Sereno revamps burned acreage
By Peter Corbett - June 20, 2009
The Arizona Republic
It is a place where neighbors walk and bicyclists ride with little traffic, but developers of Sereno Canyon in north Scottsdale have paved the way for 128 homes on a desert site north of the McDowell Mountains.
Crown Community Development for the past three years has been developing the 350-acre site southwest of 128th Street and the Happy Valley Road alignment for luxury homes. Lots of 1.5 to 4.9 acres cost from $700,000 to $2 million.
The gently sloping land, with an array of boulder piles, abuts the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. Much of the area was ravaged in a July 1995 wildfire but is starting to recover.
“In the Rio Fire, things got pretty torched out there,” said Scott Hamilton, Scottsdale preserve trail planner.
“I noticed burned-out tree stumps in the preserve and cholla skeletons, but the desert shrubbery grows back almost immediately.”
At Sereno Canyon, Crown Community Development has been working since December to landscape its property with the help of the LVA Urban Design Studio. Close to 260 trees and 10,000 indigenous plants were added along Ranch Gate Road that leads to the gatehouse.
“The developer and landscape architect felt it important to create a community that replicates the natural beauty of this area,” said Debbie Omundson, Sereno Canyon director of sales.
Joe Young, a LVA landscape architect, said many of the plants will be watered by an irrigation system until they mature and then will survive on rainfall.
LVA is planting another 980 trees and 22,000 plants, including paloverde and mesquite trees, ocotillos and saguaros.
Under the city’s Environmentally Sensitive Lands Ordinance, Sereno Canyon is required to have close to 60 percent of its site left undeveloped to protect the washes, boulders and wildlife corridors.
