Stock photo by Niklas Jonasson / Unsplash. Not the runway site.
Prop 410: Should Chino Valley Make Room for a Student Pilot Runway?
In February, Chino Valley's Town Council said yes to a private runway on Perkins Ranch, where college students would practice landing planes. More than 1,200 people signed a petition to put that decision to a vote. Now Chino Valley voters get the last word.
Each square is one possible home lot. Today the land is zoned for houses on 2-acre lots, and nobody has filed a plan to build them.
The quick facts
Prop 410 is on your ballot if you live inside town limits. Some Chino Valley mailing addresses sit outside them, so check your sample ballot. The vote is a yes or no on the zoning, and the zoning decides whether this runway plan lives. See what each vote does.
You're who this vote touches most. The town's permit for the runway sets flying hours and a yearly cap on practice landings. It has no noise limit. See how firm each limit is.
You won't see Prop 410 on your ballot. It can still change where student pilots practice. Today they use the airports in Prescott and Cottonwood. See why a new runway came up at all.
The first step is a runway just short of a mile long. Two models of small training plane could use it, four at a time at most. See what would be built.
The whole thing in 60 seconds
Chino Valley is a small town just north of Prescott.AZFAMILY Prop 410 is one of the questions on its November ballot. "Prop" is short for proposition, a question voters answer with a yes or a no.
The Perkins family wants to build a private runway on 390 acres of its ranch, on the far east side of Chino Valley. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, a private college in Prescott that trains pilots, would use it for student practice.AIRFIELD PERMITAIRFIELD PERMIT
The runway needs two things from the town. The first is new zoning for the land. Zoning is the town's set of rules for what can be built on each piece of land, so neighbors know what can go up next to them. The second is a permit with the runway's rules in it, which this guide calls the airfield permit. The Town Council, the seven people voters elect to run the town, approved both in February.ORDINANCE 2026-965AIRFIELD PERMIT
More than 1,200 people signed a petition, so the zoning change now goes to voters as Prop 410.DAILY COURIER A yes keeps the new zoning, and the runway can move ahead if the council also signs a contract with the ranch. A no keeps the old zoning, which is for homes on 2-acre lots, and this runway plan ends.BALLOT TEXTAIRFIELD PERMIT
Neither vote changes your taxes.BALLOT TEXT The argument is about noise, and about what the ranch should turn into.
How did a runway end up on your ballot?
Counting every takeoff and landing, Prescott's airport was the 18th busiest in the whole country in 2021. Student pilots are a big reason why.CITY OF PRESCOTTFAA
That airport is Prescott Regional Airport, and it belongs to the City of Prescott. Embry-Riddle runs its flight training center there.ADOT Its students also practice at Cottonwood's airport, on the other side of Mingus Mountain. In November 2025, Embry-Riddle planes made 69% of the 4,332 flights at Cottonwood, according to that airport's manager.VERDE INDEPENDENT
Some people who live near Cottonwood's airport say the noise is constant. In April 2025, Embry-Riddle's chancellor acknowledged complaints from residents of Cottonwood and nearby Clarkdale and agreed that a practice airfield just for the school could help. By that fall, Cottonwood's mayor said the school was working on getting land for one on the Prescott side of the mountain.VERDE INDEPENDENT
Embry-Riddle would lease the land from the family. After the council vote, the school's chancellor, the leader of its Prescott campus, said the runway would be private and for Embry-Riddle students only, so they wouldn't have to compete for airspace at Prescott and other public airports.AVBRIEF Airspace is the sky above and around an airport, where planes line up to take off and land. The permit does also allow up to 50 flights a year by other planes, which section 6 covers.
You won't see Prop 410 on your ballot. Only voters inside Chino Valley's town limits get a say. It still touches Prescott Valley in three ways.
The sky. Part of Prescott Valley sits inside the airspace run by Prescott Regional Airport's control tower. It's the big blue circle on the permit's airspace map.AIRFIELD PERMIT Embry-Riddle wants to move much of its practice landing traffic out of Prescott to ease the crowding there.AVBRIEF Nobody has said how much of that practice would leave Prescott. Town staff say the planned route to the ranch wouldn't cross north Prescott Valley.FEB 3 PLANNING PACKET
The land. A wildlife group told Chino Valley's council that the grasslands of Chino Valley and Prescott Valley are some of the state's best pronghorn habitat.DAILY COURIER
The money. A good number of donors to the campaign against Prop 410 list Prescott Valley addresses.NO SEPT REPORT
Why Perkins Ranch?
The Perkins family has ranched east of Chino Valley for about 126 years. The legal description of the 390 acres starts at a brass survey marker stamped 1914. By the year on that marker, the family had already been ranching here for about 14 years.AIRFIELD PERMIT Tom Perkins, president of the family's ranch company, says the ranch covers about 75,000 acres. About 10,000 of those acres sit inside town limits.OFFICIAL PAMPHLETDAILY COURIER
The runway site is about 6.5 miles east of Highway 89.DAILY COURIER Tom Perkins told the Daily Courier, Prescott's daily newspaper, that Embry-Riddle would pay to build it.DAILY COURIER On paper, the applicant is a company called Perkins Ranch LLC.AIRFIELD PERMIT
How the town said yes
The first stop was the Planning and Zoning Commission. It's a group of residents the council picks to look over land-use requests and give it advice. The council doesn't have to take that advice.DAILY COURIER The commission first took up the runway on January 6, 2026. About 200 people came, and only 50 were allowed into the meeting room at a time. The rest watched on TVs in the hallway and in another room. Some people who planned to speak went home rather than wait outside in the cold.DAILY COURIER More than 50 people spoke, and most of them were against it. The commission held off so it could get more answers.DAILY COURIER
On January 20, the council and the commission met together to go over the plan. The public couldn't speak at that one, and about 50 people came anyway, with an overflow crowd watching on a screen in the police station.DAILY COURIER On February 3, the commission recommended approval, 5 to 2.TOWN NOTICE
The council expected an even bigger crowd for its own hearing, so it moved the meeting to Grace Church.DAILY COURIER The town guessed right: on February 23, more than 350 people came, and more than 90 of them spoke.DAILY COURIERDAILY COURIER The next night, the council approved the zoning change and the airfield permit, both 5 to 2.ORDINANCE 2026-965AIRFIELD PERMIT Mayor Tom Armstrong, who leads the council, and council members Larry Holt, Sherri Phillips, John McCafferty and Robert Switzer voted yes. Councilman Bob Schacherer and Vice Mayor Eric Granillo voted no.DAILY COURIER The council has changed since then. Schacherer is no longer on it, and John Stankewicz was sworn in on April 28.TOWN COUNCIL PAGEAI SUMMARY
How it got to your ballot
Arizona's constitution lets voters challenge a decision by their town council. They need signatures equal to 10% of the votes cast in the last town election, turned in within 30 days.AZ CONSTITUTIONA.R.S. 19-142 Once enough valid signatures are in, the decision is on hold until voters weigh in. That's called a referendum.
A petition is a form that voters sign to ask for something. Two Chino Valley residents, Jo Ann Savage and Gary Beverly, led this one. It needed about 384 valid signatures.DAILY COURIER More than 1,200 people signed, a little over three times what it took.DAILY COURIER On May 26, the council put it on the November ballot as Prop 410.RESOLUTION 2026-1308
Only people who live inside Chino Valley's town limits, the line around what officially counts as the town, get to vote on it. Some homes with a Chino Valley mailing address sit outside that line.OFFICIAL PAMPHLET
How is the land zoned today?
Right now the 390 acres are zoned for houses. Nobody has filed a plan to build any.
Homes on 2-acre lots
Short for single-family residential, 2-acre minimum. Each house needs at least 2 acres.ORDINANCE 2026-965 The airfield permit doesn't fit here, because it was written for AR-36 land.AIRFIELD PERMIT
Ranch land and 36-acre lots
Short for agricultural residential, 36-acre minimum. It's meant for ranches and very big rural lots. Each lot can have one main home and one guesthouse.ZONING CODE
Every zone has a list of things allowed outright. It also has a second list of things the council can allow case by case, with conditions attached. That case-by-case approval is called a conditional use permit. AR-36 puts airports on its second list.ZONING CODE For this runway, the conditional use permit is the one the town approved in February. This guide calls it the airfield permit.
The 2025 change
In June 2025, the council brought AR-36 back into the town's zoning code, with airports on that case-by-case list.ORDINANCE 2025-953 That was about seven months before the planning commission voted on the runway.
Opponents say the change was shaped for this project. The council says the rezoning fits the town's General Plan, the long-range growth plan Chino Valley voters approved in 2023.ORDINANCE 2026-965GENERAL PLAN
Town planning staff agreed. Will Dingee is the town's assistant development services director. At the January 20 study session, he said the runway fits the General Plan and called it "a compatible use." He added that this didn't guarantee approval, and that a runway would be less built-up than a neighborhood of houses.DAILY COURIER Rachelle Fernow, who served on the committee that wrote the General Plan, sees it the other way. She told the council aviation was never part of the plan for Chino Valley's future.DAILY COURIER
The General Plan's map labels this land Ranch Agricultural, meant for big rural lots, generally one home for every four acres or more. Town staff wrote that AR-36 fits that, because it keeps the land in big lots with little built on them.JAN 6 PLANNING PACKET By that measure, today's SR-2 zoning, with homes on 2-acre lots, allows more houses than the plan has in mind. The disagreement is over use: whether a runway, and later aviation businesses, belong on land the plan calls ranch and agricultural.
What happens if you vote yes or no?
The ballot asks whether the council's zoning change, Ordinance 2026-965, gets to stand. An ordinance is a local law passed by the council.BALLOT TEXT The runway rides along with it, because the airfield permit only works on AR-36 land.
Yes approves the new zoning. The runway plan moves to its next step, a contract vote by the Town Council.
No keeps the land zoned for homes on 2-acre lots, and this runway plan ends.
"A yes vote builds a runway." It doesn't, at least not by itself. It keeps the zoning the runway needs. The council still has to approve a contract with the ranch, officially called a development agreement, and the permit gives the council "absolute" say over it.AIRFIELD PERMIT
It doesn't lock in Embry-Riddle either. After the council vote, the school's chancellor said no deal had been signed with the Perkins family yet. Everyone is waiting on the vote.AVBRIEF
What happens next
Nov 3. The vote. If no wins, this runway plan stops here.
By Dec 1. The council votes on a contract for Phase 1, the runway itself, or it doesn't.AIRFIELD PERMIT
Dec 8. Three newly elected council members take their seats.TOWN ELECTIONS
Within 2 years. Runway construction has to start within two years of the contract.AIRFIELD PERMIT
Once planes fly. Flight reports go to the town every month for the first year, then every three months.AIRFIELD PERMIT
Within 10 years. Each later phase needs its own contract and has to start within 10 years of the runway's completion. If not, the permit goes back for review.AIRFIELD PERMIT
Because of the December 1 deadline, a Phase 1 contract would come before the current council, a week before the new members are sworn in. If December 1 passes with no contract, the owner has missed one of the permit's deadlines. The ordinance makes the new zoning depend on meeting those deadlines, and lets the council vote to switch the land back to SR-2. That takes another council vote. If the land goes back to SR-2, the airfield permit ends with it.ORDINANCE 2026-965AIRFIELD PERMIT
The town mailed a voter pamphlet with the ordinance in it. Residents could also send in arguments for or against, and the town printed them with each signer's name.OFFICIAL PAMPHLET The pamphlet doesn't include the airfield permit, which is where the runway's limits live. That's Resolution 2026-1303. A resolution is the council's formal written decision, and this one is on the town's website. The limits are on pages 3 to 5.AIRFIELD PERMIT
What would it cost you?
Nothing on your tax bill. The money questions are about what the town might gain and what neighbors might give up.
The money estimates come from a study the yes campaign, the committee pushing for a yes vote, posted on its website. Rounds Consulting Group, an Arizona economics firm, wrote it in August 2026.YES CAMPAIGNROUNDS STUDY The study doesn't say who hired the firm, but the yes campaign's finance report shows a $10,000 payment to Rounds for "research" on August 28.YES CAMPAIGN REPORT The study says its numbers came from "the project team." The firm checked that they seemed reasonable, but it "did not independently audit or verify them."ROUNDS STUDY
The project is planned in phases, starting with the runway, and section 5 lists them. The study covers three phases built between 2026 and 2034, adding up to $113 million in runway and buildings. For the Town of Chino Valley, it estimates:
About $546,300, one time
Mostly town sales tax on construction.
About $11,700 a year
Plus 34 jobs, from Phase 1 alone.
About $100,900 a year
Plus 282 jobs, if every later phase gets built.
Phase 1, the only part a yes vote moves toward right away, is the first two boxes. The third depends on later phases that each still need their own contract with the town.AIRFIELD PERMIT
The study came out in August, months after the council voted. The night of the vote, Jo Ann Savage, who led the petition drive, said no money study had been done by the council or town staff.DAILY COURIER Opponents' pamphlet arguments say the same thing.OFFICIAL PAMPHLET
What isn't settled
The permit asks for a traffic study for Phase 1. Road upkeep doesn't come up until the later phases. Their contracts have to cover "roadway maintenance." Until then, nothing in the permit says who pays to keep up Perkinsville Road.AIRFIELD PERMIT The cost of future fire service would be split "fairly and proportionally" among the properties that benefit.AIRFIELD PERMIT
What neighbors might give up
For people who live near the ranch, the cost is noise from practice flights. Complaints like Cottonwood's are part of why Embry-Riddle wants a field of its own. Cottonwood's airport manager told the Verde Independent that every airport he has run gets noise complaints. Some people get used to it, he said, and for others it gets worse over time.VERDE INDEPENDENT
Some opponents also worry about home values. No one has studied that for this site. Studies of airports in the United States and Canada find home prices drop about 0.4 to 1.1 percent for each decibel of average airport noise. A decibel is the unit for how loud a sound is.RESEARCHRESEARCH Here, the loudest zone on the landowner's noise maps stays on the ranch or just past its edge, and town staff found no properties with buildings within a mile of the runway.JAN 6 PLANNING PACKETFEB 3 MEETING VIDEO But a study of Minneapolis homes found price effects more than twice as far out as the official noise zones, so distance alone doesn't settle it.RESEARCH Section 6 shows both noise maps.
One neighbor has more riding on the quiet than most. The Garchen Buddhist Institute is a retreat center and place of worship. By Tom Perkins' count, it's about 2 miles from the middle of the proposed airfield.DAILY COURIER Its director argues in the pamphlet that its work depends on quiet.OFFICIAL PAMPHLET
What would actually get built?
First a runway. Three more phases could follow, and each one needs its own contract with the town.
The runway would be 5,000 feet long, with room to grow to 6,000.AIRFIELD PERMIT A mile is 5,280 feet, so it starts out a little short of one. Embry-Riddle's plan is a paved runway costing about $15 million, the aviation news site AvBrief reported.AVBRIEF
5,000 feet is almost 14 football fields laid end to end, end zones included. Our math: 5,000 divided by 360.
Students would practice touch-and-goes. In a touch-and-go, a plane lands and takes right back off without stopping. Student pilots do them over and over, flying a loop around the runway called the traffic pattern.AIRFIELD PERMIT
Embry-Riddle's training there is limited to two small planes, the Cessna 172 and the Diamond DA42NG, or others that are no louder.AIRFIELD PERMIT
Guess first: how many planes can be in the practice loop at once?
The four phases
The runway
A runway, a taxiway (the lane planes use to get between the runway and the parking area) and a parking area for planes. This is the only part a yes vote moves toward right away.AIRFIELD PERMIT
A fire station and a classroom
A fire station, plus a building with classrooms and a hangar, which is a garage for planes. The fire station has to come before any other buildings.AIRFIELD PERMIT
Industrial space
Aviation-related industrial, assembly and warehouse space.AIRFIELD PERMIT
Offices and businesses
Aviation-related offices and businesses, possibly including a business that fuels and services planes.AIRFIELD PERMIT
The permit's list of allowed aviation uses runs from classrooms and hangars all the way to research and manufacturing. It ends with "or similar uses."AIRFIELD PERMIT
Pronghorn are deer-like animals of the grasslands. At the January planning hearing, Vice Chair Gary Pasciak noted that their breeding season runs April 1 to June 30. He asked that construction be kept down during those months.DAILY COURIER The final permit requires the owner to work with Arizona Game and Fish on wildlife, but it doesn't set dates.AIRFIELD PERMIT
How busy could it get?
Supporters say 110 a day. Opponents say 80,000 a year. They're quoting the same limit.
Pick a side's number to see where it comes from
The permit's yearly cap is 40,150 touch-and-goes. Spread across every day of the year, holidays included, that comes out to exactly 110. In a leap year, it's 109.7. The cap doesn't grow for February 29.AIRFIELD PERMIT
The permit counts each landing as one operation and each takeoff as another, so one touch-and-go is two operations. Double the yearly cap and you get just over 80,000.AIRFIELD PERMIT
So both campaigns are describing the same ceiling. One more thing about that ceiling: it only counts touch-and-goes. Training flights that just arrive from Prescott or head back aren't counted in it.
How firm is each limit?
Some limits in the permit are hard rules. Others are averages, and a few are promises to try. The town checks the averages across three years at a time, so a busy year can be balanced out by two quieter ones.AIRFIELD PERMIT
The runway's limits, from firmest to missing
Town staff's noise review used the landowner's estimate of about 50 takeoffs and landings a day. Working from the landowner's noise maps, staff wrote that the zone averaging 65 decibels or more wouldn't reach past about 2,000 feet from the runway ends. That's the level commonly used to flag noise-sensitive areas.JAN 6 PLANNING PACKET It's an average over a full day and night, so a single plane passing over is louder than that.
The permit allows more than four times that much flying: an average of 110 touch-and-goes a day, which is 220 takeoffs and landings.AIRFIELD PERMIT The Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA, is the national agency that runs the country's airspace. The landowner's application says the FAA only calls for a formal noise study at 90,000 operations a year.JAN 6 PLANNING PACKET That figure does come from the FAA's environmental review guidelines, and the permit's yearly cap, about 80,300, stays under it.FAA GUIDELINE
The landowner's two noise maps also disagree with each other. One is based on a 2003 noise study by the Perkins family. On it, the 65-decibel zone spills past the property line on the northeast end, and the map marks 3,268 feet to the zone's far tip. The other is based on Prescott Regional Airport's 2018 long-range plan, called a master plan, and keeps the zone inside the property.JAN 6 PLANNING PACKET Neither map says how many flights it was drawn for.
Both maps are Sheets 12 and 13 of the landowner's application.JAN 6 PLANNING PACKET
Where would the planes fly?
Close to the field, the landowner's application has a map for that. It shows the traffic pattern, the loop planes fly around a runway to take off and land. Planes would join the loop from the north or the south and fly it about 1,000 feet above the runway. On the last turns before landing, they'd drop to about 500 feet above it.JAN 6 PLANNING PACKET
Most of the loop is over open land. One stretch isn't. On the map, the turn before a southwest landing runs right beside the Garchen Buddhist Institute.JAN 6 PLANNING PACKET The permit bans repetitive low-altitude practice over developed areas, but it doesn't define that.AIRFIELD PERMIT That map stops near the field.
Town staff described the trip from Prescott in a memo for the February 3 planning meeting. They wrote it after talks with Embry-Riddle, Prescott's airport and the FAA. Planes would leave Prescott heading north through a corridor, a set path planes follow, that's already in use today, over mostly empty land. Outside Prescott's airspace, they'd enter the new field's airspace through one of two corridors. One follows Perkinsville Road, and the other crosses empty state land. Staff wrote that neither passes over existing homes, and Prescott's airport staff said the plan doesn't send planes over north Prescott Valley.FEB 3 PLANNING PACKET Other practice moves, like recovering from a stall, when the wings stop giving enough lift, would stay in the training areas students already use, away from the new field.FEB 3 PLANNING PACKET
Staff also counted buildings bigger than 800 square feet, which it treated as places where people live or work: 17 inside the new field's airspace, and 33,762 inside Prescott's. The new airspace would be Class G, the kind with no control tower, and staff were told there are no plans to change that.FEB 3 PLANNING PACKET The permit says the airspace has to stay as drawn.AIRFIELD PERMIT No one has published real flight tracks along those corridors yet.
Both maps are from town staff's February 3 supplemental memo.FEB 3 PLANNING PACKET
When would the planes fly?
The permit includes an expected weekday schedule. Most of the practice happens in the morning.AIRFIELD PERMIT
8:00 a.m.Peak practice.
Weekends are expected to run about two-thirds as busy as weekdays. The plan also expects about 1 day in 7 with no practice at all, because of wind or clouds.AIRFIELD PERMIT
The late hours came up at the January 20 study session, when Councilman John McCafferty asked whether the night flights could be moved somewhere else.DAILY COURIER The final permit's standard hours still run to 11:30 p.m., with winter flying ending before 10.AIRFIELD PERMIT
Who's in charge once the planes are flying?
On the ground, the town. In the air, the FAA.
The land
Whether the runway gets built, how big it is, and what goes on the ground around it.AIRFIELD PERMIT
The sky
Airspace safety. Its review of a new airfield doesn't look at noise, or at whether a runway fits the neighborhood.14 CFR 157.7
Courts have struck down local rules aimed at planes in the air. In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out a rule in Burbank, California, that banned late-night jet takeoffs at a privately owned airport.U.S. SUPREME COURT So the permit's flight-path rules likely work as promises the owner makes to the town. The town probably couldn't ticket a student pilot for straying from them.
That case could come up again if anyone challenged the permit's flying hours in court. One difference here: the owner would also be agreeing to the limits in a signed contract.
Who looks at the contracts first?
The council does, and only the council. The draft permit the council received on February 24 sent every draft contract to the planning commission first. The commission's comments would then go to the council.FEB 24 COUNCIL PACKET That night, the council took that condition out, along with the words giving the commission a review role.FEB 24 ACTION SUMMARY
The seven people who vote on the contract
If a Phase 1 contract comes up before the December 1 deadline, this council votes on it. In July, Mayor Armstrong was re-elected, and three council candidates won four-year terms that start December 8.DAILY COURIER Contracts for later phases could come before a council with different members.
Voted yes in February. Term ends December 2026.
One of the two no votes in February. Term ends December 2028.
Voted yes in February. Term ends December 2028.
Voted yes in February. Term ends December 2026.
Voted yes in February. Term ends December 2026.
Joined the council April 28, after the vote. Term ends December 2026.
Voted yes in February, and wrote a pamphlet argument for Prop 410. Term ends December 2028.
Photos: Town of Chino Valley. February votes are from the February 24 meeting.DAILY COURIERFEB 24 ACTION SUMMARY Stankewicz's start date is from an AI-written meeting summary.AI SUMMARY
Who keeps count?
The owner does. The permit requires flight reports to the town every month for the first year, then every three months. The owner presents those quarterly reports to the council. The owner also has to keep a log of every complaint and what was done about it.AIRFIELD PERMIT The planning commission's chair, Chuck Merritt, asked for those monthly reports at the February 3 meeting, and they made it into the permit.DAILY COURIER
What if it gets busier than promised?
Each contract has to include "mechanisms that allow the Town to require operational adjustments." In plain terms, those are ways for the town to make the owner change how the airfield runs. What they are gets decided when the contract is written.AIRFIELD PERMIT Breaking the town's zoning rules can bring fines of up to $500 a day, plus fees.ORDINANCE 2025-953 If construction deadlines are missed, the council can take away the permit.AIRFIELD PERMIT
Neighbors aren't part of the contract. Under state law, it binds the town and the owner, and the two of them can change it together.A.R.S. 9-500.05
How we got here
The town said yes twice, both times 5 to 2. Then more than 1,200 residents signed to put it to a vote.
Is that true? Claims, checked
Both sides have said things that hold up and things that don't. One argument in the official pamphlet gets the size of the new lots wrong by about 1.5 million square feet.
We checked claims from the pamphlet, the campaigns and the news against the town's own documents. Tap one to open it.
What's true
110 a day is the number in the permit.AIRFIELD PERMIT
The catch
It's an average the permit says "will be" 110, not a daily maximum. The firmer numbers are 40 an hour and 40,150 a year, and even those are judged on three-year averages. A single day could go over 110.
"The permit expects about 110 touch-and-goes a day on average, with a cap of 40,150 a year."
What's true
The yearly cap of 40,150 touch-and-goes works out to 80,300 operations, and those are the permit's standard hours.AIRFIELD PERMIT
Worth knowing
80,000 is the most the permit allows, not a forecast. Most of the flying is expected before noon.
"The permit allows up to about 80,000 takeoffs and landings a year."
What's true
Standard hours run 18 hours, 5:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., seven days a week.AIRFIELD PERMIT
The missing part
The permit expects 0 to 5% of flights after 8 p.m., lighter weekends, and about 1 day in 7 with no practice because of weather. Winter flying ends before 10 p.m.AIRFIELD PERMIT
"Planes can fly 18 hours a day. Most flights are expected in the morning."
What's true
The fire station is Phase 2. The permit requires it before any buildings go up, and Phase 1 is a runway with no buildings. Phase 1 gets fire safety equipment on site instead.AIRFIELD PERMITAIRFIELD PERMIT
"Phase 1 has fire equipment on site. The fire station comes in Phase 2."
What the documents say
Nothing gets built until the council approves a contract for that phase, and the permit gives the council "absolute" say over each one. The council can also take away the permit if deadlines are missed.AIRFIELD PERMIT
What's fair to say
The town has little control over planes once they're in the air. That's the FAA's job. And once a contract is signed, the town can't change it unless the owner agrees.A.R.S. 9-500.05
"The town controls what gets built. The FAA controls the sky."
Why it might be right
In 2026, the Town of Marana, near Tucson, refused to put a development agreement on the ballot. It said approving the agreement was a routine step in carrying out an earlier decision, not a new law. Two Arizona courts agreed, and in July 2026 the Arizona Supreme Court declined to review the case.TOWN OF MARANAARIZONA SUPREME COURT Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes raised the same worry in a February 20 letter to the council. She wrote that only the rezoning is clearly a "legislative act" voters can send to the ballot, and that it's unclear whether contracts for later phases would be.ATTORNEY GENERAL The Phase 2 to 4 contracts here would also carry out a decision the council already made.
Why it might not be
Chino Valley's permit calls the council's decision on each contract "legislative," meaning lawmaking, and Arizona voters can send lawmaking decisions to the ballot.AIRFIELD PERMITAZ CONSTITUTION No court has ruled on this permit. Residents can still speak at the public meetings where each contract is decided.
"It's not settled whether voters could force a vote on the later contracts."
What's true
390.7 acres divided into 2-acre lots comes to about 195, before roads and drainage take their share. That's our math, using the ordinance's acreage.ORDINANCE 2026-965
"Today's zoning would allow up to about 195 homes on the 390 acres."
What's true
The permit covers only the 390 acres, and the rest of the ranch keeps its zoning either way. On the 390 acres themselves, AR-36 allows one main home and one guesthouse on each 36-acre lot, with room for about 10 lots by our math.ZONING CODE
Worth knowing
No contract has been written yet, so there's nothing in one to check.
"A yes vote doesn't stop homes on the rest of the ranch."
What's true
Phases 2, 3 and 4 each need their own council-approved contract before anything is built.AIRFIELD PERMIT
Worth knowing
On February 24, the council removed the planning commission's review of those contracts, so the separate review now happens at the council alone.FEB 24 ACTION SUMMARY
"Every later phase needs its own vote by the council."
What's true
Prop 410 raises no tax, and Tom Perkins says Embry-Riddle would pay to build Phase 1.DAILY COURIER
The missing part
Road upkeep doesn't come up until the later phases, whose contracts have to cover it.AIRFIELD PERMIT Later fire service costs would be shared among the properties that benefit.AIRFIELD PERMIT
"No new taxes. Who pays for the road isn't settled yet."
What's true
A no vote leaves the 390 acres zoned for homes on 2-acre lots. Tom Perkins told the Daily Courier the family doesn't want to sell to developers. If Prop 410 fails, he said, the family might look at other ways to make money from the ranch.DAILY COURIER
Worth knowing
No housing plan has been filed. Splitting the land into lots for houses, called a subdivision, would need its own town approvals.
"A no vote keeps the land zoned for homes. Nothing else is planned yet."
What we found
The yes campaign's website shows a map with Prescott's training traffic passing over Chino Valley homes today, and a new route over the ranch. It's the campaign's own drawing.YES CAMPAIGN Town staff's February memo backs part of the claim. It says the two corridors into the new field avoid existing homes, and that Prescott's airport staff confirmed planes wouldn't fly over north Prescott Valley.FEB 3 PLANNING PACKET Section 6 has the route details.
Worth knowing
No one has published real flight tracks yet. Students would keep practicing at Cottonwood too. Its mayor said in late 2025 that Embry-Riddle expects to keep sending some flights there for as long as it has students.VERDE INDEPENDENT And one supporter's own pamphlet argument says the opposite of the website: "Flights and flight paths will remain the same."OFFICIAL PAMPHLET
"Town staff say the planned routes avoid homes. Real flight tracks haven't been published."
What we can check
All 12 people or groups who signed arguments against Prop 410 in the pamphlet list a Chino Valley address. One says her home sits just outside town limits. At least five arguments for it were signed by people listing Prescott, Prescott Valley or Paulden, and one family member lists Tennessee.OFFICIAL PAMPHLET We can't check the other people who've spoken out.
Worth knowing
The campaign finance reports add a wrinkle. Most of Keep Chino Rural's donors list Chino Valley addresses, a good number list Prescott Valley, and one gave $3,000 from Boulder, Colorado.NO CAMPAIGN REPORT The yes side's money came from one Chino Valley company.YES CAMPAIGN REPORT The yes campaign's website now makes a similar point, saying a yes vote means Chino Valley voters know what's best, "not folks from Prescott or California."YES CAMPAIGN
"Every argument against it in the pamphlet came from a Chino Valley address."
What's right
Town staff counted no properties with buildings within a mile of the runway, and 65 decibels is the level commonly used to flag noise-sensitive areas.FEB 3 MEETING VIDEOJAN 6 PLANNING PACKET
What's missing
The claim rests on about 50 takeoffs and landings a day, and the permit allows more than four times that.AIRFIELD PERMIT One of the landowner's own noise maps shows the loud zone spilling past the property line, and the practice loop's last turn runs right beside the Garchen retreat.JAN 6 PLANNING PACKET Section 6 has both maps.
"The nearest homes are far off, but the noise estimate used fewer flights than the permit allows."
What the code says
AR-36 means a 36-acre minimum.ZONING CODE 36 acres is about 1.57 million square feet. A 36,000-square-foot lot would be smaller than one acre.
The twist
The permit measures the land at 17,018,935 square feet.AIRFIELD PERMIT Cut into 36,000-square-foot lots, that's about 470 lots, more than twice what today's zoning allows. And this argument was written in favor of the change. That's our math.
"AR-36 means lots of at least 36 acres."
What's true
The FAA and the aviation industry have set a goal of ending leaded aviation fuel by the end of 2030.AOPADAILY COURIER
The catch
It's a goal, not a schedule anyone has to follow. When the Environmental Protection Agency ruled in 2023 that lead from these planes endangers health, the ruling didn't ban or limit leaded fuel.EPA
"The industry hopes to get rid of leaded fuel by 2030. It isn't required yet."
What we found
The argument doesn't show its math, and we couldn't find a study behind the number.OFFICIAL PAMPHLET The answer depends on how many flights use leaded fuel and how long each one lasts. Lead from small planes is a real health issue, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA.EPA One of the two approved planes, the Diamond DA42NG, runs on jet fuel, which has no lead.AIRFRAMER The Cessna 172 is the kind of small plane that usually burns leaded fuel.EPA
"Some of these planes burn leaded fuel. Nobody has measured what that would mean here."
What we found
The argument doesn't name a study, and no one has studied home values for this site.OFFICIAL PAMPHLET Research on other airports does back drops in that range for homes in an airport's loudest zones.RESEARCHRESEARCH
What it depends on
Whether any homes here would end up in one. Town staff found no properties with buildings within a mile of the runway.FEB 3 MEETING VIDEO Section 4 walks through the noise maps and the research.
"Homes in an airport's loudest zones can lose value. Whether any homes here would be in one isn't settled."
Why it's a values question
The yes campaign says a working ranch with a runway keeps more land open than houses would.YES CAMPAIGN The no campaign is literally named Keep Chino Rural, and says an airport and an industrial park go against the town's rural character.OFFICIAL PAMPHLET They're describing the same land and disagreeing about what counts as rural.
"Both sides want Chino Valley to stay rural. They picture it differently."
The best case for each side
Both campaigns say they're the one keeping Chino Valley rural. One of them put it in its name.
The official pamphlet has 28 arguments for Prop 410 and 12 against.OFFICIAL PAMPHLET
The yes side is organized as YES on Prop 410 PAC, chaired by Daniel L. Perkins. Tom Perkins says the family pays for it.OFFICIAL PAMPHLETPAC FILINGDAILY COURIER The no side is Keep Chino Rural PAC, chaired by Jo Ann Savage. It filed its paperwork the day before the council vote.PAC FILING
The case for YES
Supporters say a runway takes up a small piece of the ranch and helps keep the rest of it working, instead of being sold off for houses. They also say student practice would move out over open ranchland, away from homes in town.OFFICIAL PAMPHLET
They point out that Phase 1 is privately paid for and brings construction money to the town. Supporters also see aviation jobs and training for local young people, on land a family owns and took through the town's process.OFFICIAL PAMPHLET
The yes campaign's website sums up its case as protecting "open space, working ranches, wildlife, economic stability and local control."YES CAMPAIGN
The case for NO
Opponents say training flights from 5:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. would change the quiet that drew people to Chino Valley. They also say the council approved it without a money study or an environmental study.OFFICIAL PAMPHLET
In their view, an airport belongs in industrial zoning and doesn't fit the voter-approved General Plan. They warn that later phases could add industrial buildings with no public vote, and they worry about lead, wildfire, pronghorn and home values.OFFICIAL PAMPHLET
The no campaign's website says a yes vote is a yes to all four phases. It also warns the runway could later draw "private executive jets and helicopters."NO CAMPAIGN
In their own words
"Perkins Ranch is a successful working ranch today. Proposition 410 is not a rescue plan."
"Quiet is not a preference, convenience or amenity for the Institute. It is essential."
"I hope to fly for you one day! Or your children or grandchildren!"
"Zoning is not arbitrary; it is a commitment made to the public."
Who's paying for each side
Each campaign committee has to report its money to the town several times a year. These numbers run through October 17, the end of each side's latest report.CAMPAIGN FILINGS
Biggest single gift: $36,666.66 from Perkins Ranch Inc., the family's ranch company. It gave all but $25, in three checks.
Biggest expense: $38,275 to Policy Development Group, a Phoenix campaign firm. The committee also paid $10,000 to Rounds Consulting Group for "research."
Paperwork gap: The cover of the September report listed $43,533.97 left. That's $1,200 more than raised minus spent, the same amount as one listed payment to a treasury and compliance firm.YES SEPT REPORT The October report fixes the balance, at $42,323.97, but its column for October repeats the totals for the whole year. In October, the committee reported no new gifts and $10 in spending.YES OCT REPORT
Biggest single gift: $3,000, from one donor in Boulder, Colorado. Dozens of people gave more than $100 each, and smaller gifts add up to about $3,126. Supporters also donated about $2,978 in goods and services.
Biggest expense: About $21,600 to a Phoenix law firm, Coppersmith Brockelman, including $3,487.50 in October.NO OCT REPORT
Named donors: The committee's chair, Jo Ann Savage, who led the petition drive, gave $5,875. Gary Beverly, the drive's other leader, gave $766. Bob Schacherer, who voted against the runway as a councilman in February and has since left the council, gave $1,400 in August and September.NO SEPT REPORT Dwight Savage, who won a council seat in July and takes office December 8, gave $1,000 in February.NO MARCH REPORT The committee also refunded all $2,700 the Garchen Buddhist Institute had given.NO SEPT REPORT
Paperwork gap: The committee's running total for small gifts, $100 or less, says $3,026.21. Its five reports add up to $3,126.21, which is $100 more. The overall total uses the larger number, so no money is missing from it. In October, the committee took in $45 and spent $4,139.NO OCT REPORT
What does Together Strong think?
We're staying neutral on Prop 410.
We ask one question about every measure: does it leave working families better off? It's the same test that had us back Prop 407, the Humboldt school bond, and stay neutral on Prop 497, the county jail tax.
On housing, a yes vote shrinks how many home lots the 390 acres could hold on paper, from about 195 to about 10. Nobody has proposed homes there, so the change lives mostly on the zoning map. The landowner's housing impact statement, a short report state law requires before a zoning change, calls the effect on the cost of building homes "negligible."JAN 6 PLANNING PACKETAZ LEGISLATURE
On jobs and town money, the only estimate comes from a study the yes campaign posted. For Phase 1 alone, it projects 34 jobs and about $11,700 a year for the town. The bigger numbers depend on phases nobody has approved yet.
On daily life, the people who'd feel the biggest difference are the households closest to the ranch and the Garchen Buddhist Institute.
That makes Prop 410 a real choice about land and noise, and Chino Valley voters are the right people to make it. We don't see a clear win or loss for working families, so we're giving you the facts and leaving this one to you.
Two questions only you can answer
What should the ranch become?
A yes means a working ranch with a runway, and maybe aviation businesses later. A no means land zoned for homes on 2-acre lots, with no plan filed to build them.
How firm do the limits need to be?
Some are hard rules. Others are averages or promises to try, and the contract that could tighten them hasn't been written.
If yes wins, we'd ask the council to
Make 110 a real cap
Write 110 touch-and-goes a day into the Phase 1 contract as a true daily limit, not an average.
Define the adjustment tool
Spell out the "operational adjustments" the town can require, and what triggers them, before signing.
Post the reports online
Put every flight report and complaint log on the town's website, not just in council meetings.
Publish the flight tracks
Once planes fly, ask Embry-Riddle to post real flight tracks so neighbors can check them against the routes town staff described.
Post supporting documents, like the housing impact statement, right next to the ordinances they support. We found this one in the January 6 planning commission packet, not with the ordinance on the town's website.ORDINANCE 2026-965JAN 6 PLANNING PACKET
What's still open?
Two questions about Prop 410 still don't have public answers. The first is the one neighbors ask most: how loud would real training be?
Each one comes with what we found and where the answer should turn up. Anything the town hasn't posted can be asked for with a public records request.
1. How loud would real training be?
On January 5, three Embry-Riddle planes flew the proposed patterns, and town staff measured 45 to 62 decibels at five spots. One planning commissioner said that's about as loud as normal speech. At the hearing the next day, one speaker said the planes flew about 500 feet higher than real practice would.FEB 3 PLANNING PACKET Council members later questioned the readings because the test didn't include touch-and-goes.FEB 24 COUNCIL PACKET The landowner's two noise maps disagree, and the 2003 Perkins family noise study behind one of them isn't in the town's packets.JAN 6 PLANNING PACKET The permit sets no noise limit, and no one has measured a real training day.
2. Will Embry-Riddle sign, and what will the contract say?
No deal had been signed as of the last public word, as section 3 explains.AVBRIEF The bigger open question is the Phase 1 contract. That's where the firm limits get written down, like whether 110 a day becomes a real cap, and no draft has been posted.
Want to weigh in after November 3?
If yes wins, the council has until December 1 to approve a Phase 1 contract, if it approves one at all. That's the vote where the limits get written down.
Council agendas, meeting videos and minutes are posted on the town's meeting portal. Look for the Perkins Ranch development agreement, and check the agenda for when public comment on it is allowed.TOWN MEETINGS
"Hi, my name is ___, and I live in ___. If you approve the Phase 1 contract for the Perkins Ranch airfield, please make 110 touch-and-goes a day a real cap. And please post every flight report and complaint log online. Thank you."
You can also contact the Town Clerk's office, which runs town elections and keeps official records. Email it at [email protected] or call 928-636-3130 to ask how to send a written comment.OFFICIAL PAMPHLET
How do I vote on this?
Early voting, which just means voting before Election Day, started October 7. If your ballot is still on the counter under a pizza menu, these dates are for you.
Prop 410 is only on the ballot for people who live inside Chino Valley town limits. To vote, you had to be registered by October 5 and living in town for 29 days before the election.OFFICIAL PAMPHLET Not sure it's on yours? Your sample ballot, a preview of what your ballot will look like, will show it, or call Yavapai County voter registration at 928-771-3248.OFFICIAL PAMPHLET
Three county sites
Prescott, 1015 Fair St. Prescott Valley, 3001 Main St., Suite 1E/1F. Cottonwood, 10 S. 6th St.OFFICIAL PAMPHLET
Two vote centers
A vote center is a place to vote in person. In Chino Valley, they're Grace Baptist Church, 2010 State Route 89, or Chino Valley Victory Church, 1524 N. Highway 89. There's a drop box, a locked box for mail ballots, at Town Hall, 202 N. State Route 89.OFFICIAL PAMPHLET
Your Prop 410 to-do list
Check yourself
Five quick questions. People remember more when they test themselves than when they reread.RESEARCH
Prop 410 in five questions
0 of 5 answeredQuestions people ask
The project team told the planning commission it looked at five other sites, the Daily Courier reported. It picked Perkins Ranch because the family was open to leasing the land.DAILY COURIER Some neighbors have asked why it can't go somewhere more remote, like the small towns of Bagdad or Seligman.VERDE INDEPENDENT At the February 3 meeting, town staff compared the places by counting buildings bigger than 800 square feet. Bagdad's airport has 292 within a mile, and Cottonwood's has 3,128. Within a mile of the proposed runway, staff counted none.FEB 3 MEETING VIDEO
It depends where you measure from. Town staff looked one mile out from the edge of the 390 acres. They found three parcels with buildings: two in the county to the northeast, and the Prescott Auction Barn to the southwest. Everything else in that circle is empty, and the Perkins family and the State of Arizona own most of it.JAN 6 PLANNING PACKET Measured from the runway itself, staff told the planning commission there are no properties with buildings within a mile. Within two miles there are 15, including the Garchen Buddhist Institute and about 10 home sites.FEB 3 MEETING VIDEO
Not yet. The landowner's application says its FAA filings, including the notice for building a new airport, come during the design phase.JAN 6 PLANNING PACKET The FAA reviews new airfields for airspace safety, not noise.14 CFR 157.7 Town staff said the FAA took part in talks with Embry-Riddle and Prescott's airport about the flight routes. Staff also said the new airspace would be Class G, the kind with no control tower.FEB 3 PLANNING PACKET One speaker at the council hearing asked the council to wait for the FAA, the Daily Courier reported.DAILY COURIER The state has its own sign-off, covered in the next question.
Yes. State law says a new airport can't be built in an urbanized area, or within 24 miles of one, without approval from the Arizona State Transportation Board.A.R.S. 28-8205 The Census Bureau counts the Prescott and Prescott Valley area, with 92,427 people in 2020, as an urban area.CENSUS SUMMARY By our math from the coordinates on the permit's site plan, the runway would sit about 13 miles from Prescott Valley's town center.AIRFIELD PERMIT The permit already requires the owner to get every state permit it needs.AIRFIELD PERMIT The board's agendas for its February 5, February 20 and August 21, 2026 meetings, including a late change to the August agenda, had no approval for this airfield.TRANSPORTATION BOARD Attorney General Kris Mayes raised the issue in a February 20 letter to the council.ATTORNEY GENERALDAILY COURIER
The landowner's application says water would start with portable supplies and later come from a well. A water right is the legal right to pump and use a set amount of water. The well's water rights would go through the Arizona Department of Water Resources. Town engineers asked to see the legal water papers if a bigger well is needed.JAN 6 PLANNING PACKET Separately, the family holds water rights from an agreement signed when the ranch land joined the town. Tom Perkins said it can't really use them unless Chino Valley becomes a water provider. Asked to give them back, he offered a partnership instead.FEB 3 MEETING VIDEODAILY COURIER The final permit doesn't mention water.AIRFIELD PERMIT
Embry-Riddle's training is limited to two small plane models. The permit also allows up to 50 flights a year by other planes, and it doesn't limit what kind. A later phase could add a business that fuels and services visiting planes.AIRFIELD PERMIT Opponents expect corporate jets and helicopters in later phases. Nothing approved so far settles it either way.
Phase 1 has to have fire safety equipment on site.AIRFIELD PERMIT The area is already covered by the local fire district, the Central Arizona Fire and Medical Authority, or CAFMA, because it's part of Chino Valley. That's according to the Daily Courier's account of the January 20 study session.DAILY COURIER Town staff wrote that Phase 1 brings no new fire station or fire district staff. A Phase 2 station would likely be built by the owner and could be run by the fire district. It could also serve nearby areas like Haystack Ranch and the Garchen Institute. There's no agreement on it yet.FEB 3 PLANNING PACKET
No, according to Tom Perkins. He told the Daily Courier that Embry-Riddle isn't involved in the campaign because it's a nonprofit, and that the family pays for the yes side.DAILY COURIER The yes committee's finance report backs that up: all but $25 of its money came from Perkins Ranch Inc.YES CAMPAIGN REPORT
The limits go into each contract, and state law lets the town and the owner change a contract if they both agree. Any change would need the council's approval.A.R.S. 9-500.05
Flying hours run past dark, until 11:30 p.m. The permit keeps FAA-required lights to the minimum needed for safety and holds every other light to the town's dark-sky rules.AIRFIELD PERMITAIRFIELD PERMIT
The permit allows one flight training school. It names Embry-Riddle in the flight limits, but the text doesn't clearly say the school has to be Embry-Riddle.AIRFIELD PERMITAIRFIELD PERMIT
No. Props 492, 493 and 404 are Town of Prescott Valley measures, and Prop 492 is the Lakeshore 650 housing plan. Prop 410 is only for Chino Valley.
The voter pamphlet prints the zoning ordinance but not the airfield permit. The permit, Resolution 2026-1303, is on the town's website. The limits are on pages 3 to 5.AIRFIELD PERMIT
The zoning words, in normal words
Check our work
Town and state documents come first. Campaign sites are labeled, and so are the two AI-written meeting summaries we used only as leads. Where we did our own math, we say so.
This took hours.
Every fact on this page was checked against the documents behind it: the airfield permit, the zoning ordinance, the ballot language and pamphlet, the town's meeting packets, and both campaigns' finance reports. Every claim carries a source chip that links straight to where it came from, so you can check our work.
We don't sugarcoat and we don't hide the gaps. The questions the town hasn't answered are flagged as plainly as the ones it has. If you find something wrong, tell us and we'll fix it and say so. Email [email protected].
It's free for everyone, and it stays free because people chip in. If this helped you, consider supporting Together Strong so we can do the same for every measure on your ballot.
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