Flood: Gold Canyon fire road opening discussion before supervisors Oct. 26

Pinal County has failed to keep their promise to the residents of Gold Canyon by reneging on their promises not to open up the “fire road” between Sleepy Hollow Trail and the new Fossil Springs Road to all.

Just received information that this issue is now on the Pinal County Board of Supervisors agenda for the Oct. 26 meeting. As a final decision was meant to have been announced in September, this is just another stall. Please share your opinion by attending that meeting on Oct. 26 at 9:30 a.m. at Pinal County offices at 135 N. Pinal St. in Florence. If you are unable to be there, you may send an email to: Clerk of Board of Supervisors: shalise.otto@pinal.gov –and cc it to Jeff Serdy, county supervisor, at: jeff.serdy@pinal.gov

Todd House, then District 5 supervisor, had assured the 500-plus people attending the meeting we had in April 2019 at GC Community Church that the cleared strip in question would be restricted to emergency vehicles only. Subsequently, and in keeping with promises made, that strip was paved and signs installed limiting use to emergency vehicles, along with a gate which was to be activated by emergency services via a key or a remote control. The gate was vandalized and the mechanism broken, thereby enabling anyone who ignored the signs to push the gate open with not too much effort.

In spite of petitions to the county calling for a more secure gate, the end result was that they removed the gate entirely rather than replace it. Also took down all the restricted signs, and declared the road open to all. We were informed that the result of a traffic count conducted in June would be announced in September as they needed more time in seeking further legal opinions and a final decision to be announced in September. As they since erected new street name signs, we have a pretty good idea of what their final decision will be.

Pinal County had approved a zoning change in 2007 whereby the 640 acres bordering Sleepy Hollow Trail would be changed from one house per acre to high density. At that time the opposition from Gold Canyon residents including those in Peralta development was overwhelming in packing out the meeting rooms in Florence. Many of us brought up the access issue and the response was that Peralta Road was more than capable of handling the traffic because it had been designed to handle at least three times the then present traffic.

P&Z made no mention that the fire road might be opened as a general access one day. Pinal County has screwed up in allowing this kind of development in favor of greedy developers. They helped create the present problem and do not want to do anything about it. It is irresponsible to have permitted what in effect is a new road connecting Sleepy Hollow Trail directly to Peralta Trail along with its various recreational areas and, soon to open, Peralta Regional Park. This is just a slap in the face to many residents to put such a road through a residential neighborhood with many driveways backing onto it and no sidewalks. When we bought our lot in 1995 we visited with Pinal County to determine the status of those undeveloped 640 acres which we were told was zoned one house per acre and that the strip in between the lots on Sleepy Hollow was reserved as a possible fire access.

Many of the original residents who moved to Gold Canyon, including us, did so because they appreciated all the nature and peacefulness offered by the area, i.e., larger lot sizes, preservation of natural desert areas, night skies free of street lighting. Houses were built around the natural desert with most of it being preserved. Back then, Sleepy Hollow was aptly named. This new access road is affecting most areas of Gold Canyon, not just Sleepy Hollow, as traffic using it proceeds primarily to Kings Ranch Road, Don Donnelly, Superstition Mountain Drive, Alameda Road & Breathless Avenue.

Peralta Road is two lanes each way and does not have driveways along it, whereas Sleepy Hollow is not only single lane each way it has some 80 driveways directly fronting it, along with 12 other streets already feeding into it. It also does not have sidewalks. This summer has seen huge increases in traffic from and to the new fire road, now named “Peralta Canyon Way.” It seems that for every vehicle entering Sleepy Hollow from either end that 20 times as many are coming or going from and to the new road. Does the county really think that Sleepy Hollow can cope with an increase of even 20-fold?

Renaissance Festival will soon be here and with it the inevitable increase in crime as in past years, only now they have a new route thru. Recently there have been two breakins on Sleepy Hollow Trail and one of the perpetrators accessed via Peralta Canyon Way after terrorizing one of the homeowners here who was in fear of her life.