How HOA and Community Design Review Works for a Scottsdale-Area Custom Home: ESL, Native Plant Ordinance, and Building Envelopes

Two separate design reviews stand between a Scottsdale-area lot and a broken-ground permit, and clearing one does not clear the other. The City of Scottsdale reviews your lot against its Environmentally Sensitive Lands (ESL) ordinance and its Native Plant Ordinance, which together decide how much of the lot you can touch and what desert you must keep. Then your community's own Design Review Committee (DRC) reviews the look of the home against its private guidelines. This page explains how both layers work, so you know which rule comes from the City and which comes from your HOA before you design.

This page is the hub for the Jematell community design guidelines library. The library covers the design rules that guard-gated and master-planned communities in our service area enforce on custom homes. Examples include FireRock Ridge in Fountain Hills , Troon North in north Scottsdale , and Carefree Ranch in the Village of Lone Mountain . Those community rules sit on top of the City framework explained here. On a north Scottsdale desert lot, the two layers together define the home before you draw a wall.

The City layer: ESL, NAOS, and native plants

The City of Scottsdale's first design control is the Environmentally Sensitive Lands (ESL) ordinance, a zoning overlay that protects desert and mountain land. The City states its purpose plainly:

The intent and purpose of the ESL is to identify and protect environmentally sensitive lands in the City and to promote public health and safety by managing development on these lands.

The ESL covers 134 square miles of desert and mountain land north and east of the Central Arizona Project canal. That is exactly where most north Scottsdale custom homes get built. Its core tool is Natural Area Open Space (NAOS). NAOS is land that must stay in its natural state for good. The required NAOS rises with the landform and the slope. It runs from about 15 percent on flat lower desert, to 20 percent on upper desert, up to as much as 80 percent on steep hillside. The steeper and more sensitive the ground, the more of it you must leave alone. That preserved area is usually recorded as a Natural Area Easement over your lot. The easement is a legal interest that locks the desert in place. The part of the lot you can still build on is your building envelope.

On top of the ESL, Scottsdale runs a Native Plant Ordinance (City Code, Chapter 46, Article V). It protects large native cacti and trees, including saguaros, across the whole city. You need a native plant permit to remove, relocate, or destroy a protected plant. The City will only issue that permit as part of an approved development project. So on a typical lot you inventory the protected plants first. Then you preserve or transplant them under the permit instead of clearing them.

The community layer: each gated community's own DRC

The second design control is your community's own committee. The City does not run it. Most guard-gated Scottsdale-area communities operate an independent Design Review Committee (DRC) , also called an Architectural Review Committee. The DRC reviews the style of your home against private guidelines. It looks at height, roof form and color, wall and stucco materials, paint colors, walls and fences, and where the home sits in its envelope. Arizona law, A.R.S. 33-1817, sets out how this HOA review must run in a planned community. It requires a final design approval meeting, a security deposit held in trust, and at least two on-site reviews during construction.

Several of north Scottsdale's most exclusive communities run their own DRC this way, each with its own guidelines:

• Desert Mountain reviews every new home through its Architectural Review Committee, under an "organic architecture" philosophy in the Frank Lloyd Wright tradition.
• Silverleaf and DC Ranch run one of the strictest reviews in Arizona, examining paver lines, plant species, hardscape proportions, and lighting fixtures against a native Sonoran palette.
• Estancia requires dual approval: its own DRC plus the City of Scottsdale.
• Mirabel reviews custom homes through its design committee, with saguaro-protection and natural-drainage rules.
• Whisper Rock Estates reviews custom homes in its golf community through its own committee.

Each of these communities controls its own numbers through its private guidelines, which it gives only to members. You do not need their documents to understand the structure. The City handles the land and the desert through ESL and the Native Plant Ordinance. The community handles the look of the home through its DRC.

What this means for your build

Treat the two reviews as two separate hurdles. Clearing one does not clear the other. First, before you buy, check the lot's ESL landform and slope. That lets you estimate the NAOS percentage and the real building envelope. It matters because two same-size lots can have very different buildable areas once NAOS is applied. For example, take a one-acre upper-desert lot at a 45 percent NAOS requirement. It leaves under half an acre to hold the house, garage, driveway, pool, and graded yard. Second, inventory the protected native plants early. That way the native plant permit and any transplanting are planned, not a surprise. Third, get your community's current DRC guidelines and design to them. The community height, color, and material rules are usually tighter than the City code.

The City is the authority having jurisdiction (AHJ) for the permit and the ESL. Your community DRC judges design fit. The preserved desert is held by a Natural Area Easement , and it stacks with your normal setbacks . For how the recorded envelope and NAOS easement play out on a single lot, see what is a building envelope or NAOS easement on an Arizona custom lot , for the construction fence that protects the NAOS during the build, why do gated communities require a construction disturbance or NAOS fence in Arizona , and for what the DRC charges to review your plans, how much are HOA design review fees for a custom home in Arizona . For how the HOA review works under Arizona law, see how HOA design review affects building a custom home . For the City code details, see the Scottsdale Environmentally Sensitive Lands Ordinance and Scottsdale Residential Zoning and Setbacks .

Source

The ESL purpose, the NAOS requirement, and the covered area are published by the City of Scottsdale at Environmentally Sensitive Lands Overlay on scottsdaleaz.gov . The Native Plant Ordinance is at Native Plant Ordinance Information , and the full code index is at Codes and Ordinances . The Arizona law governing HOA design review is A.R.S. 33-1817 . These City ordinances are public records.

This page is general information, not a zoning determination. Overlay boundaries, NAOS percentages, and each community's private guidelines depend on the specific parcel and HOA, so confirm your lot's ESL requirement with Scottsdale Planning and Development and your community's current guidelines with its Design Review Committee before you rely on a number.