The Hilton Sedona Resort at Bell Rock’s request to convert part of its parking lot located at 90 Ridge Trail Drive into a 7.42-acre outdoor event lawn was unanimously approved at the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors meeting in Cottonwood on Nov. 19.

The board gave the go-ahead by approving a Major Planned Area Development Amendment and a Revised Final Plat as two separate actions that went through the Planning and Zoning process.

Twenty nine parking spaces on the north side of the Hilton’s main entrance would be converted into the event lawn, according to the proposal, which would bring the total parking to 356 parking spaces for a location that is required to have a minimum of 332 spots.

The board previously heard the matter during its Oct. 15 meeting before tabling it at Supervisor Nikki Check’s [D-District 3] request to learn more about the road maintenance of Ridge Trail Drive and what the developer’s obli­gations are for the road — which has been in disrepair for years and is not up to county standards — and regarding Sedona Fire District vehicles ability to access the site.

The adjacent The Ridge Homeowners Association hoped the Hilton’s request to the county was an opportunity to have Ridge Trail Drive’s long-term mainte­nance addressed.

“The [board’s] decision was disap­pointing for us because we hoped that the supervisors would have put a requirement in that the road be taken care of, and that’s going to cause us a number of problems,” The Ridge HOA board member Rodman Grimm said following the meeting. “That road is just going to get more torn up. We know that the Hilton has no concern or intention of doing anything to maintain the road that is going to be used primarily for their benefit. And our biggest concern is that somebody, either in our community or a tourist from going to one of the Hilton events, could hit a pothole and have a serious accident.”

The Hilton’s position is that the event lawn will have minimal effect on traffic because most of its users will already be staying at the resort, according to a traffic study.

“The resort is going to conduct a traffic study, and we’ll also do a boring analysis … of the substructure of the road, and provide that information to the county so that it can be communi­cated to the public so that when the time comes, or if the time comes and we need to reach a solution, everyone at least understands the parameters that we’re working with on that road,” said the developer’s attorney Cassandra Ayres, of the Scottsdale-based firm Berry Riddell

The only improvements that the developers were required to make along Ridge Trail Drive, according to their Oct. 17, 1995, development agreement with Yavapai County was the cost of installing a traffic signal, depending on the results of a traffic study.

“The fire access … will be addressed during the building permit process,” Ayres said. “We have been reviewing it with staff. Our building permits will not be approved unless there’s fire access to the building itself, that’s very clear, and we will, of course, comply with all code regulations.”

Similarly, the event lawn will comply with Yavapai County’s updated lighting ordinances to be dark sky-compliant.

Lawn events will not take place before 8 a.m. or after 11 p.m., and any ampli­fied music and announcements will stop at 10 p.m.

“We have heard concerns from the community regarding noise,” Ayres said. “The building to the west will be shielding the vast majority of the noise, and for those residents that are to the north, … that event lawn is actually going to be elevated. … And so noise is going to go over the houses that are to the north. But in addition to that, we’ve also provided some significant new land­scaping to provide that noise mitigation barrier as well.”