Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002-10-02 MinutesMINUTES -OF A MEETING OF THE CITY COUNCIL OCTOBER 2, 2002 A. special meeting of the Fayetteville City Council was held on 219 of' the City Administration Building located at 113 Fayetteville, Arkansas. PRESENT: Mayor Coody, WILSON SPRINGS TASK FORCE REPORT City Council Minutes October 2, 2002 Page 1 of 10 October 2, 2002, in Room West Mountain Street, Mr. Jeff Collins, Co -Chairman of the Task Force, stated the task force had consisted of nine members. They were asked to look at the site for specific uses. They divided themselves into three groups. Each group was to look at a'specific aspect of the property. The three groups were biology, hydrology, and economic development of the property. As they worked on the project, it became clear that they had a variety of view points that were representative on the task force. The recommendations that were in front of them was a representative of a consensus view point of the members of the task force. They voted on this set of recommendations, their vote was unanimous. They had worked their differences out before the fact. When they voted everyone felt thatthis was the best set of recommendations that they could arrive at as a task force. They were a representation of a consensus of the task force. Ms. Andrea Radwell,Ozark. Headwaters Group of the Sierra Club stated the club felt that the members of the task force had represented a wide range of experiences and expertise., At the second meeting the Sierra Club had voiced their opinion on the site. They felt that there should be no construction on any .of the hydrate soils located on the site and all of the wet lands should be preserved. • They recommended that the City of Fayetteville use the vast majority of the property for wildlife and habitat preservation.. • The task `force recommended that approximately seventy of the two hundred and ninety acres be '.available for the proposed business technology park and that the development should be split into two .phases. a Their first reaction was that seventy acres was too large of an should. develop. The task force also recommended that all other portions of the wetlands as well as all the land south of Clabber Creek and north of ithe seventy acres be set aside and preserved in perpetuity, which they felt was a very appropriate action. They also recommended •that; the :lands -.north of Clabber,. Creek` should undergo a formal biological and environmental evaluation before any development occurs there. They supported the recommendations and the findings of the task force and asked that the city council adopt and implement them. Mr. Fred Vorsanger, an former Mayor, stated he was mayor when they bought the land. They paid 1.2 million dollars for the land, and it is worth three times as much today. When he was Mayor they had many people who tried to talk them out of building the Walton Art Center parking lot. They looked at it as a long range iprolect. Could you City Council Mmutes October 2, 2002 Page 2 of 10 imagine what kind of position we would be in today if they had not turned the supposed park into a parking lot. There would be a lot of problems today if they had not done that He asked the council to look to the future. Don't tie up the land to the point where it could not be used for something constructive. Mr. Al Vic, an area resident, stated he felt that the task force had come up with a good plan. Just because a piece of land was vacant did not mean that it did not have value. He urged the council to adopt the recommendation. Mayor Coody stated when they started development, they would do it m two phases. They will be approaching it as a campus style development, that will have landscaping and wet lands. They will be using the best efforts that they can to ensure that they minimize the impact of the development on the developed part. Mr. Jeff Erf, an area resident, questioned what the process was gomg to be. Mayor Coody stated they could accept it tonight or adopt a resolution. Mr. Erf stated there still was not a business plan for this development. He thought it would be a good idea to have a better idea of what was going to go out there and what their expectations were about being successful He stated his concern was that they should know upfront how much this was going to cost. If they donated some land to the Fish and Game, the city would lose revenue from sales taxes and property taxes. It came out to approximately 2 to 2.8 million dollars over a twenty year penod. Mayor Coody stated he did not feel that it was necessary to do a business plan until they knew what they were going to do. They had a $700,000 grant from the State to do initial work such as signage and entry. Mr. Bill Ackerman, Arkansas Fish and Game Commission, stated they were still on track. They have selected their architect. They were hoping that the council would make a decision on how they were going to move forward so that they could begin their design stage. They are wantmg to start construction early next spring. There is a sixteen thousand acres wild life management area, ten minutes west of town. There is over three million acres of public lands that the Game and Fish manage in Arkansas. They have another three million acres that they manage jointly with the National Forest system. There is also a hundred thousand acres of National Park, an hour from here. We believe, endorse and will assist in the proper management of anythmg that they wanted to do out there on the wetland area. They will work with them on the plan utilization of the wetland area, but they need to be reasonable and they do not need to handicap themselves in the future. We need to leave the future plans of this as flexible as possible and do a proper reassure and study on the land out there. Alderman Young asked if the Game and Fish Commission had passed some kind of resolution stating that they would be interested in that property. City Council Minutes October 2, 2002 Page 3of10 Mr. Ackerman replied the commission had agreed that they would build a regional office here on the land, subject to the city approving the development of the project (They have already set aside $100,000 for the engineering drawings and designs.` They are ready to move forward. They are ready to commit however many dollars are necessary for the construction. • ! s• Ms. Fran Alexander, an area resident, asked if aftertthe council had discussed this would . it be open to public response. , t i r 4 Mayor Coody stated if they decided to take action, they would allow public comment again. %rocr Mr. Tim Stanley, an area resident and business owner, stated he was concerned about putting a face on the type of business that would go out there. He was thinking about moving his business north, because he needed to be on the interstate to be accessible to his customers. Alderman Thiel asked if he would be building a building? Mr. Stanley stated he is nght across the street now. He is renting a building because he does not feel comfortable purchasing, but he would be interested in buildmg there. Mr. Marty Matlock, U of A faculty, stated he represented a group of faculty that was loosly affiliated as a managed ecosystem group. They invested and integrated management practices for complex natural resource management conflict resolution. The University is willing to help. Alderman Theil moved to pass the resolution to accept the report of the task force and agreed to carefully study their recommendations for both development and preservation of the Wilson Springs acreage. Alderman Young seconded. Mayor Coody asked what this did about them bemg able to move forward on the design of the seventy acres? Mr. Williams stated he did not see this authorizing any action, it was just accepting their report. Further action would be required from the council to do anything else. Alderman Thiel stated the recommendations of the task force were to move forward. She was assuming if they accepted the recommendation that it was telling the administration to bring forward some of the recommendations from the task force. Alderman Marr stated this really pointed- out how inappropnate it was to hand out a resolution on the night of the meeting. There were two recommendations in there. One was to have seventy acres to be platted and planned for. The other isthe immediate development of thirty-eight acres. At some point they had to move forward, but there are a lot of issues and questions about what they are authorizing. He wanted this to be a high • City Council Minutes October 2, 2002 Page 4 of 10 gdahty park, if they did this. He wanted to know that it is set out to do what they had talked about, job creation, that it is going to look great, and that it is going to have an environmental preservation feel to it that was going to make it different. But, they are not talking about that in any of this resolution. He encouraged them to think whether they really need to accept the recommendation and then rely on the staff to bnng forward resolutions and ordmances based on this report that attacked this plan as it was presented. Alderman Marr stated he thought that they had an agreement that if they did not have it on Friday before the meetmg, they would not bnng it on the night of the meeting. He wanted them to play by the rules that they were setting. They had a resolution talking about accepting the report and recommendation and then bringing forward other information. He was in favor of accepting the report to encourage the staff to bring forward specific resolutions that addressed the work task of the report. It appeared that they were trymg to get a go ahead when there was a lot of other information that goes with giving that green flag. Mayor Coody stated if they get the green flag to go ahead, then they would immediately start to look at design covenants and design guidelines and start building a budget for what they were wanting to do These things would come forward, but he was afraid that they would leave tomght without any real clear resolution of where they were going and not have anything resolved. Everything that they would do out there would come before the council and public comment. They would develop a small portion first. They were only going to do what they could easily afford and what was economically viable. Alderman Bechard stated from his point of view that their house was on fire and tonight they were talking about what to plant in the garden. At what point are they gomg to turn around and realize that their house is on fire What he was talking about was the economic growth and the sustainability m the City of Fayetteville. He read two passages from the report. "Benton county is near term growth m terms of population and relative income levels could soon have a substantial impact on retailing in Fayetteville and the tax base of the city. As a differential growth rate occurs, development of new retail establishments as well as the potential for relocation of existing retail establishments to Bentonville is probable. The creation of a strong retailing base to the north will undoubtedly have significant impact on the tax base of Fayetteville. This in turn would significantly affect the ability of Fayetteville to make the type of investment to make demands for amenities by current and future residents, develop and improve infrastructure to accommodate growth of existing business or attract new businesses to the City." "Failure to compete for high wage jobs reduces the attractiveness of Fayetteville as a location for retailers further eroding our tax base and our ability to foster knowledge based industry." Rogers has done a very good job at setting a very clear focus on what they are about. They were for high income jobs, upscale retail, upscale hotel and things of that sort. He thinks they should sell Wilson Springs Park. He does not think they should be m the development business, it is not one of our core competencies. He is concerned about their success in that arena. City Council Minutes October 2, 2002 Page5 of 10 Alderman Santos stated the University Research and Technology Park to the south was to the point where they were ready to build the first building. They need a master plan, the first building is going to set the tone for what the rest of the buildings will look like. He questioned if they needed a board of directors to manage the development of this business park. They need to work seriously on a master plan that includes protective covenants, design standards, etc. as well as the engineering and getting their permits m place. d s r r Alderman- Davis stated if they did not add another section to the proposed resolution, then they had not given any direction. Ile moved to add section 2, "the City Council of the City of Fayetteville hereby authorizes and 'approves the future' planning of the development and the potential sale of the seventy' acres identified by the task force and agrees to preserve approximately one hundred and ten acres of wetland and flood plain." This would give direction to begin the development stage and to put together the requirements that they want. He felt that in order to help the Fish and Game out and others that are willing to look at that area as future homes for their business, they needed to take another step. They needed to see that their intent was to go ahead and not to be stagnant. Alderman Santos seconded the motion. Alderman Young stated he did not see why something could not be brought forward to their next meeting. He asked to have the amendment read. Alderman Davis read, "The City Council of the City of Fayetteville, Arkansas hereby authorizes and approves the planning stage of development for the potential sale of the seventy acres identified by the task force and agrees to preserve approximately one hundred and ten acres of wetland and floodplain." Mr. Erf asked if the city staff has reviewed the task force recommendation and made a staff report and comments on it. Mr. Gary Dumas stated that the city staff was involved as a liaison to the administration to the task force. This was a task force recommendation and not a staff recommendation. He had reviewed it, but had not commented on it. Mr. Al Vic stated there was some acreage that they were not discussing, are they still considering the preservation of that? Mayor Coody stated they would focus on the seventy acres and then look at the rest of it. The recommendation was for future study. It will be years down the road. Mr. Tom McKenny stated the wording that they were using was confusing to him. They have avoided talking general acreage figures because they did not have the exact figures. He questioned why the one hundred and eighty acres that they had talked about had been reduced to one hundred and ten. How was that going to correlate with the language about the areas to be protected. City Council Minutes October 2, 2002 Page 6of10 Alderman Thiel stated this did not coincide with the acreage m the task force recommendation. Mr. David Garcia, an area resident, stated they were in danger of unraveling the compromise. His vision of Fayetteville did not include upscale retail, jobs or housing. The task force had hammered out a compromise. He asked if the Chamber of Commerce supported and accepted the task force recommendation. Mr Collins stated they had not determined the exact amount of acreage, but had talked about zones. If they talked about a specific number of acres, it was going to be a problem. Referring to a map, he stated the seventy acres is on the south side. The central section contains the wetlands. The west portion has been deemed to have ecological and environmental values, there is also concerns about hydrology. They had recommended not to develop that area. The central portion contains wetlands and the supposed one hundred and twenty acres that they were talking about had to do with the acreage determined by the Army Corp as wetlands, along with the acreage with the floodplain. The part that they are really talking about to potentially develop and that would require further evaluation is the far northern part of the property. He thought that they had tried to give them as much detail as possible with out giving them the exact amount of acreage They could give them the zones that they thought were important to protect. They would have to survey to determine the exact amount of acreage that would be included in each of the zones. In general, they needed to move off the amount of acreage and talk about zones. Alderman Bechard stated he still had concerns about the City bemg the developers. He asked Mr. Collins if they had considered selling the land. Mr. Collins stated as an economist he is personally greatly concerned that the City would enter into this sort of an arrangement. If they could go back, he would argue that this was an mappropnate purchase. The City should not be in the business of land speculation. They should not be in the business of development, however, they were not at the beginning of the process. Given that fact and that the City was the best steward of the environmental amenities the point was mute He was concemed that the property would only be used by a few people and it did not have value to the average Fayettevillian. He did not think that the City should speculate on land and they should not be in the business of maintaining land that did not have value to most Fayettevillians. He thought they had to find a way of making value out of the land that they preserve m the same way they talk about having value of the land that they intend to develop. Alderman Bechard stated knowing that the land has unproved its value and that they could sell it and make money, but they also have an environmental responsibility. Do they take some of that land and not make it available for sale and then sell the rest and let someone who does this for a living do it. Was that ever considered by the task force? City Council Minutes October 2, 2002 Page 7 of 10 Mr. Collins stated they did not discuss that. That was not a bad path to take, but he was concerned about creating a knowledge based industry in Northwest Arkansas. Land close to the University and on that highway is a very scarous resource. Mr. McKinney stated there had always been the .knowledge that part of this site was appropriate for development. It was a very balanced group of people. A large portion of the property was not suitable for development. The only acreage figure that they had discussed was the fifty/seventy acres that they thought was appropriate for development. They had drawn boundaries with out acreage. To them it took care of all the questions. Recommendation 5 was to commence as soon as possible a formal inventory assessment and evaluation of the lands north of Clabber Creek, not designated as wetlands or 'mitigation areas for wetland impact for development potential. This land includes the eleven acres lying west of Deane Solomon Road. Such evaluations should include a thorough needs assessment, potential environmental impact and the development of further wetland delineation. assessment... such evaluation yields the possibility of development of some kind. Task force recommends the inclusion of a significant buffer of not to be disturbed land of at least six hundredfeet wide lying north of and parallel to Clabber Creek.. The consensus was that the evaluation of the northern acreage will determine what will happen there, if it was feasible for development then the corridor will be at least six hundred feet or more. Recommendation 6 takes everything else south of Clabber Creek and north of the commercial development to be preserved in perpetuity as delineated wetlands and or an extension of said wetlands. He suggested that they change "study" to "adopt". The proposed resolution did not mention protecting the areas that they had recommended. If they adopted the other recommendations of the task force, it would be -his personal -preference. F Mr. Bobby Ferrell, an area resident and a member of the Chamber •of Commerce, stated the Chamber of Commerce did want to accept it. They were not policy makers, and it • was not perfect from there perspective, but they had compromised:- Common ground was what theywere after. They wanted a resolution to this tonight: They accepted the task force report. , , i r .l Ms. Radwell stated there were some problems with removing the word in perpetuity. One of them was that the Corp of Engineers wanted to know what they were going to do for preservation. They had not talked about mitigation tonight. One of the ways to reduce the mitigation cost was to preserve the center section. 'If the land was not preserved in perpetuity, then they would not be able to receive grants for the property. They wanted to develop the middle section as an education research, public enjoyment section where they could generate grant money and have some kind of educational opportunities. Mr. David Garcia stated he would agree to the entire task force redommendation, which included developing the seventy acres, if they just take out the seventy acres and say that they would deal with the rest later. To him they had just changed the terms of the deal. If they. take out the word "perpetuity" then they had just changed. the compromise that had been made. He would speak against any resolution that would do anything except, City Council Minutes October 2, 2002 Page 8of10 accept the task force proposal as it stands to move forward If they changed anything, there would be no unity or agreement any more. He urged them to vote either up or down the task force recommendation as the basis of how to develop the property. In response to question regarding the difference between the recommendation and the resolution, Mr. Collins stated the difference was in the strength of the statement regarding the commitment to the preservation of the remaining land which had been designated as zone B, it did not correspond with the recommendation. If they could word the resolution to acknowledge that the land that they wanted to preserve could then become a environmental amenity. Alderman Davis and Santos withdrew their amendment. Alderman Santos asked Alderman Thiel if she would consider the resolution of adopting the task force recommendation. Alderman Marr asked Alderman Thiel if she would consider the resolution of adoptmg the task force recommendation one through six. Alderman Thiel and Young withdrew their original motion. Alderman Theil moved to pass her proposed resolution. Alderman Young seconded. Alderman Davis stated he had a problem the with the word, "adopt". Zone C may have some potential in the future. If they were to use the word adopt, then they would have no room to move. Mr. Collins stated their recommendations specifically says that after study, if it was found to be developable land, then development should move forward on that parcel. If they adopt their recommendations then what they were staying was that they wanted to look a little more before developmg. If found to be economically viable and the environmental benefits did not out weigh the economic benefits, then they would move forward with development Alderman Davis asked what the staff thought of the recommendation. Mr. Dumas stated he thought this would allow them to move forward with the seventy acre development. While it would be beneficial for a greater sized economic development parcel to have that approximate twenty-six acres between Deane Solomon and the wet land wooded area, the development of that area would be several years down the road. Alderman Bechard stated they would be competmg against their own taxpayers. They would be competing against CMN Park. He questioned if they really wanted to do that. If they went down this path and kept spending more money and they were not able to develop this as fast they thought, then they would be m a tighter spot. He asked if they City Council Minutes October 2, 2002 Page 9 of 10 • should look at understanding what the value of the seventy acres is and look at the potential of selling the property. In response to questions, Mr: Collins stated if they were to adopt their recommendation, then what they were saying was they were going to leave the central' area as undeveloped land except for trails and utilizing it for its environmental values. Alderman Marr stated there was nothing that says the majority of a new council could not redirect policy. He thought this was a compromise and it did allow them to move forward. M. Cher"Caldwell, Chamber of Commerce, stated they would ask Alderman Thiel to amend section 1 to change "adopt" to " accept" . "Accept" .would allowthem to reevaluate with out having to go through new resolutions. In response to questions, Mr. Caldwell stated they were asking for the wording to be changed to "accept" because it allowed the city to set policy themselves for the implementation of those recommendations without hamstringing future councils into deciding how to protect and use the other parcels there. Mr. Williams stated this council will not bind a future council. This was a resolution and a future resolution can change it. However, once the property is developed, it is developed as a whole. They would make agreements with the Corp of Engineers that did -bind the -city -in -perpetuity.— Once -they make agreements with other agencies, then the property is forever bound. Any resolution that they had did now] would not bind the future councils. Alderman Thiel moved to make her main motion to read adopt, then she would propose an amendment using the word "accept,'.• Alderman Marr seconded. t f 'F. ; 4 • . i Mr. Dewayne Wilton stated if they did not adopt the recommendations they did not have an agreement. t = • r . Mr. Al Vic stated he thought they had an agreement, then they had a change of wording that changed things! If they did not adopt the agreement it could break down. Alderman Marr stated that it was important that the record reflect that they make a clear choice between "adopt" and "accepted". He would be voting against his motion because he felt that adopt was the spirit of what they had talked about. He thought it was important that they took a vote. Mr. Tom McKinney stated that it had always been their hope that they not only accept their recommendation but that they would adopt them. He asked them to adopt their recommendations. City Council Minutes October 2, 2002 Page l0 of 10 Mr. Williams stated the motion before them was to amend the resolution to remove the word "adopt" and replace it with "accept". Upon roll call the motion failed by a vote of 2-6, Thiel, Young, Marr, Bechard, Santos, and Jordan voting nay. Mr. Williams stated there was a motion to pass the resolution presented by Alderman Thiel with the addition of the second section that requested that the city staff proceed with the recommendation of the task force. Upon roll call the motion passed unanimously. The meeting adjourned at 10:20 p.m. 1 1