Introduction

What are Scenic Corridors
Vision Statement
Designated Scenic Corridors
How to Use the Guidelines

The scenic corridors design policy is a part of the City of Scottsdale's design guidelines. These are standards, details, and concepts that are to be used to establish the health, safety, welfare, quality, and character of physical improvements within the city. These policies create the basis for visual character within and along certain major roadways having a particular emphasis on retaining and displaying the native desert and traditional southwest cultural heritage of the area.

 Scenic Corridors are major thoroughfares designated by the City's General Plan to have scenic desert landscape setbacks that provide a sense of openness for the community. They preserve the natural setting, provide views of nearby land forms, visually link to vista corridors along major washes, and buffer adjacent land uses from traffic. Scenic Corridors visually have the following components:

• Right of Way (the roadway)
• Scenic Desert Landscape Setback (along the roadway)
• Development Edges at Scenic Setback
• Regional Feature Crossings and Intersections

Scottsdale citizens value the natural desert setting along the northern and eastern portions of major thoroughfares in our community. There is an understanding by the community at large that these should be preserved or recreated as meaningful open space. The City's General Plan reflects this commitment by designating portions of Scottsdale Road, Pima Road, The Carefree Highway, Cave Creek Road, Dynamite Boulevard, and Shea Boulevard as Scenic Corridors.

Recognizing the value of community character, on the behalf of our citizens, the City of Scottsdale has pledged to take certain steps to protect this valued resource of natural linear open space from rapidly approaching development. Those steps include:

• Constructing new, expanding existing, and over time, retrofitting existing roadways designated as Scenic Corridors so that the design policies and guidelines found in this document are carried out.
• Working to restore and maintain the natural beauty of the Sonoran Desert within the scenic desert landscape setbacks along these corridors of regional significance.
• Applying the design policies and guidelines found in this document to public and private development on both edges of these corridors.
• Educating staff, policy makers, and the public about the existence, goals and benefits of Scenic Corridors in their community.

Designated Scenic Corridors

A historical perspective and descriptive narrative of each of the designated corridors may be found the appendix at the end of this document.

How to use the Design Guidelines

The following guidelines provide an outline of the City's design expectations for all designate Scenic Corridors, and are intended to be used by all participants in the development process including citizens, policy makers, design professionals and developers.

Design Guidelines in Two Formats:

General Overarching Guidelines: First are the overarching goals that should be considered whenever development occurs in the Sonoran desert. The principle idea is to achieve minimum visual impact of the built environment on the natural desert setting.

This concept is embodied in the Scottsdale Sensitive Design Principles. These principles are based on the overall belief that development should respect, and enhance the unique climate, topography, vegetation and historical context of Scottsdale's Sonoran desert environment, all of which are considered amenities that help sustain our community and its quality of life. The Scottsdale Sensitive Design Principles may be found in the appendix of this document. For the most recent and comprehensive set of these principles contact the City of Scottsdale's Community Design Studio or visit their web page on the City of Scottsdale's web site.

Specific Scenic Corridor Design Guidelines: Second are a set of design guidelines that are more specific regarding the components of the Scenic Corridors; the right of way corridor, the scenic desert landscape setback, edges, and intersections are provided to guide specific points of development. These specific guidelines make up the body of this document.

Two different existing and future character types may be found along the same corridor(s):

The existing conditions and quality of the scenic desert landscape setback area along some designated scenic corridors varies widely. Some areas are suitable for a preservation approach while others have been compromised to the point where there is very little to preserve.

In some cases there are, or will be, two different intensities of land use along with their associated impacts. These differences require different strategies to achieving similar aesthetics. It should also be noted that in some cases of higher intensities of land use the aesthetic qualities may be more suburban in character than those in more rural low intensity land use areas.

In general terms the two different character types can be defined as follows:

Rural/Preservation: Certain portions (generally northern and eastern) of the corridors have historically remained in a rural, semi-native state, and are planned for lower density land use impacts such as single-family large lot residential. Other portions of these roads possess existing and planned higher impact land use designations, but to date have retained their natural character fairly well. The basic design guideline implementation strategy for these areas should be preservation of the natural setting. These areas include:

• Carefree Highway
• Cave Creek Road
• Scottsdale Road north of Happy Valley
•  RoadPima Road north of Deer Valley Road
• Shea boulevard East of the CAP Canal
• Dynamite inclusive (to date)
  

Compromised / High Activity / Commercial: Other portions of designated scenic corridors have all ready been disturbed by recreation or development related activity. Much of the desert plant materials in these areas are diminished or disfigured past the point of reasonable preservation efforts. Additionally these areas may have or may be planned for higher impact land uses that will require substantial disturbance of the scenic setback areas.

The basic design guideline implementation strategies for these areas should be revegetation of plant materials, reshaping of topography, and implementing more suburban qualities of improvements.