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Flagstaff council directs staff to draft three‑year pilot to revise forest resource protections for development
Summary
Council gave direction to staff to prepare a zoning-code text amendment establishing a three-year pilot program to align development standards with wildfire science, using LiDAR and other remote-sensing tools to better protect high-quality trees while improving community wildfire resilience.
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — At its April 15 meeting, the Flagstaff City Council directed staff to draft a three‑year pilot zoning code amendment that would change how the city protects forest resources on development sites and better align those protections with wildfire science.
City staff said the pilot would apply to properties inside the city’s resource protection overlay and would allow developers to use modern remote-sensing data — including LiDAR — to identify and prioritize retention of the highest-quality trees, while designing new separations and defensible features to reduce wildfire risk.
Staff presented the proposal as a way to reconcile conflicting requirements in the current code and the citywide forest stewardship plan. “We’re not removing the role of fire in our systems. But we’re gonna keep that fire on the ground,” said Neil Chapman, City staff, Fire Department, during the presentation. Chapman and zoning staff said the pilot would require applicants to enter into a contract with the city, include on‑site ground verification of remote sensing, and would leave slope-resource standards unchanged.
The pilot would be available to both greenfield and infill projects located within the resource protection overlay, run for three years, and is intended to inform a revised, permanent set of forest-resource standards. Staff said available city LiDAR and other imagery can be shared with applicants and that additional imagery may be required for some proposals. “We can use remote sensing technologies to do that,” staff said in the presentation.
Public commenters and council members framed the proposal as tied to broader concerns about homeowner insurance and community resilience. Jessica Gerard, past president of the Northern Arizona Association of Realtors, told the council that insurance affordability already affects local homeowners: “My rates went from $1,300 to $6,500 a year due to the fire and then the subsequent flooding,” she said.
Council members expressed broad support for moving forward with the amendment while noting that insurance-rate changes depend on actions by insurers and state or federal policy, not just local code. Council members also asked staff to consider how the new tools and standards could support existing neighborhoods, not only new developments.
Staff said they will return a draft zoning code amendment to council for review before the council’s upcoming break and that they expect to ground‑truth participating sites during review.
The council gave staff direction; no formal ordinance or resolution was adopted at this meeting. The item remains in the discussion phase pending the scheduled draft amendment.
The city staff presentation and the council’s discussion emphasized the goals of improving public safety and designing more fire‑adapted, insurable neighborhoods while protecting large, healthy trees where possible.
