HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-328 (2)
CityClerk
From:Z Niederman <zniederman@gmail.com>
Sent:Tuesday, July 30, 2024 6:44 PM
To:Agenda Item Comment
Subject:Re: Proposed Ordinance Changes - ADM-2024-0036
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the City of Fayetteville. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize
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Hello All,
I am sorry for not responding earlier in regards to this. I was hoping staff and planning commission might
take advice of those in the development design community more qualified than me.
I appreciate the City's efforts to try to improve development patterns, drainage, and tree preservation. I
think that we can all agree that trees are very important to liveability in a city. And I think that we can all
agree that drainage is also equally important to liveability in a city.
Who can argue against more trees, and who can argue against adding more oversight to developments?
It sounds great.
Who is going to argue with free money? That is until they realize there is an actual consequence of
massive inflation down the road.
As a developer who thinks about how buildings, people and cities interact, and having experienced living
in numerous cities across the United States, as well as Italy, I can tell you that Fayetteville is the most
auto-centric and least walkable among all of them I have chosen to live in. And while Fayetteville is
certainly improving due to many positive changes that have been made by Development Services in
recent years, I think some of the efforts here to roll back that progress are well intentioned but
misguided. This proposal is like when you are trying to potty train your 2 year old, and after he or she has
had a couple accidents, you decide not to ever take the diaper off again, but keep expecting the toddler
to mature.
Fayetteville is a growing City, and needs to create policies that respond to that growth in alignment with
its stated goals, rather than trying to create policies that keep it where it is.
While one could flippantly dismiss this comparison I am about to give, if you are willing to indulge me
here, I think taking this to the extreme is instructive.
If you have not been to Manhattan, I would recommend a visit. It is a supremely liveable City, aside from
its cost. Obviously Fayetteville is not Manhattan, and will never be in our lifetime, nor our children's
lifetimes. However, it has all the things that we talk about in City Plan 2040 - traditional urban form; a
liveable transportation network with sidewalks, bike lanes, buses, subways and taxis; a mix of uses that
allow residents to live, work and play without a car; an enduring green network of small parks; and
attainable housing, including a high population of elderly people and people in wheelchairs who can live
on their own and navigate the City because they don't need to drive.
Manhattan is approximately 22 sq miles (compared to Fayetteville's 43 sq miles). Now let's just imagine
what Manhattan would look like if it had the development policies that Fayetteville does. Let's imagine
that when developing, each property had to keep 10-25% of it's tree canopy. Let's imagine that each lot
had to also treat all of it's stormwater runoff on site. In addition, the electric company would require an
additional 10' of utility easements behind the MSPROW - which is what SWEPCO often does when you go
for a development review. Oh, and for good measure, let's also add in the requirement of one parking
space per bedroom. What would Manhattan look like if that were the case? Would it be recognizable?
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How much land area would it take up? How much public transportation could it support? Would people
still be walking to get their groceries, or to go to the local restaurant? Would they walk to the tree covered
park for recreation, or would they have to drive in their car to get to the park?. (Hint: Take a look at Dallas,
386 sq mi).
If you were unwilling to indulge me in the above comparison, I would request that you instead consider
your favorite downtown in Northwest Arkansas. What would it look like if we had these requirements
when the downtown was being built? What would the building that you spend most of Monday or
Tuesday night in, look like if these policies were in place before the building was built? (For reference,
there is an aerial photo below) And what would the street it is on look like, and the Downtown square?
Would it be a better downtown? Would there be more people? More businessess? More walking? More
vibrant?
And so we can believe that by adding more requirements for small developments we are promoting
"responsible development". At the same time,we should also be asking ourselves, what does this also
cost us - with regard to optimal use of space, and cost effectiveness that directly affects housing costs?
And so we can also believe a well respected architect telling us that shaded areas attract people and
improve community spaces, because they do; we should at the same time be critically asking ourselves
whether that is even relevant to our discussion of a small scale development. Should we be focused on
what people are doing in their back yards, or should we instead be focused as a city on the trees in the
public realm, the street trees that benefit the whole community.
At the same time, since the City seems to be wanting to increase requirements regulating trees
with small scale infill development, I am somewhat perplexed how we can be turning a blind eye to large
scale developments that have almost no tree canopy at all. For your reference, I have included aerial
photos of several subdivisions that have been developed over the past few years, like those built off
Rupple Road or Morningside and 15th St. My poor eyes and not find a single tree planted on these single
family lots, often spanning dozens of acres at a stretch.
In my opinion, what this proposal is in effect doing, is saying that we want less infill and hence more
sprawling subdivisions on the outskirts of town. Let's not lose the forest for the trees.
I feel confident that this email will be disregarded in the short term in favor of "feel good" policy.
However, I also feel confident that in ten years, when we are wondering why we did not get the results we
wanted, with respect to walkability, and are still struggling with affordability, we can look back at these
policies and realize we were trying to dance the polka after tying our shoes together.
Regards,
-Z Niederman
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Morningside/Scissortail Development
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15th St /Sparrow Dr Development
Rupple Road/Tofino Dr Development
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Rupple & Grouse Development
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On Wed, May 22, 2024 at 3:53 PM Masters, Jessica <jmasters@fayetteville-ar.gov> wrote:
Good afternoon,
I wanted to first say THANK YOU to those of you who have provided feedback to staff’s proposed
ordinance changes that were first heard by the Fayetteville Planning Commission on May 13, 2024.
Secondly, as an update, those changes were tabled by the Planning Commission at that meeting in
order to provide some additional time to consider the overall implications of the changes.
On Thursday, May 23, at the long-range Planning Committee meeting that will begin immediately after
tomorrow’s Planning Commission agenda session, staff will be presenting a summary of the Planning
Commission and public comments that were heard on May 13, and will provide some additional
background information on how the ordinance currently functions, and how the proposed changes are
meant to function.
I’ve also attached a strikethrough version of the proposed changes for your convenience, in PDF format,
so it is hopefully easier to read. If you have any additional written comments you would like to supply,
please feel free to forward them along to me so I can make sure they are forwarded along to the
Planning Commission as we continue to discuss these proposed changes.
Thank you,
Jessie
Jessie Masters, AICP
Development Review Manager
City of Fayetteville, Arkansas
(479) 575-8239
www.fayetteville-ar.gov
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From: Masters, Jessica
Sent: Monday, May 6, 2024 11:24 AM
To: Masters, Jessica <jmasters@fayetteville-ar.gov>
Cc: Curth, Jonathan <jcurth@fayetteville-ar.gov>; Pugh, Alan <apugh@fayetteville-ar.gov>; Evans, Melissa
<mevans@fayetteville-ar.gov>; Scott, John <jscott@fayetteville-ar.gov>; Pennington, Blake
<bpennington@fayetteville-ar.gov>; Brown, Chris <cbrown@fayetteville-ar.gov>
Subject: Proposed Ordinance Changes - ADM-2024-0013 - Planning Commission May 13, 2024
Good morning,
I am reaching out to you today to inform you of some ordinance changes that staff will be bringing
forward to Planning Commission on Monday, May 13, that propose to have an impact on our current
standards for the development review process. Following the stormwater ordinance changes that were
adopted in 2021, staff identified key issues that have arisen due to those changes, and will be proposing
ordinance changes to address them.
Background:
Major changes in 2021 required new green stormwater practices on a sliding scale of impervious
surface. This introduced three new levels of development threshold, and moved a requirement of a
large-scale development plan or a site improvement plan to be triggered only after the addition of
10,000 sq. ft. of added impervious surface:
Required Mitigation Measures and Documentation by Development Threshold
Development City-wide Grading and Drainage/ Water Quality, Flood, and Tree
Threshold Standard Stormwater Documentation Mitigation Measures
Level 1 < or = 1,200 Exempt from Grading and Drainage Exempt
sf of IA provisions except for those still associated
with the Building Permit process such as
HHOD
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Level 2 1,201—6,000 • Completed Green Stormwater Practice • 2 or more measures from Step 1 of
sf of IA (GSP) Worksheet, demonstrating Runoff Table 2 that Reduce Runoff via Better
Reduction via Better Site Design. Site Design
• GSP Operation & Maintenance (O & M) • 1 or more Green Stormwater
Agreement to ensure the long-term Practices (GSPs) measures from
functionality of these practices. Step 2 of Table 2 as required to treat
100% of the proposed additional
impervious and gravel areas.
Level 3 6,001—Same as Level 2. • Same as Level 2.
10,000 sf of • As needed GSP measures from
IA Step 3 to further reduce runoff
referred to as extended detention
• Abbreviated Tree Preservation
Plan
4 main issues:
Parkland Dedication
o Certain project types were no longer subject to parkland dedication, even though the
impact of added units is significant.
Project Classification
o Projects adding less than 10,000 sq. ft. still often require a coordinated, cross-divisional
round of review/comment leading to delays unforeseen issues at permitting.
Application of Tree Preservation standards
o Certain projects are no longer subject to tree preservation requirements
Timeliness of Variances and Appeals
o Variances are only permitted to be appealed with an overall project, rather than
piecemeal.
Proposed Changes:
Staff already forwarded separately a consideration for Parkland Dedication requirements, which will be
heard at the May 7 City Council meeting.
The changes that are being proposed are relatively straightforward, but will shift the threshold of a large-
scale development/site improvement plan from 10,000 sq. ft. of added impervious surface to 10,000
sq. ft. of TOTAL developed and/or redeveloped impervious surface. Further, staff is proposing to bring
an abbreviated tree preservation plan requirement to Level 2, with an added potential that these types
of developments could have a different level or criteria or provision for contribution into tree escrow.
Further, staff proposes to require a concept plan for projects developing or redeveloping more than
6000 sq. ft. of impervious surface. This would not be required to receive any form of approval prior to
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submitting to permits, but would allow for a coordinated review of projects that may have multi-
divisional issues.
On Monday, May 13, staff will be proposing changes to the following ordinances:
166.01, Development Categories
166.02, Development Review Process
166.23, Urban Residential Design Standards
167.04, Tree Preservation and Protection During Development
169.03, Review and or Permits Required
There may also be some additional language from the appeals chapter (155) forthcoming from the City
Attorney’s office.
The attached language is still considered to be in DRAFT mode, and our final proposed changes will be
presented at the Planning Commission agenda session on Thursday, May 9 beginning at 4:30 PM. We
wanted to make sure to share this information with you so you had the opportunity to review and provide
comment, either in writing ahead of the meeting, or at the meeting itself, since we believe this will have
a direct impact on the work that you do in Fayetteville.
Feel free to forward any comments directly to myself, and I will make sure to include them in staff’s
packet on the item for the Planning Commission for consideration.
Thank you, and look forward to hearing from you on Monday.
Jessie
Jessie Masters, AICP
Development Review Manager
City of Fayetteville, Arkansas
(479) 575-8239
www.fayetteville-ar.gov
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