Oak Creek Vineyards

(Verde Independent/Vyto Starinskas)

By Raquel Hendrickson

Originally Published: December 21, 2021 8:09 p.m.
Copyright 2021 Verde News.

CORNVILLE – Oak Creek Vineyards & Winery is looking to expand again. And the effort may eventually change the way Yavapai County operates in Page Springs.

Gary and Nathalie Carruthers are asking for an amendment to the property’s use permit with a 15-year extension. Their plan is to expand and renovate the tasting room, winery and parking lot. The changes would occur in three phases.

The county itself has asked them to consider a zoning map change to make life easier for everyone.

“We think it’s the right thing to do,” Gary Carruthers said, but he said he wanted to get the current use permit through before the Board of Supervisors starts debating the larger issue of an area zoning change.

While the winery is nearing its 20th anniversary, the Carruthers couple has owned it less than two years, their planned opening coinciding with the beginning of COVID-19 closures in 2020. So they have been familiar with the unpredictable from the beginning.

Rendering of some of the planned expansion of Oak Creek Vineyards & Winery by Architecture Works Green Inc.

The property came with some history, and that reflected what’s happened in Page Springs the past two decades. By the county’s count, there have been more than 20 use permit applications in the area, all for commercial development, as it has grown into a tourism haven.

County staff has been frustrated with repetitive paperwork for even small changes. Use permits are restricted to the site plan. Any change not on the site plan must have an approved amended use permit, even “the addition of a walk-in freezer or a deck.” The result, they said was owners building without getting the proper permits, becoming an enforcement headache.

In the case of Oak Creek Vineyards, it was first approved for a 10-year use permit in 2002 for construction of the winery and tasting room. In 2007, the owners asked for a use permit to add a restaurant, which was not allowed at the time. In 2012, the original use permit was extended another 10 years.

Two years later, the county granted a use permit to expand the tasting room, but that was revoked when no building permit was obtained within two years. In 2018, the county did approve a use permit amendment for an expanded seating area.

In supporting its most recent amendment application, county staff recommended all commercial property owners in the area, primarily wineries, get together and pursue a conditional use zoning map change. That would allow the owners to simply get a building permit for any changes.

Carruthers agreed that would help mitigate the shortcuts some property owners may take to get around a lot of the public processes. He said the Cornville Community Association also wanted more time to discuss it and its ramifications.

“We don’t know how much latitude we would have to make changes,” he said.

Carruthers wants to add 729 square feet to the tasting room, renovate the seating area and wine bar, build a new commercial kitchen with walk-in cooler and pantry, add 1,914 square feet to the patio, renovate the parking lot and make an exhaustive list of other changes.

“It’s pretty exciting,” he said.

The Cornville Community Association sent in a letter of support of the project.

Carruthers said Oak Creek Vineyards would like to have the changes to the tasting room complete by 2023 and the winery building finished by the fall harvest in 2024.

In the long term, he would like to go back to the county with the request for a zoning change.