The Camp Verde Town Council heard a presentation from the Copper Canyon Fire and Medical District Governing Board on June 11 about the district’s concerns regarding what CCFMD Chief Danny Johnson and Town Manager Miranda Fisher described as the limited tax revenue generated by RV and trailer parks in proportion to their assessment of the need to provide fire services to those areas.
“The reason that this came to be is I was talking with Chief Danny Johnson, who had mentioned that obviously your governing board had a desire to talk with council about the impact recreational vehicles and trailer parks are having,” Fisher said.
As an example, Johnson said that Verde Ranch RV Resort has 389 RV sites and 16 cabins and paid a total of $127,783 in property taxes in 2024, which included a $33,663 share to CCFMD and an additional $752 fire district assistance tax, for an average of $84.97 per unit for the fire district.
“I think our community has expressed concern just about how many there are and not wanting to feel like we’re a community being overrun by RV parks,” Fisher subsequently said.
The meeting agenda stated that the town had already taken several steps to restrict the number and operations of RV parks, including removing RV parks as an allowable use in residential zones, proposing stay limits of fewer than 30 days to trigger bed tax applicability and exploring additional restrictions that would make approval more difficult to obtain through new zoning codes.
On May 7, the council approved both a conditional use permit for the proposed 17.41-acre Mariposa Oasis RV Resort off South Monarch Lane, contingent on a traffic impact study and posted quiet hours, and an ordinance restricting future use permits for RV parks to commercial parcels.
Fisher subsequently confirmed that Jackpot Ranch would be applying for a permit to host RVs on their property and she anticipated that would go before the Planning and Zoning Commission in July and Town Council in August.
“[Jackpot Ranch] is the last ones that would be allowed to come forward, because they are residentially zoned, but they submitted their application before the ordinance took effect, so we will still evaluate Jackpot Ranch, because they submitted prior to approval of the ordinance,” Fisher said.
“We need to see all different forms of housing, not just RVs, and RVs because it’s one taxing parcel. It doesn’t really contribute a lot to our community,” Fisher subsequently said. “You have a larger impact of people, but financially, unless they’re all shopping local in town, maybe doesn’t see the financial benefit, and then the fire department definitely doesn’t because you have one parcel paying into the district, but maybe it’s serving 200-plus units on that single tax.”
“Fire districts in Yavapai County have seen in the past five years about a 30 to 36% increase in call volume, depending on where they’re at,” Johnson argued. “Fire districts are responsible for coverage of a parcel as soon as the shovel hits the ground, but it takes two years after the project is complete for the fire district to even see funding from that property.”
CCFMD’s tentative budget for fiscal year 2025-26 includes estimated real estate tax revenue of $5.2 million, or about 60% of its estimated $9.6 million in total revenue. The second-largest source of revenue for the district is expected to be ambulance services, at $2.1 million.
“I feel like it’s a fairly solid consensus from this council that we’re interested — we hear what you’re saying. Staff is going to look into some options,” Mayor Marie Moore said.
The council took no action following the presentation.
