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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1974-07-11 MinutesA MINUTES OF A SPECIAL rLANNING COMMISSION MEETING A special joint meeting of the Fayetteville Planning Commission, the Fayetteville Board of Directors, and the Washington County /alarming Board was held on Thursday, July 11, 1974, at 7:30 r.M., in the Directors Room, City Administration Building, Fayetteville, Arkansas, FAYETTEVILLE PLANNING COMMISSION MEMBERS PRESENT: Chairman Morton Gitelman, Ernest Jacks, Rita McRee, Al Hughes, Ernest Lancaster. MEMBERS ABSENT: John Maguire, John Power, Donald Nickell, Helen Edmiston. FAYETTEVILLE BOARD OF DIRECTORS PRESENT: Mayor Russell Purdy, Patricia Carlson, Marion Orton, Loris Stanton, Dr. Paul Noland. MEMBERS ABSENT: R. L. Utley, Dr. W. L. Murray. WASHINGTON COUNTY PLANNING BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Chairman Elam Denham, Wilford Thompson from Prairie Grove, Bruce Kendall, Lawrence Bullington. MEMBERS ABSENT: Bill Perry, Professor William Bonner, Jim Kirkley. OTHERS PRESENT: Assistant City Manager David McWethy; Fayetteville Planning Administrator Bobbie Jones; Bud Allen, Administrative Officer for the County Planning Board; Fayetteville City Attorney Jim McCord; Larry Wood of the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission, members of the audience. Chairman Gitelman called the meeting to order and asked the members of each body to introduce themselves. Chairman Gitelman reviewed the matter as it was handled in the past. In 1970, the problems of the Urban and Suburban subdivisions, those beyond the City limits but still within the 5 mile plannining Jurisdiction of the City, were discussed. It was felt that to require the full set of city specifications on suburbans that would not in the foreseeable future come within the City Limits would be perhaps a hardship on the people out in the county, who were subdividing in a very dif- ferent way. Another problem was that if speculators buy land just outside the city limits in areas which may be annexed in the near future, it would be unfair to the people of the City to have them develop those subdivisions with substandard.spe- cifications. It was resolved in a compromise fashion, by setting up two (2) sets of standards. The County subdivision regulations were adopted quite recently. The problem has come up again because there have been several examples where people have come in who are subdividing out in the County and found that they had to come before the City Planning Commission for approval or some of their lots splits were not quite subdivisions. The Planning Commission just a few months ago talked about how we should arrange things when they saw a subdivision that had to meet county subdivision regulations and also is within the City Planning jurisdiction. Chairman Gitelman said the questions at this time are: 1. How much regulation the City wants to impose 2. How much the County would like the City to impose 3. Whether there should be some improvements in the process that is being followed. Chairman Gitelman referred to a letter in which Mr. Grimes suggested that the City might want to take into consideration drawing its Planning Area Boundary back at least to the Growth Area limits that the City has for future water and sewer im- provements. PLANNING COMMISSION JOINT MEETING -2- July 11, 1974 The meeting tonight was basically concerned with the following: 1. Are there mutual problems?. 2. Are things working well with the two sets of subdivision -regulations? 3. Where would the areas of improvement be? Al Hughes asked how much of a difference is there between the growth area and the 5 mile area. Mayor Purdy said that the Growth area was in the neighborhood of approxi- mately 21 miles. The three (3) bodies reviewed plats of the Planning Area Boundary and of the Growth Area. Chairman Denham said the County Planning Board is not actually negative or positive about what the City does; they are only asking what is the best course of action to take. Chairman Gitelman pointed that the County regulations call for wider Road rights-of-way than the City. Chairman Denham said that these regulations can be varied. Mrs. Carlson stated:.... But the County's regulations, don't they contain a para- graph . . . That says that the County adopts the City's regulations within the City's Planning Area? In other words, the County's regulations now are, within that Plan- ning Area, the County's.professes to be willing to say within that area what the City prescribes is their prescription. Bud Allen said he did not think that we have a problem yet, but they did not want to create problems. Mrs. Carlson read from the County Regulation pamphlet Page 1, Sec. 4, "These regulations shall apply to all areas in the unincorporated territory, pro- vided, however, that unincorporated areas within the planning area boundary of a muni- cipality in which the authority to control the subdivision of land is vested in and is being properly exercised by the municipality, the municipality shall have Juris- diction. Bruce Kendall responded to Mrs. Carlson by saying that *(cont'd on Page 3)* Chairman Gitelman asked Mayor Purdy if there were provisions for changing the Growth Area as the City grows. Mayor Purdy said that the Board of Directors did not in the past, because they thought it would apply to the situation for at least 40 years; however, they might make provisions in the future. Chairman Gitelman said if the City did withdraw the Planning Area back to the Growth Area and the City does start growing in turn increasing the Growth Area, then this might be a very good way of handling the subdivision problem. Marion Orton said she thought that would be a possibility. She added that the City Board knew that this was an arbitrary line around the area and had advice from the Regional Planning Commission and did try to predict where it might grow, but they did not know whether some changes might need to be made. Chairman Gitelman stated he was in favor of trimming back the 5 mile limit. He ex- plained that 5 miles is the greatest distance of any.state. in the United States in terms of giving cities extra -territorial planning Jurisdiction; three (3) miles is common in most states. Loris Stanton said that Northwest Arkansas is a.very dynamic growth area. Larry Wood was in agreement with Chairman Gitelman's comments, and said he did not think it unreasonable to pull back the Planning Area boundary. Chairman Gitelman asked Larry Wood - "If the City does claim planning Jurisdiction only to the Growth Area limits, do you think the City would be Justified in hav- ing Just one set of specifications for improvements for all subdivisions within the line rather than trying to distinguish between suburban and urban subdivisions?" Mr. Wood stated that he thought that would be fairly reasonable. With that comment, Chairman Gitelman said that in a sense while we may be helping people beyond the Growth Area, we might be making things a little harder for subdividers within in- side the Growth Area. Larry Wood said that the County doesn't consider anything over 5 acres, if the City does pull back. We could begin getting 5.1 acre subdivisions within the County Juris- diction. • SPECIAL PLANNING COMMISSION -3- MEETING July 11, 1974 John Maguire said that the Supreme Court says in order to avoid any possibility of Juris- dictional conflicts, the City obtain County Court approval. This mainly directed in roads. In this, if the County approves a street with the City's standard for roads, then it would accept the responsibility for maintaining those roads. Bruce Kendall said there is a lot of merit in not having three sets of standards for sub- divisions if the Planning Commission could decide really where they were going to control this, and use one set of standards (regulations) then the County could have one set. Then there would only be two sets of standards. Al Hughes said if the City Planning Area withdraws to the Growth Area, rather than the 5 mile limitation, streets should have to meet City standards. Bud Allen said he thought that the most important thing with the County roads is the right- of-way and the width of the roads. Marion Orton indicated she found one set of regulations for City jurisdiction and another for County jurisdiction acceptable. (Rita McRee left the meeting) Mrs. Carlson: I think there is coming a tendency in modern planning to realize that the size of a city has a optimum limit, and beyond the certain size, both geographically and population wise, you become not cheaper by the dozen, it gets more and more expensive. Jim McCord City Attorney directed a question to the Board: "The statute does provide that on any plats in the City's Planning Area it comes before the County Planning Board for approval and is reported back to the Planning Commission; I can see time lags. I would interpret that to be directory and not mandantory. In talking with Little Rock, they told me that they used to do this and they no longer do it. All they do is send the plat to the County Government for maintenance purposes. Is it directory or mandatory?" Al Hughes asked if the meeting tonight was official enough to approve a change and Chairman Gitelman said that it would have to be taken up at a public hearing; it is up to the study to declare its planning area boundaries. It would require an accurate description of the Growth Area Boundaries and send this to the Board and then they could adopt it. (The Public Hearing on Ordinance to ammend the 5 mile Planning Area Boundary to be consi- dered with growth area will be included in the next agenda) Mrs. Carlson said she was for the City's regulations inside the growth area and thought that within that area (the County) will administer the same things that the City has set up. Jim McCord said he thought that legally, the roads is the only problem where there would be any area of jurisdictional conflicts. When the City starts looking at its subdivision regulations, it might want to amend the requirements for street improvements in the Planning Area to coincide with the County's requirements. The County Planning Board mem- bers indicated that they would be happy to allow the City to exercise its subdivision jurisdiction within its Planning Area so long as the City was in fact doing this. Bud Allen said the County has instructed the County Recorder not to accept for filing any subdivision plats which have not been approved by either the County or City. Bobbie Jones - (Planning Administrator) said it is not only the filing of the plats but especially the filing of a written legal description which is less than the legal des- cription of record with which the City Planning Office has problems. *(Cont'd. from Page 2) the County concedes that the City has the right to exercise jurisdiction within the 5 -mile Planning Area; however, if the City does not accept this 5 -mile radius, then the County regulations apply. The County Planning Board members explained that the County itself does not utilize two separate sets of regulations: 1) one within the Planning Area, and 2) another outside the Planning Area, but rather concedes the right of enforcing the City's regulations to the City so long as the City is not negligent in exercising its jurisdiction. The meeting was adjourned at 8:45 P.M.