Lund: Region can<br>come together
TUSAYAN — The resounding defeat of Canyon Forest Village's rezoning request at the polls last week doesn't mean there will definitely be no changes for the future in the Tusayan area.
Dennis Lund, who retired from Kaibab National Forest at the end of last year, believes a window of opportunity has opened to address some of the remaining problems.
"Because Canyon Forest Village was rejected, it doesn't mean there are no problems," Lund said. "They need to be resolved. I'm just thinking there are alternative ways of looking at the problems without large-scale commercial development."
Tom De Paolo, CFV's managing partner, made remarks echoing that opinion. Although not admitting there will definitely be a resubmitted proposal, De Paolo's comments last week after the vote did point in that direction.
"Proposition 400's defeat didn't make the problems go away," De Paolo said. "The same issues are still very definitely unchanged. We'd like to be a part of a response to how those issues are addressed. In the future, we'll try to connect better with those folks we didn't connect with."
There's one firm fact about the outcome of last week's vote — Canyon Forest Village as proposed is not going to happen. There is a still a lawsuit pending, which if successful, would kill the land exchange. Lund believes there are a variety of ways the region could approach the future.
"Those alternatives basically involve some federal participation making land available for the park, residential needs and someday, visitor needs," Lund said.
While talking with Lund about the events that led to the referendum vote last Tuesday, there's a sense of regret in his comments.
"When I started this thing, I didn't have the vision ... of large-scale impacts on northern Arizona," said Lund, who wanted to make it clear that he’s not speaking for the Forest Service. "That was not part of my thought process. It was an informal thing back then, and the situation's changed."
One of Lund's tasks with the Forest Service was the trading of public lands for private inholdings. De Paolo met Lund in 1989 when he asked how he could get a road built to an inholding in the Ten-X area. The idea came up to swap various private pockets of land to the Forest Service for what would become 272 acres of public land between Tusayan and the park's South boundary.
"From there, a lot of things started changing," Lund said. "In the meantime, Tusayan was organizing. Certainly the need, that was the initial objective. I don't want to be critical of Tom De Paolo, he was trying to do the right thing."
In the past decade, there have been proposals, environmental impact studies, alternatives and appraisals while CFV evolved into what was approved by the county board of supervisors last spring.
Lund said he became more and more concerned about CFV when he started looking at economic impacts, "real or imagined," on surrounding communities. He said three main assumptions were made early on.
"Initially, it was thought visitation would continue to go up, estimated at 6 percent a year back then," Lund said. "Another assumption was there would be a lack of visitor commercial services, that was right in the EIS. Third, we wanted to help the park resolve their problems in the village here. It sounded simple."
As both Lund and De Paolo said, problems remain. But what are those problems? National Park Service planners certainly must have concerns on their minds. What changes, if any, will be made to the light-rail transit system? How will the housing shortage and eventual relocation of federal and concessioner employees outside the park be handled? And what about a perceived shortage of community services, such as the future need for a new school site?
Lund believes one alternative could be to come up with a community development plan and a prospectus be put out for needs of both the community and the National Park Service as identified in its General Management Plan. This alternative could be on a much smaller scale and there would be bidders.
Another alternative would be to do it on a land-exchange basis, but with bidding. That wasn't done earlier, Lund said, because of administering costs and Congress can be stingy when it comes to land-use permits.
But within the last few years, the agency (in this case, the Forest Service) can now utilize a cost-recovery program. For example, if it cost the Forest Service $20,000 to administer it, that can be built into the bidding process.
"The obstacle early on has been partially removed," Lund said. "I think that opens the window to one of the alternatives I'm talking about."
Such a plan would be similar to Alternatives E and F in the EIS, except those did not include special-use permits.
State lands south and east of Tusayan could also be a possibility. Going south might make sense because "Valle's got water and it's already zoned," Lund said. A plan could include rooms replacing the two lodges being expelled from the park. But the plan could be regulated, not just "thrown wide open."
There's also the Kotzin parcel northwest of Tusayan, and there's the lower basin area about 30 miles east of Tusayan, seven or eight miles south of Desert View. Lund said there would be various risks involved in developing that area.
"The people in my view who can control development in this part of the world are county planning and zoning and the Forest Service through the issuance of new permits," Lund said. "It's like the CFV referendum failed and that all this unrestricted development is going to happen. I think there are too many safety measures in place."
Lund said the bottom line is there are ways to approach problems in the area without large-scale development. Design standards could be built into any plan proposed. And without the expected tourism increase at the park and an oversupply of accommodations now in the area, it appears difficult to justify any additional visitor services, he said.
"Maybe we ought to look at some of these other options," Lund said. "The EIS in my view was well done and had every bit of information in there for a decision. People just come to different decisions."
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