After being up at the north corner of Andante Drive and Mule Deer Road for nearly the last 15 years, the 6-foot-high, 98-foot long floodwall installed by residents Terry and Duane Gregory was demolished on the afternoon of July 9.
The path will be built along the west side of Andante from State Route 89A to just south of Lyric Drive, then cross to the right side before connecting with Thunder Mountain Road. The path will cross Andante at a raised crosswalk to keep the path within the city’s existing right-of-way.
According to the city, the Gregorys’ floodwall was located within the public right of way. Officials also stated that the Gregorys never obtained a permit.
Additionally, the floodwall, the city claims, no longer serves a practical purpose following completion of the Thunder Mountain Drainage Improvements Project in March 2020, which installed drainage pipes along the south side of Thunder Mountain Road between Rhapsody Road and Andante Drive.
“Whatever the flood wall was there for is now immaterial … it’s not necessary,” Director of Public Works Kurt Harris said, adding that the SUP also will have a curb and other drainage improvements. “They’re also now outside of the FEMA flood plain, specifically because of the Thunder Mountain project.”
The Gregorys’ position is that the Thunder Mountain Drainage Improvements is insufficient to protect their property that they purchased in September 2008, and have also cited “future climate change has and will increase flooding,” during an informal April community meeting of Andante Drive residents, Mayor Scott Jablow, City Councilwomen Melissa Dunn and Kathy Kinsella and Councilman Derek Pfaff at Community Library Sedona.
A June 6 temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction filed by the couple in Yavapai County Superior Court reads that the Gregorys constructed the floodwall after Andante Drive flooded on Sept. 11, 2009 when “an existing three-foot berm did not hold back the water, and in fact it was washed away. The top soil was washed away to bedrock. The driveway was under water. The backyard was under water. Rocks and boulders were pushed across the road. Mud, a foot deep, covered plaintiffs’ yard.”
Duane Gregory submitted Permit Application B10922 for a “Flood Barrier” on Dec. 22, 2009.
After discussing the wall with the public works department over the next year “We were told by public works that the department was ‘submitting [the wall] for final approval’ right? I said ‘we’ve been waiting a long time,’ so it was automatically assumed that we met all the requirements and was going to go through and we built it right immediately after that,” Gregory stated.
The Gregorys “never completed the required permit process and constructed an unpermitted, uninspected concrete block wall,” City Attorney Kurt Christianson wrote in a legal motion opposing the restraining order.
“Additionally, it is illegal to construct without a permit … to construct anything in the public right-of-way without a permit … and to encroach in the public right-of-way,” Christianson wrote.
The city’s response also noted that “the unpermitted cinder block wall is not the city’s only ongoing compliance matter” with [the] Gregorys’ property.
“We didn’t get the final end [permit], but [at] that time, we were hurrying to get everything through, because the monsoon was coming, so that was the issue, and when [the permit application] passed through engineering, I assumed we were good to go,” Duane Gregory said.
“But they never had an issue after … everything was good for 15 years, until the sidewalk project came up, and now it’s an issue,” Terry Gregory said.
During a meeting at their home with Public Works on April 23, 2024, the Gregorys were informed that the wall had to come down.
“There is no grandfathering [of] a violation,” Director of Community Development Steve Mertes said.
Harris said the city will seek compensation from the Gregorys for the $20,000 cost of demolishing the wall.
“We haven’t got the bill … so we’ll wait and see how much we’re going to contest paying that bill,” Duane Gregory said.
“That’s a $100,000 [if] that was built today,” Terry Gregory said. “We feel victimized here, because they’re the ones that set where that wall footing was going to go and we never had the opportunity to litigate that in court. We were hoping to have some reasonable conversation, because we thought the wall could still exist with the sidewalk.”
Harris said the Andante Drive SUP construction is slated to end in January “with the final walkthrough in February [so] it should be completed this winter.”
