Pre-approved architectural designs aim to cut costs and permitting time

It’s all going according to plan at the city of Sedona’s Community Development Department, following the July 1 opening of its Verde Valley Housing Plan Library. The city put the library in place to comply with Senate Bill 1529, which will provide pre-approved building plans at a reduced rate for accessory dwelling units, single-family homes, duplexes and triplexes.

“We have the preapproved housing plan library set up in partnership with the cities of Cottonwood, Clarkdale and Camp Verde, and we were able to get it up and operational on July 1, and the library is open,” Sedona Community Development Director Tony Allender said. “The next step for us is to begin promoting the library to see if we have any architects or designer interested in adding plans to it.”

This spring, Sedona City Council approved $100,000 for the library as part of its $98 million budget for Fiscal Year 2026-27, and the first plans should be able for use this winter after the municipalities review what architects submit.

“The way we set it up as a library is architects submit the plans and they essentially license the plans to residents,” Allender said. “So let’s say, for example, you wanted to use a set of plans from the library — you see the ones you like, you reach out to the architect directly, and the architect licenses those plans to you for a cost.”

The architect benefits because they can license the plans to multiple people. The benefit to the resident is that they have pre-approved plans at a reduced rate, and the plans are pre-approved so the building permitting process Allender estimated could be six weeks quicker.

However, “pre-reviewed plans must be built exactly as approved,” the Verde Valley Housing Plan Library reads. “Any changes to the plans will remove their pre-approved status and the project will be reviewed through the standard building permit process.”

Allender said his goal is “to get the fees to roughly 20% of the cost” for residents, though he acknowledged the city doesn’t yet have solid figures on what design costs typically run.

“Design fees are often based on a percentage of expected construction costs, but that number can be significantly different if it’s a designer compared to a registered architect,” Allender said. “We expect to have all of this information in the very near future.”

SB 1529 mandates that municipalities could either hire architects to create preapproved plans or create a library that designers could submit to, and Sedona chose the latter. Under this approach, Allender said, the city won’t pay a designer to create plans. Instead, it will build the library and make it available for residents. He said the benefit is that the library can accumulate multiple sets of plans over time and provide more options.

“We’re not talking about subsidizing” the plans, Allender said. “We’re trying to look at it as: By being able to license the plans over a period, that’s the way we’re anticipating architects will be able to make their money back.

“What we have set aside money for is the potential design competitions. If we were to host a series of design competitions, we would award designers, and that would help pay for their cost of doing the design work.”

“We would love to get a design competition up and running sometime in the ballpark of September or October, but we want to have some conversations with some architects first, to make sure this would be something they’d be interested in being a part of, before we open up the design competition,” Allender said.

The library is currently on the city’s housing webpage at sedonaaz.gov, but the plan is to eventually give it its own web domain because it is a partnership of several local municipalities.

“We’re excited about being able to do this in partnership with our peer communities. It’s a work in progress; we’ll continue to build on it,” Allender said. “We were able to get it in place in order to meet state law, but we’re looking forward to continuing to expand it and making it an incredibly successful program.”

Contact Allender at 928-203-5108 or tallender@sedonaaz.gov for more information about the Verde Valley Housing Plan Library.