some time,” Lee said. “We felt like including a section in the town code to help us manage these problems better was best, then we could start working toward even better solutions as far as providing legal places for people to go to recreate without creating a nuisance for the adjoining property owners.”
Private property has also been damaged by the many people who have reportedly been accessing the sites in question by truck, car or Utility Terrain Vehicle, creating unofficial roads and trails. Because of this, the ordinance revision also includes a section prohibiting people from using motorized vehicles, with the exception of motorized bicycles, to access any trails or waterways within town limits, even if they are not crossing through private property.
Anyone found in violation of the revised ordinance will face a class three misdemeanor.
In an attempt to help curb the issue, the town hopes to eventually be able to provide alternative areas to recreate. Over the years, the Town of Camp Verde has obtained several parcels of land along waterways to protect certain riparian areas. Many of these areas are public property and were intended to eventually be turned into designated recreational areas, according to background information included in the meeting’s agenda.
The ordinance revisions are said to help the town manage these areas as well as eventually provide amenities to these sites to help draw people in to these alternative areas to congregate.
Baugh said while he acknowledges the swimming hole behind his house is “beloved” by the community, he is concerned about safety and liability, citing a time that a tree from his property fell into the river while children were playing in the area.
“We have some erosion issues. Probably a couple truckloads of limestone dirt, due to the dry weather that we’ve had, have fallen off that cliff and into that hole,” he said. “And my concern is, what happens if a truckload or a big rock falls onto somebody down there swimming?”
Scott said her property has actually been damaged because of how many people go to the area to swim, picnic and camp at what she says has become a “quasi-waterpark,” despite the “no trespassing” signs she has put up. Not only has Scott had a kitchen window broken by people throwing rocks at her, her dog and her property, but in the six years she’s lived there, the river embankment on her property has eroded from a solid, downward slope to a tiered embankment from people using it.
“I am told not to engage these trespassers, so I just have to watch and hope that the police come. All the meanwhile, trespassers are and continue to erode my embankment, which is negatively impacting my property severely, my peace and quiet, and peace of mind,” Scott said. “I want to be a peacekeeper, but I am extremely tired of policing the town’s property and silently watching my little piece of heaven erode away to nothing by trespassers.”
