Board will not pave VOCA Park nor green space

None of the green space at the Village of Oakcreek Association Park will be converted into vehicle parking, the Village of Oakcreek Association Board of Directors confirmed at its July 22 meeting

However, VOCA continues to consider adding 18 to 20 spaces in front of the golf driving range along Bell Rock Boulevard.

“Originally, we had people saying we need more parking, and we wanted to do a study to see where it was,” VOCA President Earl Svenningsen said. “We hired a civil engineer to look at the options. That was one of the options, and we wanted to stress that it was a study. We’re going to look at it, we’re going to listen to the community, and the community was very vocal that they didn’t want that, so we backed off of it right away.”

Residents going into the meeting were concerned about the possibility of converting park land to parking which would remove part of the community’s open space, create safety risks and provoke strong member opposition.

The desire for more parking has come largely from golf events at the driving range, where overflow crowds during events several times a month strain the existing lot. Members have also raised the issue outside of events, saying street parking becomes the only option when the parking lot reaches capacity.

VOCA is not currently considering any additional parking spaces in the area around the Clubhouse outside of the driving range, according to Svenningsen, and while VOCA owns the 5.2-acre parcel at 555 Verde Valley School Road it’s about one-mile away from the clubhouse and is cost prohibitive because of drainage challenges and it would require fencing making it not a practical parking option.

Svenningsen said the civil engineering study on the driving range parking has not been completed, and estimated construction could begin quickly once Yavapai County signs off.

“I haven’t gotten the preliminary plans for it back yet,” Svenningsen said. “I thought it would be done by now, so I would suspect that we’ll have it before the next board meeting.”

“I would think that with [Yavapai] County approval, it could be in a month,” Svenningsen said. “When we get the preliminary plans back, we approve it. They will go to the county to make sure that everything is OK, and I would imagine, within a month we could do it, because we have no construction to do. It’s more striping than anything else.”

Svenningsen offered “a rough estimate” of between $6,000 to $10,000, to add the spaces at the driving range, and that it is largely a striping project with no paving.

“It’s a pretty benign subject, I would think,” Svenningsen said. “The big one was doing something with the park, and that was a big no. So there’s no plans on going further on that. We stopped the study at that point, so we’re not paying any more money to our engineers.”

The board during the meeting also stated that during June, the golf course regularly sees more than 200 golfers a day. However, after the Pocket Fire was first reported on June 19, the number of golfers “resulted in many days where we only had 80 or 90 players,” Svenningsen said.

The board tabled a vote on a proposed short-term rental monitoring and outreach program at the meeting, with several board members stating they wanted more information before moving forward.