Development Review Board approves mountainside home on Montezuma Road with conditions
Loading...
Summary
The Development Review Board approved a mountainside home for a grouped parcel in Ranchitos Del Rey, finding the design meets lot coverage, disturbance limits and cumulative-height requirements with mitigation measures including a seepage-pit septic design and salvaged-plant revegetation.
The Town of Carefree's Development Review Board on July 14 approved site plans for a new residence on Montezuma Road in the Ranchitos Del Rey subdivision, a mountainside lot composed by combining multiple platted parcels. The board voted in favor after staff and the applicant described measures to limit grading and preserve natural vegetation.
Stacy, town planning staff, said the owners combined multiple lots to create a larger building site but that the property is constrained by steep slopes and washes. She said the proposal complies with the town's Rural 190 zoning development standards for lot coverage and setbacks and that the applicant's grading plan met the town engineer's cut-and-fill ratio requirement.
"The site is very constrained with mountainside criteria," Stacy said, noting the maximum lot coverage is 6 percent and that the proposed home "is pushing at 4.55 percent" of lot coverage. She also said the allowable disturbance ceiling is 18 percent; the plan excludes driveway area from that disturbance total and lists the driveway at 12.72 percent.
The applicant's architect, Lance Baker, described design choices intended to minimize visibility and disturbance by siting the house in an as-level area of the property, using retaining walls and placing utilities to reduce impact. "We've been working on this since December," Baker said. He told the board the home will be "tucked into the hillside" and that the design preserves viewpoints across the wash while minimizing grading.
Engineering and utilities: staff documents show the project relies on an on-site well and a seepage-pit septic system, which Stacy said reduces the need for septic fields and therefore minimizes disturbance. During questioning a board member asked the well's capacity in gallons per minute; the architect said he did not have that detail at the meeting.
Height and grading: Stacy said the cumulative height measurement for the proposal is 32 feet, 9 inches (measuring from the site's lowest point to the roofline) and that overall roof-line heights under the finished-floor grades fall below the town's 24-foot typical roof-line threshold. The grading and drainage plan was reported to comply with town engineering standards.
The board voted to approve the project with conditions listed in the staff report. The applicant said construction documents are nearly complete and that the owners intend to apply for building permits "within a couple weeks." The owner representatives were noted as out of the country at the time of the hearing and were represented by Candace.
Additional details recorded in the public record include plans for native and salvaged-plant revegetation in disturbed areas and a small plunge pool at the rear; the pool will be set down behind a retaining wall to reduce visibility from public vantage points.
No formal objections were recorded at the public meeting. The board's approval requires compliance with the town's standard building permit and inspection process and the conditions attached to the Development Review Board decision.
