Vote 5-2 against 252-unit project, talk affordable housing, availability

Cottonwood City Council rejected the rezoning for the proposed 252-unit Spring Verde Apartments project after a 5-2 vote during its June 16 meeting.

Cottonwood Planning and Zoning originally recommended approval for the project on May 18, which was proposed for 8.81 acres off 12th Street, south of the Harbor Freight along State Route 89A.

Councilman Bob Marks and Mayor Ann Shaw, the two votes to approve the zoning change, cited a need for more housing.

“My job is not to infer what the final design is going to be,” Shaw said. “I don’t know what it’s going to be, … but these two changes are reasonable and within the boundaries of what we can be asked to do. I feel like planning and zoning, the commission, did the right thing when they approved these and I’m prepared to approve them myself.”

Preceding the rezone vote, Council approved an amendment to the General Plan to change the land use designation of 5.6 acres currently marked as Highway Commercial to Residential/High Density. Christopher Dowell was the sole opposition vote to the amendment.

“This parcel will be developed, it’s just a matter of time,” Vice Mayor Felicia Coates said. “I think the parcel is better utilized for apartments than [retail and business services]. Now, I’m not in agreement with changing the R2 and the C2 property parcel to R3.”

R2 is capped at 11 dwelling units per acre, but R3 allows up to 29. The C2 zoning is for commercial uses only. The national vacancy rate on average is about 7%, Coates said, but in Cottonwood it’s about 3%.

Availability and Affordability

Sami Real, the city’s community development director, told the board in a presentation before the vote that the project aligned with the General Plan to increase housing.

“I’d like to stress that we want to work towards making housing available,” she said. “We were informed by the applicant, they don’t want us pursuing an affordable housing option at this time.”

Sedona resident William Spring, the real estate developer for the project, said financing options for affordable housing, like the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program, gets approved only one out of every three applications.

Council approved the LIHTC application for the Verde Plaza affordable housing project in March 2025, which Spring said would make it even harder for the city to have another application be approved.

“This demand [for housing] is expected to increase further with the Northern Arizona Health Oncology Center down the block on 89A,” Spring said. “Currently under construction, It’s been in the papers, and I’ve talked to [NAH Verde Valley Vice President] Rick Gray over there, they estimate 400-plus employees.”

Dowell said likely not all of those 400 people would be able to afford these apartments.

“I have two children who live together in Inspiration [Apartments] because they can’t afford their own place and they both are way above the median income here in Yavapai County,” he said. “One’s a nurse, she can’t afford to live there by herself. So the whole premise of ‘400 employees need a place,’ your place would still be out of reach for them. My concern is, in my humble opinion, we need … worker housing. This doesn’t cut it for me.”

Traffic

The other major issue was traffic.

“This unit will add possibly 400 or more vehicles trying to get onto 12th Street from two driveways,” William Wagner, a Cottonwood resident, said during public comment. “The people that live out in the [Verde] Villages, they use 12th street to get into town and back home. They don’t want to see that extra traffic.”

Five people spoke in opposition, many citing traffic concerns. The three in support mainly cited housing availability.

“At the planning and zoning commission hearing, we had eight members of the public speak out against the project with similar concerns as I just stated [traffic, parking and overall design],” Real said. “And then we had one member of the public speak in support, citing housing needs.”

The city has received about 50 emails, letters and phone calls, 42 of which were against, and remainder are in support of the project, she said.