Drive west on 89A past Cultural Park Place any evening this month and you will pass campaign signs on both sides of the same fence. One side asks residents to preserve the 41 acres. The other side asks them to keep options open for housing. The signs suggest a binary. The ballot is not one.
Proposition 403 is a single question about land use on one parcel. The larger decision, the one that will actually determine what stands on the former Sedona Cultural Park site five years from now, is being made on a separate track that runs through the fall and into the following year regardless of how the July 21 vote lands. For West Sedona residents who see this property on their daily commute, understanding the difference between the two tracks is the difference between voting on a fence and voting on a facility.
What Proposition 403 Actually Says
The measure on the July 21 ballot, formally the Sedona Cultural Park Preservation Act, would add a section to city code restricting the 41-acre Western Gateway property to recreational and cultural activities and prohibiting residential development or overnight camping on the site. It does not fund an amphitheater, approve a design, or select an operator. It closes one door.
The initiative reached the ballot the hard way. Bill Noonan and the Save Sedona Committee had to gather 1,089 valid registered voter signatures — more than double what organizers originally believed was required — to place the initiative on the ballot and block the city from converting the 41-acre Western Gateway site into housing. The city then sued its own residents to keep the measure off the ballot, arguing it amounted to zoning by initiative. On May 6, 2026, Judge John Napper found that Prop 403 was not unconstitutional zoning by initiative because, in his view, it did not change the property's current zoning but codified existing uses; he ordered the measure onto the July 21 ballot. The city declined to appeal.
The Parallel Track Most Ballot Mailers Don't Mention
While the litigation played out, three other processes moved forward. Any one of them will shape the property more than the ballot language will.
| Track | What it does | Key date |
|---|---|---|
| Prop 403 | Bars housing and overnight camping on the 41 acres | Vote July 21, 2026 |
| City RFI for amphitheater operator | Invites private entities to propose restoring and running the 5,500-seat venue on a ground lease of up to 25 acres | Responses due Sept. 30, 2026 |
| Letter of intent with Sedona Cultural Park 2.0 | Authorizes SCP 2.0 to develop a business plan and talk to venue operators | Six to twelve months from April 28, 2026 |
| SIFF Cinema Arts Center | 3.4 acres in the Cultural Park mixed-use zone for a purpose-built film center | Two-year groundbreaking horizon |
The RFI is the most consequential of the four for people who want to picture the site in 2030. On June 1, the city of Sedona issued a Request for Information (RFI) inviting private entities to share their interest and ideas for the restoration and operations of the Sedona Cultural Park Amphitheater, a 5,500-seat outdoor performance venue located on city-owned land in West Sedona called the Western Gateway. The RFI is an information-gathering step that may lead to a formal Request for Proposals (RFP) process for a ground lease of up to approximately 25 acres. Applications close Sept. 30.
Two months before the RFI, Council took a related step. Sedona City Council voted unanimously 6-0 — with Councilwoman Kathy Kinsella absent — to pursue a non-binding letter of intent Tuesday, April 28, with ad hoc group Sedona Cultural Park 2.0 to develop a business plan exploring the potential reopening of the 5,550-seat Georgia Frontiere Performing Arts Pavilion as a concert venue. Council attached a condition worth reading twice: no city funds would be used if the performance venue eventually reopens, similar to its December direction to the Sedona International Film Festival that is considering moving its theaters to the Western Gateway.
The SIFF proposal is the quietest of the four and possibly the most likely to actually get built. The festival is looking at 3.4 acres in the Sedona Cultural Park's mixed-use zone—specifically blocks 6 and 7. The facility would be operated solely by SIFF and dedicated entirely to cinematic and artistic programming, without retail or commercial businesses. Subject to city approvals, SIFF expects to break ground within two years and open the new center in the following year or thereabouts.
What The April Survey Suggested Residents Actually Want
The most useful document in this whole debate is the HighGround Inc. survey the city commissioned in the spring. It reached 1,620 registered Sedona voters between March 23 and April 3, 2026, with a margin of error of ±2.4. Voters were asked to rate nine possible uses for the 41 acres on a 1-to-5 scale. The rank order matters more than any single number.
The uses ranked by mean score are: Community gathering space 3.82, Community recreation center 3.58, event lawn 3.5, an amphitheater 3.05, housing 2.51, apartments and townhomes 2.5, restaurants 2.39, retail 2.11 and commercial space 2.0.
Read that list as a policy signal and two things stand out. First, the four highest-scoring uses are all non-residential and non-commercial, which is the space Prop 403 protects. Second, the amphitheater by itself finished fourth, well below the more flexible category of community gathering space. That gap is why council attached a no-city-funds condition to its letter of intent rather than committing to renovation.
The direct amphitheater question produced a narrower result. Total support was 46.9%; total opposed was 42.5%. Of note is that people under 29 were most supportive at 69.7%, progressively falling to people over age 65 at 42.0%. Support tracked cleanly by age band. Whether the July 21 result mirrors that split will depend on turnout. Older Sedona voters are historically more likely to return a July primary ballot than younger ones, which is one reason both campaigns have leaned into direct mail.
Where The Money Question Sits
Two numbers frame the fiscal debate. The city paid over $23 million on Nov. 22, 2022 for the former Sedona Cultural Park. Restoring the amphitheater would add a second figure that varies wildly depending on who is estimating.
The nonprofit pushing restoration puts its own number at $21 million. The nonprofit estimates it would cost about $21 million to revitalize the amphitheater and add features such as VIP seating. Organizers say private fundraising, grants and sponsorships — not taxpayer money — would fund the project. The city's consultants sketched a wider range in an earlier planning phase, with potential costs between $12 million and $64 million for the construction of a new amphitheater from scratch, while the existing amphitheater's architects have estimated the structure could be renovated for between $3 million and $5 million. The order-of-magnitude spread between renovate and rebuild is the reason SCP 2.0 keeps returning to structural condition. The June 1 RFI package includes a formal structural condition assessment that any serious operator will scrutinize before proposing terms.
"There's so many things that this cultural park can bring to the community that are not obvious. It's jobs, it's money, it's tax revenue, but it's also the sense of community," said SCP 2.0 President John Bradshaw — a former Sedona vice mayor — following the vote.
The opposing view, articulated in the city's own filings and by residents who oppose reactivating a large venue on the western edge of town, focuses on traffic and public-safety load. "We only have three main ways in and out of this town and bringing in a lot of people whether it's more residents or whether its for venues, I think more importantly, the city needs to focus on the safety of residents," one resident told council in April.
What A Yes And A No Each Leave Unresolved
A Yes vote on Prop 403 closes the housing option on this specific parcel. It does not build an amphitheater, select SIFF as a tenant, or answer the RFI. Council would still choose among proposals from the September RFI process, and the SCP 2.0 business plan would still need financing. Restoration remains a private-capital project by design.
A No vote leaves housing on the table alongside every other use. It does not authorize a specific project either. The July 2025 draft master plan from Dig Studio outlined up to roughly 500 units of primarily market-rate housing on the site, but that plan has never been formally adopted, and the survey's low ranking of housing and apartments suggests any actual proposal would face renewed public engagement. Meanwhile the Girdner Trailhead parking that connects to the Western Gateway 25+ mile trail system stays in place under either outcome, because the trailhead sits on the portion of the property already committed to public access.
For West Sedona residents, the practical read is this. The ballot decides whether housing is a permitted use on 41 acres off 89A. The September RFI decides whether a nationally recognized venue operator sees a viable business on 25 of those acres. The SIFF timeline decides whether a purpose-built cinema goes up on 3.4 acres regardless. Three separate decisions, three separate deadlines, one parcel.
Whether you own a home a half mile from the site or you simply drive past it every day on the way to Whole Foods, the value of your neighborhood over the next decade will be shaped less by the July 21 headline than by what fills the acres inside that fence. If you are weighing what any of this means for your specific property, the team at Liz Adams is available to schedule a free consultation.
