Camp Creek homeowners still waiting four years later
By Curtis Riggs | May 27, 2009
Forest Service drafting Environment Assessment
CAMP CREEK – Tonto National Forest officials are accepting public comment on the plan to extend permits, which would allow homeowners to rebuild 11 cabins destroyed in the 2005 Cave Creek Complex Fire.
The public comment on the allowance of 43 recreational homes to exist in the national forest ends on June 1. Property owners can receive information or a copy of the Forest Service’s plan on rebuilding by visiting the website www.fs.fed.us./r3/tonto.
Carefree architect Shelby Wilson has owned a cabin at Camp Creek for years. He is frustrated the federal officials have taken so long to do their report while many property owners have been seeking permission to rebuild.
“They were supposed to have this buttoned down in 2007,” he said. “Their first excuse was they wanted to get it right. First they issued the Environment Assessment (EA). Then they pulled it back and haven’t reissued it.
“It’s been one delay after another.”
At issue in the pending EA is whether to allow the owners of the 11 destroyed cabins to receive a 20-year permit to exist in the national forest.
“They promised they would be done by June, but it’s not official yet,” Wilson said.
Photo: Owners of cabins like this one, which were destroyed in the 2005 Cave Creek Complex Fire, are still seeking permission to rebuild from U.S. Forest Service officials. The federal officials are just now seeking comment on the rebuilding.
Photo by Curtis Riggs