HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-571 - Appeal: Large Scale Development-2024-0038: (151 W. Dickson St./Trinitas Ventures, 484) (3)
CityClerk
From:Bo Counts <bocounts@gmail.com>
Sent:Monday, May 19, 2025 1:14 PM
To:Bo Counts; Williams, Kit; Stafford, Bob; Jones, D'Andre; Moore, Sarah; Wiederkehr,
Mike; Berna, Scott; Bunch, Sarah; Turk, Teresa; Jones, Monique; Rawn, Molly; CityClerk
Subject:151 Dickson / Block - Trinitas development traffic concerns
Attachments:1000029100.jpg; 1000029103.jpg; 1000029097.jpg; 1000029091.jpg
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Mayor Rawn, Members of City Council and Mr. Williams,
I've been spending a lot of time lately understanding how developments are planned, submitted and
approved. I've learned a lot about our city code, and learned how it's in desperate need of revision. We're
in the middle of a house in crisis, a crisis that predominantly impacts people needing housing that make
less than $55,000 a year annually. I could go on a lengthy list of all the reasons why purpose-built student
housing is detrimental to the overall long-term community sustainability in Fayetteville, but since the
overwhelming amount of evidence of why this building is not compatible to the proposed site isn't
enough "legal reasoning" to vote it down, I'll only include one quote from Edward Erfurt, a member of the
actual Strong Towns organization who responded to my email I sent explaining our situation in
Fayetteville and what their thoughts were. He said "\[Fayetteville is experiencing\] a textbook case of a distorted
local housing ecosystem. When a single type of development dominates—especially one as narrowly targeted as by-
the-bed student housing—it warps the market, displaces residents, and undermines long-term community stability."
With that said, I'd like to shift my focus to traffic studies and how I believe the "studies" done on this project are
not only inaccurate, but inadequate, considering the unique location and unique type of development being proposed.
In a recent memo from Kit Williams, he stated "T here must be substantial facts and possible expert analysis
by engineers, especially traffic engineers to show that a dangerous traffic condition would be created or
compounded by the proposed development. A mere increase in traffic to and from the development is
insufficient and cannot justify a refusal to approve a project. In my legal memo of September 17, 2019, I
again advised the City Council: "I believe that the burden would be on the neighbors or City Council to
establish facts establishing that a dangerous traffic condition would be created or compounded by the
proposed (project).... The City Council cannot just assume a dangerous condition would be created
without substantial supporting factual evidence." (legal memo of September 17, 2019, page 2). What
baffles me about all of this, is that traffic studies *by their very nature* are assumptions that aren't based
on substantial local evidence of a specific area or development. According to land use experts Kenneth
Stahl and Kristina Currans in a scholarly article looking at traffic impact studies, they explain that these
studies are typically based on the number of vehicle trips that similar land use choices have generated in
a similar region in the past, often as outlined in the Institute of Transportation Engineers' (ITE) Trip
Generation Manual, which provides industry-standard estimates for how much driving various new
development types, like grocery stores, restaurants or apartments, are "likely" to induce based on
national data, usually never considering locally specific usage or special circumstances. Stahl goes on
to conclude that when traffic studies are presented to decision makers in quasi-judicial settings like
local planning commissions, they're usually deemed to have risen to the legal standard known as
"substantial evidence," simply because they've been rubber-stamped by a prominent industry group,
regardless of whether they've met the actual legal definition of "substantial evidence" that is "credible
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and reliable," which traffic impact studies plainly aren't. Meanwhile here in Fayetteville, the
enormous amount of testimonials and examples of events, peak hours that are unique to the area, eye
witness accidents and police reports submitted (In an email from my college Dede Peters, we filtered
police report data from student developments which you should have all received from her) to show
what actual impacts are likely to occur, but are largely dismissed because "they aren't engineers".
Brent Toderian, an internationally known Canadian Urban Planner, in regards to traditional traffic
studies says “They ALL are based on assumptions, which are often wrong. And even if projections or
models ARE “right," it's often a self-fulfilling prophecy resulting from the model itself.” Even the founder
of Strong Towns himself, Chuck Marohn, who wrote about his challenges in the book, Confessions of a
Recovering Engineer, says those guidelines mask what is a highly subjective process. “The traffic study is
at best a total guess with a veneer of technical credibility,” says Marohn.
So why then, do we put so much more weight to these studies, when the neighbors and surrounding
businesses have presented so many *first hand* testimonials that provide such a great deal of evidence
to support our claim that traffic will in fact, not only be impacted, but will greatly affect traffic flow, traffic
danger and parking for the surrounding neighborhood and businesses? The first study at the 151 property
had a great deal of errors that were caught by the Planning commission. However, when asked to look
into these errors and perhaps do a more comprehensive study that takes into consideration all the
unique variables at play for this development at this location, the new study (which adheres to all the
same industry standard broad metrics and formulas) was hurriedly completed within days of the request
and turned in by the end of the week like a hurried homework assignment. The final result is that it
passed, some areas only at a D rating, but clearly bare minimums are all that are required by law to
adhere to.
These traffic studies only look at the plot in question, making an assumption of the usage based on
type, which is "an apartment complex". Though we all know this is no ordinary apartment complex. It's so
unique that we are literally in the process of creating a new Conditional Use zone type to deal with these
types of developments. This is not a unique corner either. It is the intersection of two of the most well
known, historic and economically important streets in the entire city of Fayetteville. So why is a generic,
broad stroked, generalized traffic impact study sufficient for a development of this magnitude and
impact? I think we all can agree that not all developments of the same type have the same impact. For
instance a "Drive-thru restaurant" in a traffic impact study would be the same formula no matter what
restaurant it is. However, we residents know that a Chic-Fil-A or a 7Brew in our community is going to
have a significantly higher impact on traffic patterns than an Arby's. This is the sort of information these
studies never address, and the community residents are experts in.
These two studies don't take into consideration all of our downtown pedestrian and bicycle traffic, nor
does it include anything about the rampant student use of SPIN and VEO scooters (which their heavy
usage is unique to our downtown area), and often causes accidents and injuries. This study also doesn't
address that we regularly have closures on the street, just like we did yesterday during the Strawberry
Festival (photos attached). It doesn't take into consideration game days, entertainment district
weekends & late nights, Lights of the Ozarks, Falltoberfest, Pride weekend, Farmer's Market Saturdays,
Sundays on the Square, and the list goes on. If anything yesterday's Strawberry Fest proved with concrete
FACTS, is that entertainment districts attract tourism. Tourists bring cars. People need places to park
cars. When people can't find parking, they circle the surrounding areas repeatedly until they find a place.
So when a 700+ bedroom development that isn't accommodating nearly 200 cars of parking, that is
parking that the surrounding neighborhood, businesses and city streets will have to absorb. Because the
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reality is, students may not be driving their cars, but they ARE bringing them, and putting them
somewhere. As if the annual summertime massive decrease in local traffic since graduation hasn't been
evidence enough. But if you still don't want to take my word for it. Take a look at this screen shot from the
city's own engineering department traffic map filtering crashes in the area. This particular heat zone area
encompasses the proposed site of this development, and the red dots indicated accidents that were
listed as "incapacitating".
In closing, I urge you all to respect and consider our community outcry. We may not be engineers, but
we *are* experts in the area. I've been a resident, a patron and now a business owner in this downtown
for nearly 20 years. I have always wanted what's best for the future and ongoing growth of Fayetteville,
and I believe this development is not it. If we are voting purely based on fear of litigation, I can safely say
that taxpayer dollars would much rather be spent on protecting the economic prosperity and
attractiveness of our downtown for generations to come instead of surrendering to the bare minimums of
code compliance by this development. Because a healthy downtown generates more tax revenue.
Stifling it with more purpose built developments like this will only do the opposite for years to come.
Thank you all for your service and for your time in reading this very lengthy email. I'll see you all on
Tuesday!
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Bo Counts
Resident of Ward 2, 7 South University Ave
c. 479-200-5588
- Owner / Pinpoint Fayetteville
- Co-host - Later on KNWA/FOX24 Saturdays at 9pm
- Board member / Downtown Fayetteville Coalition
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