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Introduction
The City of Phoenix operates and maintains over 27,000 acres of mountain preserves and desert parks. These properties are in the middle of the sixth largest city in the country and are host to many recreational and outdoor activities—hiking, mountain bicycling, horseback riding, picnicking, outdoor education, bird watching, and biological field studies. The preservation of these properties has, until recently, been almost entirely focused on their location relative to the community and their rugged geologic shapes. The configuration of the properties acquired has been based on property lines (i.e., section lines from the state and federal governments) and, to some extent, slope. The City of Phoenix has been witness to explosive growth in population and land area since the second world war. One of the results of this growth is that these desert parks, once on the fringe of the city, have become isolated and are now islands of Sonoran Desert within a sea of urban development. top
The City of Phoenix has a long tradition of preserving large tracks of land with upland Sonoran vegetation, specifically the Paloverde-Saguaro communities found on bajadas and mountain slopes, for use as municipal parks. In 1924 Phoenix was 5.5 square miles and had a population of 38,500. The prominent leaders of the city had a vision to acquire, what they believed to be, the last prime recreation site for picnicking, horseback riding, and hiking near the city. This desert mountain range was called the Salt River Mountains, consisting of the Gila-Guadalupe and Ma Ha Tuak ranges with Mount Suppoa its highest peak (2,690'). The land was 7.75 miles outside of the city limits. Still, people whose names we recognize, Dobbins, Heard, Mather and, with the help of U. S. Senator Carl Hayden, President Coolidge sold 13,000 acres to the City— South Mountain Park was established. The cost—$17,000.
In 1935 the National Park Service developed a master plan for the park with riding and hiking trails, scenic drives, a museum, picnic area, and overlooks all in the rustic regional character. The facilities in the park were primarily constructed based on that plan by the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) in the late 1930's. With the five mile and 1,200 foot elevation gain of the summit road, and 22 miles of trails, the visitation has soared from 3,000 a month in 1924 to over three million a year in the 1990's. top
In 1959 Phoenix was 187 square miles and had a population of 437,000. The City fathers dedicated themselves to the acquisition and development of 1,100 acres of unique land forms and a premier recreation area from the State of Arizona. In 1964 Papago Park was established. The City of Phoenix acquired the park for $3,529 and began improvements immediately with $1 million from the 1957 bond election. The park now boasts The Phoenix Zoo, Desert Botanical Gardens, picnicking and urban fishing lakes, and one of the ten best municipal golf courses in the country. Visitation is exceeds two million annually.
The late 1960's saw the preservation of a regional landmark as U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater and Lady Bird Johnson teamed up to acquire 350 acres of Camelback Mountain. The Save Camelback Foundation promoted the acquisition and preservation of land above the 1,800' elevation. In 1971 the City acquired 76 acres in Echo Canyon for a trail head from architect Joe Lort. The Camelback Summit trail is the second most popular trail in our system with an estimated 350,000 users per year. In the 1980's a second trail access was acquired at the east end of the mountain. Today, the Cholla Trail access is threatened by private land interest. top
On a spring day in 1970, a group of valley horsemen took the Phoenix City Council on a breakfast ride in North Phoenix to demonstrate the beauty and potential of the Phoenix Mountains. With development encroaching up the southern slopes of Squaw Peak, the activists were concerned that access for horse riding would be lost and that home sites would scar the ridge lines. After a detailed master plan process by Van Cleeve and Associates, the Council adopted Resolution No. 13814 and established the Phoenix Mountain Preserves targeting 9,700 acres for acquisition to preserve the skyline, provide open space, and recreation to a growing city of 584,000 people over 248 square miles. Today the 7,500 acre preserve (acquired for over $70 million) includes features such as Shaw Butte, North Mountain, and Dreamy Draw Recreation Area and has the most popular summit trail in the country with over 500,000 hikers annually and 1.5 million visitors to its trails, parks, and picnic areas.
The acquisition phase was the easy part of the program. As the late Charles Christiansen said to incoming Parks, Recreation and Library Director James Colley in 1979, "Acquiring the preserves was the easy part, developing community support, approving the bonds, and buying the land is simple and fun. Your challenge will be to manage all of the conflicting demands for use of the land—this may not even be possible." top
Phoenix is now planning a preserve of over 15,000 acres in the northern reaches of the city near the Carefree Highway. This 110 square mile study area has upper Sonoran plant communities on hillsides, with lower Sonoran plant communities on the flat alluvial plains. These plant communities provide diverse wildlife habitat and hold the potential for future recreational use. The City anticipates an additional 350,000 residents in the study area within the next 40 years. To date these areas have had little human impact outside of grazing and the occasional recreational vehicle track.
The planning efforts for this preserve system rely heavily on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing data. A team from the City's Information Technologies and Parks, Recreation and Library Departments and from ASU's School of Planning and Landscape Architecture are developing a database and custom application for the north study area. The City of Phoenix has also entered into a partnership with the City of Scottsdale and NASA for remote sensing data in the multi spectral range for vegetation mapping. The preserve boundaries will be defined based on biological and ecological principals, not property lines, as was done in the past. The really difficult questions to answer are how large a unit of land should be set aside as a municipal preserve that can sustain wildlife populations and provide connectivity to larger natural systems outside of the community? How wide is a wash? How much flat land should be protected adjacent to a hillside preserve for habitat? top
Recreational Use and Lessons Learned
"Build it and they will come" worked for a baseball diamond in an Iowa corn field, it is also true of public recreational lands—acquire them, build a trail, and they will come. We have witnessed an incredible increase in trail use over the 75 years of management of these lands. From the traditional horseback ride trail side breakfast to high speed competitive mountain bicyclist. The 1980's brought with it an increase in outdoor recreation and we saw the increase in trail use. What new uses can we expect—all terrain in-line skates? With these new uses being added comes goal interference, where one group of users seeks a specific experience in the desert parks and others' activities creates a sense of conflict. In 1948 Aldo Leopold observed, "Public policies for outdoor recreation are controversial. Equally conscientious citizens hold opposite views on what it is and what should be done to conserve its resource base." This is as true today when considering uses within municipal open space as it was then in terms of forest policy and game management. top
Comparison of aerial photos over a 20-year period of South Mountain, Papago Park, and the Phoenix Mountain Preserves illustrates the impact of urbanization on the landscape. The constriction of open space, proliferation of trails and access points, and loss of vegetation and habitat is apparent. It is not hard to imagine the impacts on wildlife populations as vegetative cover is reduced and modified. There are other changes that are not seen from the aerial, the invasion of grasses and weeds like fountain grass and foxtails. There are residential back yards, resorts, and commercial properties immediately adjacent to the preserves, all contributing seed and water source for ornamental plants and invasive species. The change in the fire regime as a result of these invasive plants is worrisome. Some areas of the preserve have burned almost annually for the last five to ten years and, as a result, there are no cacti or native trees in the burn area.
Today the City has 45 park rangers and an annual operating cost of $2 million for our mountain parks and preserves. This is supplemented by 5,000 volunteers who provide 20,000 hours of labor for trail maintenance and revegetation efforts. This does not count the police and fire resource contributions to the equation. As use has increased, so have the management challenges. The department has implemented new tools to combat the inappropriate activities. Now the City has ordinances on use of alcohol, glass containers, music, parking, smoking, and fire. There are leash laws, pet waste ordinances, and even a new law restricting users to designated trails. These ordinances have been designed to assist in the management and control of the desert parks. top
Development threats are not just from building on proposed preserve property but also the type of adjacent development. The location and orientation of private development is crucial; grading alters drainage patterns, the type of walls, arrangement of roads, and density of housing are important factors that were not anticipated in the early years of acquisition and preservation. Additionally, the mix of physiography and plant communities is critical to success for a municipal preserve. The urban recreation user is looking for a mixture of land forms and a variety of landscapes to enjoy. As municipal providers we must, by law, accommodate all age groups and abilities. The visitor expects to see native plants and to encounter the wildlife that inhabit these lands. The impact of our domestic pets and non-native vegetation on the fringe is not completely understood or at least, in Phoenix, not documented over time. There just is not any empirical data on the condition of the resource prior to urbanization. This is why we are gathering base line information for our north study area and creating layers on the GIS for natural factors—soils, geology, plant communities, and contracting for detailed studies of vegetation, wildlife, and drainage. All of these factors and new ideas of urban design will be incorporated into the desert preserve plans. They will allow us to make boundary recommendations based on biological processes and ecological principals and provide a basis against which to measure our policies and actions in the future. top
We often hear that the preserves are being "loved to death" by overuse and inappropriate behavior. There is some semblance of truth to this, the impact of human activity is obvious. Our efforts to manage and control the impacts are escalating. The expectations of the public are expanding and changing. It is clear from surveys and focus groups that the public has a heightened sense of environmental awareness and a desire to have the Sonoran desert integrated into their neighborhoods and lifestyles. This is an exciting time to be involved in public recreation and natural resource preservation in an urban setting.