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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2001-09-24 Minutes• PLANNING COMMISSION A regular meeting of the Fayetteville Planning Commission was held on September 24, 2001, at 5:30 p.m. in Room 219 of the City Administration Building, 113 W. Mountain, Fayetteville, Arkansas. ITEMS CONSIDERED ACTION TAKEN Minutes of the September 10, 2001 meeting Page 2 Approved ADM 01-40.00: Administrative Item (Dahms-Shared Parking Agreement, pp 484) Page 2 Approved Growth in Arkansas prepared by University of Arkansas at Little Rock Institute of Government. Presentation by Mr. Hugh Earnest and Ms. Cindy Boland. Page 5 No action RZN 01-16. Page 19 RZN 01-18. • Page 22 RZN 01-17. Page 32 RZN 01-19 Page 33 00: Rezoning (Lot 11 Millennium Place, pp 177) 00 Rezoning (Beard/Center, pp 598) 00: Rezoning (Beard/Center, pp 599) .00 Rezoning (Beard/Center, pp 599) MEMBERS PRESENT Nancy Allen Lorel Hoffman Alice Church Don Marr Donald Bunch Sharon Hoover STAFF PRESENT Kit Williams • Tim Conklin Dawn Warrick Hugh Earnest Renee Thomas Forwarded to City Council Forwarded to City Council Forwarded to City Council Forwarded to City Council MEMBERS ABSENT Bob Estes Loren Shackelford Lee Ward STAFF ABSENT Ron Petrie Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 2 ROLL CALL and Approval of the minutes from the September 10, 2001 meeting. Hoffman: I would like to welcome you all to the September 24th meeting of the City of Fayetteville Planning Commission. Tonight we have six items on our agenda. The first thing on our agenda is approval of the minutes of the September 10, 2001 meeting. Do I have any questions about those? Call the roll please. ROLL CALL: Upon the calling of roll six Commissioners were present with Commissioners Estes, Shackelford and Ward being absent. Hoffman: Any questions on the minutes from the September 10th meeting? Seeing none, those will be approved as noted. ADM 01-40.00: Administrative Item (Dahms-Shared Parking Agreement, pp 484) was submitted by Terry Dahms of Signet Financial Corporation for property located at 207 W. Lafayette. The property is zoned R -O, Residential Office and contains approximately 7,225 sq.ft. The request is for approval of a shared parking agreement with University Baptist Church for 6 parking spaces to accommodate the proposed use of this building as office (1050 sq.ft.) With one residential unit (450 sq.ft.) Hoffman. Our first item of business is on the consent agenda we have an administrative item No. 01- 40 which is a shared parking agreement which was submitted by Terry Dahms of Signet Financial Corporation for property located at 207 W. Lafayette. This property is zoned R -o, Residential Office and contains approximately 7,225 sq.ft. The request is for approval of a shared parking agreement with University Baptist Church for 6 parking spaces to accommodate the proposed uses of this building as office (1050 sq.ft) with one residential unit which is 450 sq.ft. This item was placed on the consent agenda at our agenda session meeting last Thursday. Is there anyone on the Planning Commission that wishes to remove it? Is there anybody in the audience? Yes, if you would come forward and say your name please. Marinoni: My name is Paula Marinoni, I'm a resident of Lafayette Street and president of the Washington County Historic Preservation Association. In the last six years I think I've only missed speaking out on one issue that affected that area. Most of the time it has been trying to turn around a situation. Tonight, l teased earlier this is a rare public appearance for me but I dust came here to say thank you to the applicants for this property. John Goodwin who is one of the co-owners of this, called me one day to get my input on what they wanted to do with this property before they ever even bought it, let alone taking it through planning and to the Planning Commission which is usually the stage that we're able to get involved. I wanted to thank them for that. What we wanted was very compatible • • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 3 Hoffman: Marinoni: Hoffman: Davidson. Hoffman. Davidson: and I also wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all again for your time that you volunteer for this. I wanted to tell you that this is probably the best Planning Commission that I have seen thus far in that you all seem to address issue by issue, situation by situation, and not just what you have preconceived in your mind that you are always going to vote. I really appreciate that as someone, who I believe I'm consistent and as long as your consistent in looking at the situation then you are truly acting in the best for Fayetteville. I appreciate that. The Planning Department too. One thing I would like to point out on this is as the city gets better in addressing these issues and learns to solve problems in a more cooperative way, there is a situation here that needs to be addressed if planning can forward this on. There are three streets there, Campbell, Rollsten and Thompson... Paula, let me stop you for a second. Are you asking us to forward this administrative item on to somebody? No, I'm giving input. This does address parking which is why we're here. It is for shared parking but there will also be people parking on the street. These three streets are very unique in that it is a very steep grade. When someone is approaching Lafayette Street, you are kind of sitting back in your car and you can't see past the cars that are parked to your left, blocking the view of oncoming traffic. On this particular street, Thompson, there is a sign saying no parking from here to the comer. That needs to be further articulated with painting that curb and the other two streets need to be marked in such a way too because it is very dangerous In order to pull out of there, you have to give the car quite a bit of gas in which case you are already thrusting into traffic by the time you see that you can't go. In reviewing the parking considerations here, if planning could also just take this into consideration and forward it on for the safety of those residents on those streets. Again, thank you. Thanks for your comments. I think parking items like that or street items go to Perry Franklin, and we'll send those comments on to him. Is there any other member of the public that would like to address us on this administrative item? Seeing none, I will bring it back to the Planning Commission for discussions or motions. My name is Sharon Davidson and I wasn't quite sure about the growth if this what was postponed. That is our next item to hear. We're on the town? We are talking about growth though? • • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 4 Hoffman: No, not yet. We were talking about an Administrative item for shared parking on Lafayette, item number six on the agenda which was moved to number one. Davidson. Ok, sorry, I was confused at that and I will get up at growth time. Hoffman: Ok, thank you. Any other member of the public? Planning Commission, do we have any discussion, motions? MOTION: Bunch: I move that we approve Administrative item 01-40.00. Allen: I second. Hoffman: Ok, I have a motion by Commissioner Bunch and a second by Commissioner Allen. Is there any further discussion? If not, would you call the roll please? ROLL CALL: Upon the calling of roll ADM 01-40.00 was approved by a vote of 6-0-0. • • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 5 Growth in Arkansas prepared by University of Arkansas at Little Rock Institute of Government. Presentation by Mr. Hugh Earnest and Ms. Cindy Boland. Hoffman: Our next item is item No. 1 of new business which is going to be presented by Mr. Hugh Earnest and Ms. Cindy Boland. Mr. Earnest is going to give us an overview and Ms. Boland I believe will be giving us the presentation. Thank you for coming back, you had been postponed from a previous agenda that went I think a little long so we appreciate you coming back. Earnest: For this I found my dusty hat as a employee of the Institute of Government at UALR. It seems longer than four months. Certainly it has been an interesting four months. I did want to give you just a brief overview of why we did what we did in 1999 and 2000. Mrs. Marinoni, I may say complimented you for caring about planning. I think when you see some of the numbers from an over sample in Benton and Washington County about what people think about planning and what their views are of growth. 1 think it is going to make you feel a little bit better about some of the tough issues that you deal with. Back to what I wanted to talk about, this idea came to us when I went to a 1999 meeting of similar institutes in Nashville, Tennessee. We noticed that the institute ofgovemment in South Carolina had done the same thing. We thought then and still think that it would be awfully interesting for someone to do a statewide survey of what people think about growth. Hence, the title Growth In Arkansas. Since we in the institute weren't as rich as those folks in South Carolina, we had to get co-sponsors. I want to read you the co-sponsors that we got for this because often times in our public dialogue we overuse the word bipartisanship. We had the office of the Governor, and these are the people that contributed money which is a harsh definition of partnership but something we needed. The office of the Governor, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the Arkansas Environmental Federation, the Central Arkansas Library System, the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce, University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service and of course, UALR who also contributed money. With that, while we all participated in this, there were two heroines, that really did the work, that took the raw data and turned it into what is an excellent report for what people think in the state about growth. One of those people is here with us tonight and that is Cindy Boland. The other person is Ruth Craw. They are the ones who did the analysis review and participated and put the report together. With that and with no further ado, I would like to introduce Cindy Boland and to repeat what we did in the survey. Of course, at that time I had no idea 1 would ever be working for Fayetteville so I am glad we did it this way. We over sampled in two growth areas, the two growth areas that are in the state, one is Northwest Arkansas and the other is Central Arkansas, so what she is going to be reporting on tonight is some statistics about the state but then the results of the over sample in the counties that frankly, we're interested in in this • • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 6 part of the world that happens to be Benton and Washington County. With that, let me give you Cindy Boland. Boland: Thank you. Hugh gave an excellent background so I think I will just jump in. In fact, we're going to move down to the third point to tell you a little bit of background about the survey and the methodology that we used. The survey was conducted between September 27 and November 8, 2000 so the results were a snapshot in time. One point in time precisely I guess you would say about a year ago is when we started. We did survey 1,300 randomly selected adults over the age of 18 in the entire state. We followed a four region protocol In fact, we selected 322 in the over sample that Hugh spoke about from Benton and Washington County. I think this map is probably very familiar to you, it has been published quite a bit. It shows the growth rates between 1990 and the years of 2000 for the state of Arkansas. It speaks volumes in looking at the breakdown between the 20% increase or more since the last census. The 0 to 20% increase are the green areas and the kind of mid -quadrant of the state and the decline from maintaining at 0 changed all the way down to a negative 15% for the other quadrant of the state in brown. If you were to look at this map also from our survey methodology point of view Benton and Washington County were approximately 1/4 of all of the Arkansans. That is the data that we're going to focus on tonight. We did another over sample, kind of in the metro region surrounding Pulaski County. We did another region in which we selected 1/4 from the delta area, from the low growth counties in the delta region. Then there is that mid swath that we called everybody else, the other 1/4 came from the mid-section ofthe state. We had five objectives to our study. We wanted to assess what people thought of the importance of growth and the importance that growth plays in their personal lives and how does growth compare to other issues that they think are important in their personal lives. Attitudes towards the economic and the environmental aspects as they relate to growth. We wanted to find out about the general attitude conceming their attitudes about their quality of life in their particular city, in their county and in the state as a whole. We wanted to team more about the opinions regarding what they thought ofthe local planning efforts that were currently underway in their particular region and their attitudes about long term planning, what they would like to see with the future. Going with that framework, the importance of growth. The question was, "How important are issues relating to growth to you personally?" We are looking at the data for your region, for the Northwest Arkansas region. At any other time I will compare it to state figures, but always, this is Northwest Arkansas' main data. We see that we have 52% of the people responding in the survey either stating that growth is very important or somewhat important. That combined is the degree difference that you can say for a particular person, my interpretation of saying very important to your interpretation of saying the word important. That is a personal decision, so often, what people do is you combine those two to get a kind of direction. So the • • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 7 important or the very important combine to over halfofthe people in Northwest Arkansas region believe that growth is important. The next largest group is haven't really thought about it. They are 31%. As you see, very small percentages to ones that have thought about it that don't think it is an important issue. We asked a question and we stated it... "Would you say that your city is growing too fast, just about right or too slow?" This is the too fast percentages of those four regions that I told you about. The state wide overall 19% said too fast. Marketably different of the next one we see, 46% ofthe people in your region believe that their city is growing too fast. Now, I have to tell you that the people that were asked this question were only people living in cities, in identifiable cities of2,500 or more. If you lived in the County they weren't asked this question. So 46% of the people that live in a city in Benton and Washington county believe that their city is growing too fast. This compares to 24% in that central region, and not surprisingly, only 8% in the delta region where there is such a decline in the population. We asked a series of questions, very open ended, in which we did not try to prompt them. The question read "What are the two or three most important issues that are facing the state?" The state as a whole, and then we tabulated and kind of did a content analysis where we had to take their words and figure which category they fell into. When we asked "What is the most important problems for state as whole, if we look at what the people all over the state said, 38% of the people in our entire state said education, 33% said crime, and 30% thought economic issues were the most important problems facing the state. When we asked the people in Benton and Washington County what are the most important problems facing your state, we see again, education at 43%, growth comes in at 26% and govemment at 25%. Growth was not even mentioned as a state level problem for overall, but in Northwest Arkansas for the state they believed that growth was the second most rated issue, the most mentioned issue. Now we narrowed the focus down just a little when we asked them "What is the most important problem facing your county?" No matter what county they lived in, all 75 counties, combined tabulated for the state, crime 37%. It was the number one most frequently stated problem facing their county; education at 28% and growth at 24%. So we do see the issue of growth emerging overall at the county level. When we just narrowed down our focus and looked at what did people in Benton and Washington County say was the most important issue facing their county, growth at 50%, halfthe people stated growth issues as the most important issue followed by streets at 25% and education at 25%, crime is not even in there. It wasn't one of the top three for Benton and Washington Counties. We are going to break it down just a little bit more for the people that lived in cities. What was the most important problem facing their city? Of all the cities spread over Arkansas, crime at 37%, growth at 34%, so we see it is beginning to be a city level issue and education at 28%. Correspondingly in Benton and Washington Counties, growth is 60%, it has its highest, 60% of the people stated growth as an important issue facing their particular city in Benton and Washington Counties; education Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 8 was at 27% and we do see the emergence of crime, 23% for the localized city level in Benton and Washington Counties. We're going to be just hitting the highlights, the entire report on the state level, I think you have been presented with and I would be free to answer any questions if you have more questions about any of the data because I am just hitting the highlights. Economic and environmental issues, in your opinion is growth in Arkansas a good thing or a bad thing? Pretty simple. 89% in the state said it is a good thing. Only 7% perceived the issues related to growth as bad. When we look at the Northwest Arkansas region we do see a little drop in the numbers there. This is on the borderline of significant difference between the state but we see still an overwhelming percentage of 80%ofthe people stating that they believe that growth is a good thing. A slight increase in the bad thing rate. I think that probably corresponds mostly back to the too fast number that we saw before. We asked questions considering which do they want to give higher priority to. Two statements in which they were asked which came closer to their point of view. One statement was "Giving the environment priority over growth." The other one gave a priority of growth over the environment. We see that 68% in Northwest Arkansas wanted to give the environment priority. This is comparable to the statewide figure which wasjust slightly less at 66%. This is clearly telling us that more and more we see the need for major growth initiatives to fully address and resolve the environmental issues if they are going to be successful. If we looked at quality of life 1 think you will be pleasantly surprised. We asked questions of "How do you rate your county as a place to live?" 37% of the people in Benton and Washington County rated their county as excellent. This was on a scale of excellent, good, fair or poor. 37% rated excellent, the highest rating. This compares to the statewide figure of only 24% rating their particular county as excellent. When we narrowed it down to "How would you rate your city as a place to live?" We have 36% of the people in Northwest Arkansas that live in cities rating it as excellent. Only 22% of the people statewide rated their particular city as excellent. Both are significant differences. We tried to assess a little about what they saw as the future. "Where do you believe your quality of life is heading, the changes you see in your quality of life. Do you see that your quality of life is getting better, staying about the same or getting worse?" As you can see here, we've got the three attitudes broken down. We have Northwest Arkansas getting better 46%, 42% believe that it is going to be staying the same and only a very small amount perceive it as getting worse. We again compare that to the state figures where you see just slightly Tess better and a little bit broader the same. What is important about this is to look at the ratio of getting better to getting worse and you can see that it is quite a large difference between those numbers. This means that people are feeling good. You don't have to first work with changing the perceptions that they have about where the future is going. There is a positive vent both in Northwest Arkansas and in the state about their quality of life issues. Current planning efforts, we asked about a number of initiatives to try and assess their rating of how they • • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 9 thought local government planning efforts were doing on particular initiatives. We asked about the initiatives relating to retail shopping areas. "How would you rate those initiatives?" Again, excellent, good, fair or poor. What we did is we combined the excellent and the good thinking those are positive. Fair or poor are negatives, so the excellent and good rating percentages were combined. We see that retail shopping areas 66% of the people gave that an excellent or a good for Northwest Arkansas. This compares to only 46% in the state giving retail shopping initiatives on local government planning an excellent rating. The next one down, 63% giving an excellent or good rating to the initiatives relating to gathering new businesses and industry development in Northwest Arkansas as compared to only 44% in the state. Just a little step down at 61% excellent and good. All well above halfofthe people interviewed giving an excellent and good rating. In the issues relating to how growth is being financed in Northwest Arkansas, as compared to quite a significant difference at 37% for statewide It keeps getting good, 59% excellent and good ratings for issues relating to the housing development, only 46% for the state, again a significant difference. The last area that we saw a significant difference was in issues, relating excellent and good ratings, related to parks and outdoor recreation at 54% whereas only 46% for the state as a whole. We asked about a number of other initiatives, garbage disposal and water and sewer systems both had a majority right at 50% or above for excellent and good ratings. The two initiatives that dropped below that line, preserving open space and streets, roads and highways at the bottom. None of these significantly differed from the state values. Long term planning efforts, what we found was that almost 80%, 79% of the Benton and Washington County residents expressed that they believed that growth management should be done at the regional or local level as opposed to the state level. They saw this as a regional or more narrowed focus, no state mandated management or growth initiatives. They thought that this was something that should be done on the local level, almost 80% and 59% favored the development of developing long term plans over the idea of making decisions to adjust as needed. We decided to ask about support for particular growth management initiatives and when we talk about support it is often easy for people to say "yes, I support that, oh sure, I support that" so we asked that one, but then we came back and we asked them "Do you support this initiative if it means an increase in your personal taxes?" Now we even took it to the next level where we tried to assess a dollar amount of increase in personal taxes. What we re going to look at is some ofthe growth management initiatives that were gained a majority of support even when the question was worded that it is going to result as an increase in your personal taxes. A little bit more thought goes into saying you support those initiatives. The top one was buying land for parks, 63% of the people said they would strongly support or support such an initiative and have as a result an increase in their personal taxes. Followed by 57% who believed that buying land for green spaces around the city was of enough importance that they would agree to an increase in their personal Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 10 taxes. I'm going to run through these although they're all quite high. 55% in Northwest Arkansas believe that buying land for endangered species is of enough importance to warrant an increase to their taxes. 53%, all very close together, creating growth plans for the community, consistent with the data and the results that we received asking about growth plans prior. We see that only one of the initiatives we asked about fell below the 50% support mark and it is the idea of buying farmlands to prevent further development at 37%. When asked, Ok, you've said that you would be willing to have an increase in your personal taxes, what form might the funding be, what would be their preference for funding methods for these growth management initiatives. The largest percent really don't know. They hadn't really thought about how it might translate to their dollars being captured, 33% don't know. We see that sales tax is just right behind there, probably no surprise that the people selected sales tax at 29% for being the preferred funding method for the growth management initiatives. You can see how the others fell out. Just as an overview ofthe findings probably what we thought was the most important, 68% of the Northwest Arkansans surveyed believed that the environment should be given priority even at the risk of slowing economic growth. Respondents identified growth as an important issue more often than any other issue that is facing their city and their county right now. 80% ofthe Northwest Arkansans believe that growth planning should take place right here as this level at the local and regional levels and 3/4 of the Benton and Washington respondents, 75%, that's a large majority, support requiring local governments to prepare long term use plans. Hoffman: Ok, thank you very much. It is an excellent presentation and I think it affirms what, certainly we in Fayetteville, have been working with and sometimes struggling with over the last certainly several years that I've been on the Planning Commission. Commissioners, we had originally intended to save our questions and answers for the end ofthe meeting tonight, but I understand that Ms. Boland needs to go back to Little Rock, so we're going to go ahead and have our question and answer period now. Would you all like to ask any questions? What I can do is take public comment first. There was someone here that had wanted to address us on that, please come forward. Davidson: My name is Sharon Davidson. I live here in Fayetteville and I'm very concemed about uncontrolled, unplanned growth. I also have concerns about inappropriate growth as to our R-2 zoning. I understand we retroactively can't do a lot but we're setting up a tiered system and we're trying to address things that of course should have been addressed a long time ago. It is everywhere that growth is an issue. My main contention is the impact fees. I have a problem not understanding why these people who want to make money and are the primary beneficiaries of growth, why they are not supposed to pay a larger portion towards the need for the services being increased when the overall quality of life for • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 11 everyone here already is derogated such as sewers, streets, traffic, schools, all of these issues. Why do we not have impact fees? I think it is the only thing that makes sense. I don't understand trickle down economics, it just bothers me, I don't like it and I consider this whole contention that impact fees aren't appropriate that is validated trickled down economics and I don't think that is fair to people that are here, that are paying the price and whose lives are being in general derogated more than added to. The people who benefit from extreme rapid growth are usually outsiders, are usually a few people and I think it is up to you all, and we're looking to you as our Planning Commission to take this very seriously, to really listen to people and to slow down. I think that is what we need to do right now and be it the sewer, be it whatever, I think we need to quit running through things quite so quickly until we can catch up. I would appreciate it if we could try and slow down this process while we get it in control and I think we're going to have a bigger issue regarding impact fees. Thank you. Hoffman: Thank you very much. Is there any other member of the public that wishes to address us on this matter? Mayor Coody. • Coody: Thank you, I've never addressed the Planning Commission before, this is a good opportunity for me to address some of the points that Ms. Davidson brought up and 1 appreciate your comments on that. First, I would like to say it was a very good study and we're glad to have you present that and we're very proud to have brought Hugh in to work with the City of Fayetteville with all the knowledge he has accumulated and with all the other folks he has worked with on this subject. The Northwest Arkansas Business Council realizes also that we have to watch our quality of life in Northwest Arkansas because if we do continue to grow at such a rate without having given careful consideration to how we grow then we could very well strangle the goose that laid the golden egg for us We're all concerned with the quality of life and we want to make sure that what growth we do have is sustainable and that it doesn't degrade the quality of life. As a matter of fact, growth can enhance the quality oflife and that is what we're trying to do here. Although, there is a change in the cultural perspective and we're trying to shift our direction that we've had in the last several years into a little bit more, being more sensitive to quality growth instead of just rapid, uncontrolled growth Planning is a very key component to that. That's your job and we appreciate your doing a good job. Some ofthe points that Ms. Davidson brought up were impact fees and the slowing of growth. Growth is of course slowing in Northwest Arkansas. Up in Rogers it is growing at a very rapid pace. Fayetteville has slowed down considerably. We are trying to take this opportunity to catch our breath and catch up with where we need to be. Part of that is the new sewer system that we're trying to put back in place. Two-thirds of the cost ofthe sewer system and the • $120 million bond issue we hope the voters will approve, 2/3 of that to refurbish our • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 12 existing sewer system so that 80 million dollars of this 120 will basically be going to refurbish the existing plant and to refurbish a lot of the existing infrastructure we have getting our sewage to the plant because we have very old infrastructure, we have sewer overflows, we're contaminating our ground water and our surface water and we can not continue to do that. The EPA is making sure that we get this fixed. This is not a choice that we have, we absolutely must take care of our sewer system. The other 40 million bucks basically is to build a new sewer system on the west side of town that would eliminate 9 lift stations and it would save a lot ofenergy. A lot of folks are concemed that this new sewer lift station is just being built for new growth. That is not entirely true although this would accommodate some new growth. We just need to make sure that the new growth we get is consistent with the wishes of the communities that we have here. We don't want to grow in such a way that we degrade the quality of life we enjoy. As far as impact fees, we are actually considering this. We have hired Duncan & Associates out of Austin, Texas to bring this information to us and they are coming close to finishing their report. We've been in communication with them here lately, and I think they will have a finished report here, do you know when Tim? • Conklin: The report should be done by mid-October. The actual draft to go out will be probably the first or second week of October. • Coody: Alright, good. The things that we want to point out, 1 personally, I'm not speaking for the City Council, I'm not speaking for anyone other than myself right now. I feel that impact fees are in our future, they are on the landscape, as far as how much and when they will be acted upon is certainly going to be up to the City Council. I think that Bentonville is looking to enact impact fees as are we. I think that a lot of folks feel like that the bond issue on the sewer plant is important but they want to feel like that new development is trying to pay its own way as well. I think that impact fees probably are on the landscape here in the not so distant future. I just wanted to say one other thing and that is the one comment that was made in the study about people are concerned more about long term overall consistent planning instead ofjust taking up each individual item as it comes up. I think that is the most important thing we need to consider. I would like Fayetteville to start looking at doing another Fayetteville vision project. It has been ten years since we did the last one. The last one really didn't go anywhere. We need to go through this exercise again except this time look at where we are at the beginning of the 21st century and see about what we can do to get the public involved to tell us where they want us to go. We need to let the community provide for us the blueprint for us to follow. You guys are doing a good job on the Planning Commission, we appreciate what you're doing and I'm looking forward to a positive future here in Fayetteville and I just wanted to say thank you for your comments. Do you have any questions for me by any chance? • • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 13 Hoffman: Commissioners, anybody? Ok, we're still taking public comment, would anybody else like to address the Commission before I close? Ok, no more public comment. Tim, do you have anything as staff to add? Conklin: 1 would like to thank Cindy Boland and Hugh Earnest also, I think their presentation was excellent. It shows that Fayetteville is heading in the right direction. We have lead the state with our planning regulations and comprehensive planning. We're currently at City Council looking at an updated tree ordinance. Planning staff is working with Duncan & Associates along with other divisions on our impact fee study and looking forward to public involvement in the next couple of weeks. The last Planning Commission meeting you had the report for the ten year Master Parks Plan. We're looking at our long range needs for parks and recreation. Our sidewalk and trails committee is finishing up amaster trails plan for Fayetteville. We're looking at trying to coordinate our trails and open space and parks planning together. We have a tree and trails task force that has been meeting monthly to look at how to acquire open space and areas for trails. That is going forward. The Planning Division, currently along with the Planning Commissioners are looking at an outdoor lighting ordinance to make our outdoor lighting standards uniform throughout the city. We're working on an annexation study in the near future we're going to be working on a traditional neighborhood development ordinance, so we have a lot going on here at the city and I think based on the survey the results show that we're headed in the right direction. Thank you. Hoffman: Thank you very much. Commissioners, questions on this? Marr. A couple of questions I have. On the support for growth management initiatives where the study showed an increase in various funding options, it is basically your last few slides. I guess it was fourth slide from the end. A lot of the items were all related around acquisition of land for park space, green space, endangered species, etc. Was there any other comparison on funding options outside of land acquisition, like when you look at the other priorities that were listed earlier, streets, education, growth, etc. Or was it primarily focused on the environmental issues only? Boland: It seems they were management issues as they related to growth since it was a growth survey. We did not get into education initiatives or other major important initiatives. Is that what you're talking about? Marr. Yes, at the beginning of the slide show you talked about important problems facing our state or facing our counties, and when you look at each of those evaluations, if I look at Benton and Washington County it was growth, streets and education. If you look at the • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 14 city it was growth, education and crime. When you go back to if these things are important and seen within each of these areas what are you willing to pay for. Basically everything only related to I guess the third slide which was priority of environment. Were there any questions asked about other areas around, other priority areas that came out in the study? Boland: No there were not since this was a growth focus. There could be. That could definitely be yet another survey that could be done as to how the growth management issues in other areas related to education and crime, is that what I hear you saying? Marr: Boland: Marr: Yes. Ok, no, that was not done. That would be a little bit different perspective since we were just focusing on growth and growth initiatives. That could definitely be done, but that was not done in this survey. I guess what I'm trying to understand is what are other issues that do relate to growth? I tend to think of crime as being a growth related item and certainly it came up in one of the questions related to the city items. Streets, I think of as a growth related item. That came up in the county items. When you look at the questioning around taxation or funding options they all relate to what appears to me to be land oriented items. Boland: What I can tell you is I said that we asked what were the two or three most important issues facing your particular defined region, city or county. We left that open ended so it was very difficult for us to draw the line as what is really a growth issue. Ofall issues that they said, traffic, that is a big problem. That was lumped in it. It was very hard, when they said the street conditions, well, that is just one step away from growth so it was very hard for us to draw lines to saying you're going to go into the growth pile and this one is going to go into its own separate streets and roads or crime, even though they may be secondary results from growth. It is how you define it and we decided that it was different enough to define in its own category. That's why it is there and not lumped into growth. We didn't overinflate growth issues. We kept them pretty narrowly defined to respond to their answers. Marr: How often is a study like this reevaluated? This being done in 2000, would we expect to see different results within a year, five years, ten years? What would be the typical time period that you would look at this? Boland: Since it is just one point in time and there are always new occurrences and changes, I • would say in an area where growth really has, if we were to go into a different region of • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 15 Marr. Boland: Marr: the state it would probably be a longer period of time where we would expect to see a change. Up here in Northwest Arkansas, a year is not unheard of at all. In fact, this is just really a baseline it's one snapshot in time, one year ago. You might expect to see changes and when you did see significant changes that would be very, very telling. The data that was gathered is just baseline. It kind of gives you where we were and now where are we at and where we are going, that is when usually on an annual basis where you would expect to see a lot of change. If we were to go into a different region of the state, 1 wouldn't think that one year would prove much difference. Baseline surveys are often done and then updated on an annual basis to get some type of trend. This is the first for this area? We would love for it to be the first of several surveys, again, funding is the issue since we're a university. We would love to do a survey geared a little bit more custom tailored to Northwest Arkansas. It was just fortunate that we did decide that Benton and Washington Counties were so different that they needed to be a sub -sample in and of themselves. That's the results you heard tonight. Again, I think we probably would have asked a different set of questions if we were dust gearing our survey to Benton and Washington Counties or just Washington County orlust Fayetteville. A very different set of questions. These were meant to be a broad brush for the whole entire state. A few more questions if I could. Are there typically correlation methods that are used when you see in the study the quality oflife is better that it correlates to better ratings in shopping, better ratings in industry development, better ratings in growth and where you would see that maybe it was worse or not as good or the same that maybe those same areas were average. Is there any type of analysis done on that? Boland: Yes, and we did do that. The reason you do not see any for your region is because we did not do any on this sub -level. We did for statewide and we tried to find out more information about what variables were there that was contributing to this quality of life. In fact, correct me if I'm wrong Hugh, we found the most highly correlated variable to the counties that had the higher quality oflife were those that had better plans for their streets and roads. Those were the kind of variables that we found but we just did it on the state level so we really couldn't bring any of that information to you for Northwest Arkansas. Yes, statisticians do do that to try to say Ok, that's fine, they're happy with the quality of life, what are the elements, what are contributing the majority to that satisfaction or dissatisfaction. • Marr: I think for me those things are important to understand as we look at the planning because • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 16 I think it is a pretty strong statement to say we're willing to certainly have less growth for environment. I would support that statement but it is also what is the impact of that, would we have less financing, growth availability, would we have retail, if those thing correlate across the state. Boland: Those are probably questions that really probably aren't suited to citizens survey, but those are definitely study questions. I don't know whether citizens surveyed, I don't know they would know anymore, I think that would be a different beast. Marr. So I'm throwing that maybe in the city research bucket. Boland: Yes. Marr: The last question I had was on the funding options where it looked at sales tax, income tax, etc. Was that state results or the Northwest Arkansas, Washington and Benton County results? • Boland: That was your results. That was Benton and Washington Counties. Marr: How does that compare to what the state pie might have looked like? Boland: I have the data, it was not significant. If it was, all of these 1 assessed to look for significance with state figures. I believe that it was a little bit different mix of the pie but basically what you were seeing here with sales tax being the largest percentage and the largest one consistently in the state being they really don't know their preferred method. Marr: Boland: Church: Thank you, I think it is great information. Great, thank you. I just had a comment about impact fees. I think every metropolitan area has gone to impact fees so I think that that is eminent for our area too. I just want to make a comment that developers in this area have shared in the cost of development for some time. Whether that is residential or commercial. A recent example that comes to mind is the CMN Development who spent lots of dollars on developing that road system. I guess impact fees, whatever you call it, developers have been sharing in the cost of development so 1 just wanted to get that on the record also. • Hoffman: Thank you Commissioner. Any other comments from the Commission? I have a couple • • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 17 of things I would like to throw in for the record as well before we're done. In our findings where we talk about that over 68% of the Northwest Arkansas residents surveyed believe that the environment should be given priority even at the risk of slowing economic growth. I, as a Planning Commissioner, receive many calls and it is a difficult line to walk. I think that weighing into a bit of what Commissioner Marr said that the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission and the individual planning commissions and subcommittees from our separate cities, Fayetteville, Bentonville, Rogers, Springdale, need to address these situations. I think that in Fayetteville certainly we do pay good mind to what is the economic impact going to be when we enact ordinances and so on. We need to take a really careful look at this. A good example is our tree ordinance that has gone through about a year or more now of research and development and is at the council for its third reading. It is very important that the people that are writing these ordinances and putting together our growth related ordinances and issues take a good look at the fine line between environmental impact and the need to continue growth. We all recognize that we need to continue growth for our own economic welfare. Thank you very much for an excellent presentation. It is a good start. Earnest: To Commissioner Marr's point. As the individual who went around and begged for money for this, 1 think it is important for all of us to know that one of the strongest supporters and one of the reasons we kept going in this was the Arkansas Environmental Federation. That is the industry lobbying group. One of the reasons that they were very interested in this is exactly what you were eluding to. That is to develop a baseline for the state and for the region so that as we all go forward into what are going to be some tough and turbulent decades, we have some baseline as to how people think we're doing and the directions we ought to move in. I think that was real important. It was something that was to me very encouraging to listen to people who have been traditionally viewed as industry lobbyists talk about the necessity of getting information so that we can all have better decisions or better information to make decisions. I just wanted to point that out. Hoffman: Thank you so much. • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 18 RZN 01-16.00: Rezoning (Lot 11 Millennium Place, pp 177) was submitted by Ronnie Ball on behalf of William Lazenby for property located at the southwest comer of Millennium Drive and Crossover (Hwy 265). The property is zoned C-1, Neighborhood Commercial and contains approximately 0.70 acres. The request is to rezone to C-2, Thoroughfare Commercial. Hoffman: Our second item of new business is a rezoning request. We have Rezoning 01-16.00 which was submitted by Ronnie Ball on behalf of Bill Lazenby for property located at the southwest comer of Millennium Drive and crossover which is Hwy. 265. The property is zoned C-1, Neighborhood Commercial and contains approximately .70 acres. This request is to rezone to C-2, Thoroughfare Commercial. Tim, do you want to give us any information? Conklin: The applicant has offered a bill of assurance for this piece of property limiting the uses to those uses allowed in C-1 zoning district and to allow for a liquor store. The purpose of the rezoning is to rezone to C-2 in order to establish a liquor store at this location. That is the reason for the rezoning. C-1 zoning does not allow for the liquor store use. That is why the applicant has applied for the rezoning this evening. Hoffman: We have that letter of assurance in our packet I believe? Conklin: Yes, the City Attomey and staff and the applicant are going to need to get together prior to this being submitted for City Council approval if you do recommend approval to clarify some of that language in the bill of assurance but the offer is to limit it just to the liquor store. Hoffman: Let me at this time remind the Commission and the applicant that a rezoning request requires to be forwarded to City Council, it requires five positive votes. We have six members present tonight so I say that only to let you take the chance if you are uncertain about the number of Commissioners absent, you can delay your request or we can continue with it tonight. Would you like to continue? Yes. Ok, we' ll go on then. Does the applicant have a presentation? Would you like to come forward and we can have a presentation or we can just have you answer questions whichever you prefer. Lazenby: I'm William Lazenby, Bill Lazenby, you have a copy of this in your pack? Hoffman: I think we got that at agenda Lazenby: I think it has all be said. I just proposed to build a building there to be leased to a liquor • store and to answer any questions anybody might have on it. • • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 19 Hoffman: Ok, thank you very much. Conklin: I just want to make sure that the Commission is aware and the public that your elevations and site plan that you have submitted have not been reviewed for compliance with our ordinances. There will be changes that will need to have to be made to that site plan most likely with regard to elevations, possibly some changes there. Tonight the Commission is asked to decide whether or not to recommend the change of zoning to the C-2 with a bill of assurance. Hoffman: This rezoning request will be the only time that the Planning Commission will hear anything on this project, the size of the lot would then indicate that it does not come back through large scale development and all of that would be handled at staff level. Is there any public comment? Would anybody care to address us on this matter? Ok, seeing none, I'll bring it back to the Commission for questions for the applicant. Bunch: On page 2.7 on the bill of assurance, previously when we had looked at this item and it was removed from the agenda. The language had been such that if for some reason a liquor store would not longer be at this location for whatever reason, then the rezoning would revert to C-1 from the C-2. I do not see that language in this bill of assurance. Conklin: Let me try to answer that and I think I will let Kit follow up on what I'm about to say. Jerry Rose has always indicated to the Planning Division that ordinances can not revert automatically. Once it is rezoned the only way to change the zoning back to C-1 is to actually have the City Council pass an ordinance. I'm not sure what Mr. Williams' opinion of ordinances that actually change back if that could happen or not, but typically those are the types of bills of assurances that we've had. That is the legal interpretation I've had from Jerry Rose, our previous City Attorney. Williams: I think I would agree with Mr. Rose's interpretation on that. Obviously, the City Council can change ordinances. 1 don't think you can make an ordinance automatically change itself in the future because of what someone not on the City Council would do. There could be something in this bill of assurance that the petitioner would agree to request a rezoning back to C-1 so that it would kind of be a reversion if the liquor store was not there. Marr: Tim, just a question for me without digging through this. What other use by right or permitted uses are allowed in a C-2 that are not allowed in a C-1? Does an adult live entertainment club or bar in a C-1? Outdoor advertising, which of these items would not be in a typical C-1? • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 20 Conklin: Probably the most typical ones are the new and used car sales, an upcoming agenda item, they're asking for a C-2 for hotel/motel type uses. Those are the type of uses that are not allowed in a C-1. Dance halls are allowed as a conditional use in a C-2. They could apply for a conditional use for that type of use. Marr: Why would we choose to rezone this C-2 verses some type of conditional use within a C- 1 for this particular use? Conklin: We don't have a conditional use procedure to allow liquor stores in C-1 zoning districts. Marr: So this is the only way that can happen? Conklin: • • - That's the only way that can happen. For staff, when we were approached about this, a liquor store probably does serve residential areas. It probably does fit in with a neighborhood commercial use area. There is a liquor store on the corner of Hwy. 45 and Hwy. 265, that happens to be zoned C-2, that corner where Harps is located. The opposite corner where the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market is is zoned C-1. For example, you would not be able to have a liquor store on that corner but you can have one across the street. I think it does provide a neighborhood retail type use that serves the residents of nearby areas. That is why staff is recommending this with a bill of assurance. Marr: I guess my comments, I certainly support this use and this development here. I would I guess recommend that maybe we make a recommendation or bring forth a change that would look at putting that use possibly within a C-1. I don't like the idea, even though I'll vote for it because it is the only way we can deal with it today, for instance, some of these other options that are in a C-2 that I don't necessarily think are appropriate. Hoffman: Thank you, Commissioners, anybody else? Questions for the applicant? I will entertain some motions. Is there any member of the public wanting to address us on this? MOTION: Marr: I will move for approval of RZN 01-16.00 based on the staff recommendation with a bill of assurance that is offered by the applicant. Bunch: I'll second. Hoffman: I have a motion by Commissioner Marr and a second by Commissioner Bunch that would • approve this rezoning to be forwarded to City Council subject to all ofthe staff comments • • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 21 and the bill of assurance. Anymore comments? Bunch: I will concur with Commissioner Marr and also give information to our planning staff. I believe that this is one item that serves neighborhoods and that we should have it on a conditional use for C-1. I would support having that changed and forwarding it to the City Council, have it prepared and brought to us and then forward us to the City Council for their consideration. Hoffman: I concur, I think it is a great idea, we've brought up spot zoning before which is not popular here in Fayetteville. You know, conditional uses or some other method like that would preclude the less desirable uses I think would be a great idea. Marr Didn't we actually look at, we revisited uses by right in zoning districts last year I think even, we made some changes to various zonings. I think it is just one we didn't catch. It is certainly one that would have fallen in the same category as something like dry-cleaning and some of the other things that we made changes to. Hoffman: Call the roll please. ROLL CALL: Upon the calling of roll RZN 01-16.00 was approved 6-0-0. Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 22 RZN 01-18.00 Rezoning (Beard/Center, pp 598) was submitted by Bill McClard of Lindsey & Associates, Inc. on behalf ofthe property owners Cynthia Beard and William M. Center, III for property located on the southwest comer of 15th Street and Beechwood Avenue. The property is zoned 1-1, Heavy Commercial/Light Industrial and contains approximately 19.39 acres. The request is to rezone to R-2 High Density Residential. Hoffman. Items 3, 4 and 5 are rezoning requests for three contiguous, basically contiguous pieces of property. I am going to go ahead and read item No. 3 and ask Mr. Conklin to give us an overview ofthe three items before we begin our discussion but to let you know that we will be voting on the items separately. McClard: May I request that we do number 4 before number 3, is that possible? Hoffman: I don't see why not. Anybody have any objection to that? Marr: Is there a particular basis for that? Hoffman: Could you just let us know why? McClard: We're working a little short handed with the number ofCommissioners here. I think 1 can get a real good response but the most important are 3 and 5 so if I can get a response on 4 I will have a good idea of what I need to proceed with 3 and 5. Hoffman: That will be fine, so you are aware then of the five vote requirements? McClard: Yes Ma'am. Hoffman: With that being said we'll go ahead and move item No. 4 up on the agenda. Item No. 4 is a RZN 01-18.00 which was submitted by Bill McClard of Lindsey & Associates, Inc. on behalf of the property owners Cynthia Beard and William M. Center, I11 for property located on the southwest corner of 15th Street and Beechwood Avenue. The property is zoned 1-1, Heavy Commercial/Light Industrial and contains approximately 19.39 acres The request is to rezone to R-2 High Density Residential. Tim, could you go ahead though and please just give us a brief overview of the rezonings, the requests, their locations and so forth. You can start with item number4 and with your staff recommendation. We will go ahead and discuss item No. 4 separately and vote on it but I would like an overview just for the benefit of those who are listening and the Commission. Conklin: Sure, there are three rezonings being requested this evening. They are all located in the • • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 23 same area of Fayetteville, south of 15th Street, Beechwood Avenue bisects them. One rezoning item No. 4 is a request from I-1 to R-2, basically downzoning that from heavy commercial, light industrial to R-2 multi family residential which allows up to 24 units per acre. Item No. 3 is immediately east of Beechwood Avenue, the property line is 15th Street. That is also another downzoning from I-1, heavy commercial/light industrial to medium density residential, 24 units per acre and then we have item No. 5 which is a request to go from the heavy commercial/light industrial 1-1 zoning to the C-2 Thoroughfare Commercial. The applicant has requested these rezonings in hopes of developing some multifamily residential in this area and also some commercial. It is consistent with our land use plan with regard to the residential designation. The general plan does show the area that is zoned or proposed to be rezoned from heavy commercial/light industrial to Thoroughfare Commercial as residential. Staff is making a recommendation for approval of that rezoning. This area has changed quite a bit over the years. The University of Arkansas has been very active in developing their athletic facilities and parking needs. Directly to the north, north of 15th Street and east of Beechwood Avenue and west of Razorback Road is Baum Stadium, the baseball stadium. Also located north of these rezonings is the Randall Tyson Track facility. To the northeast is a newly developed surface parking lot that the University of Arkansas has developed. Directly east of Razorback Road and 15th Street east of the train tracks is the newly developed RV park for the University of Arkansas. The idea here is to allow the ability for the applicant to potentially develop some housing that could serve students. Also, potentially bring in some commercial activities that would supplement the uses currently in this location that the University of Arkansas is utilizing for their baseball and also the Randall Tyson Track Facility which is being used as an exhibit hall and is being rented out. We do have three rezonings, I think that the most important point to consider is that they are currently all zoned heavy commercial/light industrial and we're actually downzoning these and eliminating some of the uses that could be, right now by right, established out there which would include mini storage and warehousing. This is something I think that would be more appropriate in this area. Hoffman: Ok, thank you very much. McClard: I am Bill McClard, I am the agent for the property for the sellers, Beard and Center. Let me give you a little background if 1 might. I was approached by the people who have the property under option. They had been talking to the University of Arkansas about the need that the University has both for student housing, married housing and the need to address, certainly some perceived needs with Baum Stadium and particularly with the activities through the summer and through the Winter at the track and all that is going on. With having hotels in the area, having a restaurant in the area and certainly a real need for • • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 24 Hoffman: Davidson: Hoffman: some more housing for students, quality housing. As you may have read in the last two weeks, the President ofthe University has made the statement that he would like to see the number of students at the University of Arkansas go from roughly 15,000 up to 20,000 students and they are clamoring trying to figure out what they are going to do with those students. There is going to be a real problem with a lack of housing if the University is able to get the number of students on campus that they want to have. That is what this application is all about. This is really aimed at the University and the necessity that is there for A. housing and B. with what you have there with Baum Stadium and the track being rented out with all sorts of activities there. There is a real perceived need for some hotels and restaurant use there. If you have any questions, I would be glad to address them. Thank you so much. I would like to take public comment. My name is Sharon Davidson and it is ironic that I came for the growth meeting but this thing which I have been discussing, development in general in our town has come up and again, let me state my contention. I am not anti, anti, I'm anti -inappropriate. We don't need big apartment buildings up on top of the hill on the mountain. That is inappropriate. This is totally appropriate. It is the natural thing that should be developed. I am very glad to see it go from industrial, let's keep industrial down in the industrial park. We have Campbell's Soup there, but, just as we saw what it cost for the Bakery Feeds fiasco, we don't want industrial down there. There is enough residential. You already have the natural corridor from the agricultural plant all the way down here to the highway which is College. It is flat, it is very appropriate. My concern though, is that in the bigger picture here is that this is going to be a developed corridor from 15th Street all the way down towards Crossover that later might be used to relocate people from more desirable areas of the town. I have this bad feeling that once we're allowing people to build inappropriate buildings up on top of Mt. Sequoyah, we can flood out the hollow, then we can move all these people and marginalize them out on 15th Street. I have a problem with that being in our future but that is not related to his end down here and what he is saying. It is definitely appropriate and I think most people would be glad to see residential go in at a naturally logical place and see other commercial possibilities that could emit odors, create problems, they should be down in the industrial area. So, I definitely think it is what was going to happen, I knew it was going to happen, I'm surprised it is happening this soon, but it is appropriate and 1 think it is definitely the way to go for that space. Thank you Sharon. Is there any other member of the audience that would like to talk to us about this? Ok, seeing none, I'll have Mr. McClard come back up to answer any questions from the Commission. • • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 25 Marr: One of the things that I struggle with when we look at these rezoning recommendations is the findings that we are supposed to make in doing that. One of those is very hard for me to think about at this time is the determination on whether the proposed zoning is justified or needed. When I drive around and see lots of R-2 spaces available, I certainly was glad to hear the comment on the student increase, I think we've heard it from our Chancellor. When I read the finding of facts in the report from the staff, it says we're unable to make the finding without additional information regarding proposed development and its impact on the surrounding properties. I think the other reason that that creates a concern to me is that we just talked or had a report on growth and one of the things that I certainly would question is what is our sewer availability for development of 41 acres, 465 units, and not knowing the density. I have a hard time understanding how we as Commissioners are supposed to have a fact finding on that item. I guess maybe I would like a little guidance from you as to how we're supposed to come to that conclusion in this. Conklin: With regard to our sewer capacity, our Assistant Public Works Director, Don Bunn, actually, we keep track of the numbers and provide those numbers to him, of our current sewer capacity that we're closely gaining up to reaching the maximum capacity ofthe plant. There is available capacity. On every rezoning application we do have the applicant sign a sewer capacity warning form, making sure the understand that we can't guarantee sewer capacity 2, 3 or4 years from now. We have taken all the development that the Planning Commission has approved and we have backed those numbers out based on our Master Facility Plan studies and other studies to make sure that the treatment plant and this additional development that the sewage generated by this development can handle it. The Public Works Department is confident that we can handle and continue approving developments at the Planning Commission. They have not given me any indication that the Planning Commission should not approve development based on our current capacity issues with our waste water treatment. Marr: Is there any concern over the size of the developments that we approve? I mean 400+ units on a 41 acre combined if you look at the three of these, I mean, I hear what you're saying so maybe we leave that one and go to how do we come to the finding of number 2? Conklin: With regard to is it justified and needed at this time. That is always difficult for staff. We don't have detailed studies looking at the availability ofhow many units are out there. I am aware ofthe University of Arkansas' long range plans and trying to increase enrollment to 25,000. I think that is by 2010. I am aware ofthe amount of apartments that the Planning Commission has looked at and approved. 1t is difficult to answer your question. We have seen a lot of developers recently in this year, come through for additional multi family • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 26 development. The market pretty much is generating that demand for this use. With regard to why is staff making this recommendation for approval, I think it is more appropriate to have residential zoning and commercial zoning than the Heavy Commercial/Light Industrial zoning in this area. I think it is an opportunity to downzone this 30 to 40+ acre area in Fayetteville. McClard: Mr. Marr, as a commercial broker, I can tell you that I am working on a number of projects and I can assure you that not only you, but the developers in the area are very concemed about sewer capacity. You are well spoken there and I deal with that virtually everyday. They are very concerned as you are, and they are all very carefully monitoring what is going on. The worst catastrophe any developer could have would be to build a number of units and not be able to tie into sewer. So believe me, there is huge concern out there. Secondly, when I was trying to find a place that would make sense to try and put apartments that would serve the University, when you start taking aerial photo, and yes, there is a lot of green space and yes there are some other places that are zoned, but when you're trying to get students from their housing up to classes everyday, the number of areas that we could look at were really quite limited when you really start studying aerial photos and the proximity to the University. This one really stuck out as the place that this should happen. The only other really place that makes a lot of sense is that area from the beer distributor, McBride I believe it is on the top of the hill there. Then you start dealing with huge amounts of trees. You start dealing with a terrain that is very hilly and it is closer, but we're dealing with two basically flat fields that have very few trees, there are some natural buffers in two different directions of trees along the creeks that does separate this development from what housing there is available. It just made a lot of sense to us that this would be an excellent location to do this. Hoffman: Thank you. Bunch: Mr. McClard, are you representing the seller or the buyer or both? McClard: I would say in this case, probably both Sir. Bunch: Could you enlighten us a little bit about the commercial, I know we're not talking about that particular item. I think we're kind of looking at everything together. McClard: I think we can talk about all three at once, sure. Bunch: Question for Tim also combined with that is to look at what kind of commercial you are • wanting to put in on C-2. Tim, could you preface that by maybe saying a little bit to the • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 27 difference between what is allowed in 1-1 Heavy Commercial and what is allowed in C-2, Thoroughfare Commercial? Conklin: Between the two zoning districts the C-2 Thoroughfare Commercial and the I-1 Heavy Commercial/Light Industrial, they are very similar. I-1 and C-2 both allow restaurants right now as a use by right. Both C-2 and I-1 allow used car sales, use unit 17 and all the uses associated with those like you see on College Avenue. The major difference between a C-2 and I-1 is that they need the C-2 if they want to have the ability to have a hotel or motel type use. They are very similar in types of uses, that is a heavy commercial zoning district, the 1-1, it allows almost all the same uses as C-2, except for hotels and motels. Bunch: Mr. McClard, could you please if you have a chance tell us what the long range plan is? McClard: Yes Sir, certainly. The intention is that on the piece of property that is on 15th Street, the intention is for a restaurant to go in the front and two different hotels would be basically lying from north to south. Once again because there are so many activities going on around the baseball stadium, not only University but during the summer time they are doing all sorts of tournaments there and there is a real perception that there is a real need for some real nice or nicer new hotels in the area We are all aware, once again, going back to use, once they went in and made the one way service roads over on I540, it certainly limits the appeal of sites in that area because you can't get there from here. The negative to this site is presently there is not a lot of traffic in the area, but that also is a positive in that Razorback Road is underutilized, it is 5 lane and has very low traffic count. As far as being able to use that area and that street that has been built, this is good for utilization in that area and maybe we can get people to come from the south to the north and not get so much on College Avenue. I think that people will figure that out. Bunch: How does the utilization of Randall Tyson Track Center as a convention center, how does that figure into the plan? McClard: Very definitely. Sure, conventions, it's a natural for their convention center trade to have something close to what they're doing for their leasing out for not only exhibitors but the people who want to come for exhibits. Yes, they all go hand in hand. The way they are trying to do that, as we're all aware, is a year around activity. Certainly if it wasn't a year around activity there probably wouldn't be the need of this developer to even discuss it. You have to have people that are going to be there to use that a significant number of nights. It all goes hand in hand, you're exactly correct. • Bunch: Also, on University housing, l think 1 remember reading in the newspapers that the • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 28 University housing was completely filled this year? McClard: That is our understanding. It is also our understanding that they are in the process of trying to develop 600 units at this time. When you talk about 15,000 units and you're talking about 600 students, it is a drop in the bucket. Particularly when you're talking about adding 5,000 more students. Tents are not a good answer. They're going to have to go somewhere. Hoffman: Allen: McClard: Anything else? Do you envision any single family homes in this area? No Ma'am, we do not. We do envision and the hope of the developer at this time is that there will be a special area set aside for married students that really are lacking in the housing they presently have. It is hopeful that we can set up an area that would be very appealing to married students. Allen: At this point your plans are for apartments and hotels and what else? McClard: One restaurant. Allen: A restaurant and that's all? McClard: Yes Ma'am. Allen: Thank you. Hoffman: I have a question for Tim, if you can enlighten me. I may have missed it. Is there a provision on item No. 5, the C-2 zoning. My concern is that we have some vacant C-2 zoning within a mile of this property on the comer of Cato Springs and the bypass. In our findings we need to find that there is a need for this particular zoning, it is of unique character, that there is not other zoning and vacant land available. Is there a way to zone this C-1 and get a conditional use for hotels and restaurants? Conklin: No there isn't. Once again, I think probably one of the more unique things about this property is that what has occurred around it. We have seen a baseball stadium built and a track facility that is being rented or leased out on weekends for exhibit space, an RV Park set up for the University of Arkansas, a thousand plus vehicle parking lot built, this is an area that has a lot of activity when these facilities are being used and I think that is • • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 29 what makes it different from 1540 and Cato Springs Road where you don't have a lot of uses directly adjacent to it. Hoffman: Would you say that is about a mile or maybe a little bit more? I am looking at our map on page 5.10 and just for purposes of comparison, we have our neighborhood in between this site then we have some more R-2 and I-1 zoning as we go further south to Treat Street. Conklin: Ok, on 3.11 we do have a mile radius if you look at that map, it's a little less than a mile, 3/4 of a mile. Hoffman: Ok, so would you say then that basically that the growth is occurring from the University to the south where originally we thought maybe the growth from 1540 to the north because of the airport traffic? Conklin: That is what I've seen. I have been surprised at how the University of Arkansas has changed the appearance of that part of town and even around the University, they have cleaned up and made all their facilities aesthetically more pleasing. They don't use chain- link fence, they use brick. Even the Randall Tyson Track Facility 1 think is fairly attractive. It is not just a metal building out there. They have changed that intersection and the activities that occur in that area of town dust in the last five years. Hoffman: I agree, I'm just concerned that we maintain that quality and character all the way up and down Razorback Road because I do see this as developing fully within a certain number of years. I don't have my crystal ball with me tonight, I would like to see a consistency of development and a quality of development. When we rezone large tracks of land that is always a concern that we have rezoned I don't know how many total acres, but quite a few with a great deal of potential for missteps if we're not careful. McClard: May I also state that in the conversations with the University, it was very interesting to note the number of people that the University says they have comingjust to do business with the University. It is a very large business and there is a real need for more room for those people to come and do their dealings with the University which is another reason that this application is being made. Hoffman: Thank you. Allen: When I drove around in that area, I noticed there was a little neighborhood that 1 had not seen before on Ashwood. I wondered if we had heard from any of the people who lived in that area and if there is any reaction to the rezoning? • • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 30 Warrick: Hoffman: MOTION: Marr: Hoffman: Bunch: Hoffman: I received one phone call from a resident in this general area, she did not identify herself so 1 don't know exactly where she lived with regard to these rezoning requests. She stated that she had no problem whatsoever with the rezonings that were requested for residential use She was a little bit hesitant about endorsing the commercial request, but no statement was made definitively in one way or the other. She was just calling to ask what the requests were and what the general idea for the properties was That was the only phone call that I received. I don't believe that any of the other staff members received phone calls with regard to these requests. Thanks Dawn. Having sat here and listened to this discussion, I think it makes a lot of sense in terms of that 1 do think the development will be north first going south because ofthe University's development. I think some of the uses that Mr. McClard has described to us today I certainly see as a need in that part of town. I love the idea offurther development in south Fayetteville. I love the idea of hotels being built in our city so we get sales tax revenue and HMR tax revenue and all those good things that help fund this quality of life that we have here and heard about earlier and allow us to maybe use some of that money to buy green spaces as a part of our parks plan which we heard at the last planning meeting. I am actually going to move for approval and recommendation to the City Council of rezoning request 01-18.00 based on the staff's recommendations and findings that are listed in the staff report through pages 4.3 through 4.4a. I have a motion by Commissioner Marr. I'll second. I have a second by Commissioner Bunch, do we want to be more specific about the unable to make the finding on number 2? Williams: I think you probably could make the finding with the additional information that has been provided by the petitioner here. Marr: 1 guess my comment would be 1 believe that there is a justified need based on the University's ten year plan of 10,000 student increase from 15,000 to 25,000. 1 also believe that the commercial development is certainly justified in this section oftown with the student population that is there, summer activities from ball fields and NCAA national • • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 31 events. I guess I've come to the conclusion through the discussion that we need the finding. Bunch: I concur with that. Hoffman: I believe I did not take public comment, is there anybody from the public here that would care to address us? Ok, seeing none is there any further commission discussion? Call the roll please. ROLL CALL: Upon the completion of roll call RZN 01-18.00 was approved unanimously. Hoffman: This motion carries on a vote of six to nothing. • • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 32 RZN 01-17.00: Rezoning (Beard/Center, pp 599) was submitted by Bill McClard of Lindsey & Associates, Inc. on behalf of the property owners Cynthia Beard and William M. Center, III for property located on southeast corner of 15th Street and Beechwood Avenue. The property is zoned I-1, Heavy Commercial/Light Industrial and contains approximately 12.13 acres. The request is to rezone to R-2, Medium Density Residential. Hoffman: I think we have a motion on each separate one and I would like to do item 3 next and then skip to 5, 3 being the other R-2, RZN 01-17.00 was submitted by Bill McClard of Lindsey & Associates, Inc. on behalfofthe property owners Cynthia Beard and William M. Center, III for property located on southeast corner of 15th Street and Beechwood Avenue. The property is zoned 1-1, Heavy Commercial/Light Industrial and contains approximately 12.13 acres. The request is to rezone to R-2, Medium Density Residential. Is there any public comment on this item? Mr. McClard, would you care to make any further comment? Alright, seeing none I will bring it back to the Commission. Staff, do we have any additional input? MOTION: Marr: Bunch: Hoffman: Madam Chair, I recommend approval and recommendation to the City Council rezoning 01-17.00 based on the staffrecommendations for approval and the findings all being met. I'll second. I have a motion by Commissioner Marr and a second by Commissioner Bunch, is there further discussion? ROLL CALL: Upon the calling of roll RZN 01-17.00 is approved and forwarded to City Council by a vote of 6-0-0. Hoffman: Motion carries by a vote of six to nothing. • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 33 RZN 01-19.00 Rezoning (Beard/Center, pp 599) was submitted by Bill McClard of Lindsey & Associates, Inc. on behalf of the property owners Cynthia Beard and William M. Center, III for property located south of 15th Street between Beechwood Avenue and Razorback Road The property is zoned 1-1, Heavy Commercial/Light Industrial and contains approximately 9 86 acres. The request is to rezone to C-2, Thoroughfare Commercial. Hoffman: The fifth item on our agenda is the rezoning request for RZN 01-19.00 submitted by Bill McClard of Lindsey & Associates, Inc. on behalf of the property owners Cynthia Beard and William M. Center, III for property located south of 15th Street between Beechwood Avenue and Razorback Road. The property is zoned 1-1, Heavy Commercial/Light Industrial and contains approximately 9.86 acres. The request is to rezone to C-2, Thoroughfare Commercial. We've already had some discussion on this. Is there any public comment first of all? Seeing none, Mr. McClard, do you have any further comments to make on this? Staff or Commissioners? I have one thing I need to bring up about this location. I was concemed about the lack of access to Razorback Road and Mr. McClard, can you step up to answer some questions? • McClard: Yes Ma'am, there is an 80 foot easement that the developers are retaining midway between the midpoint of the development that will go back to Razorback Road and that is intended to be a nice divided thoroughfare type situation. • Hoffman: That will provide access? We're always concerned with ingress and egress. McClard: We have streets on two sides already but that will give us access to a third one. Hoffman: Right, and I would say for an intensely developed area we would want cross access and so forth, of course that comes later but the fact that the property doesn't actually touch Razorback was a concern of mine. McClard: It actually does. Hoffman: It does at the bottom of the creek or something right? McClard: Thank you very much. Hoffman: Our map indicates that it doesn't but we have just an area map, we don't have a plat. McClard: The easement is a part of the contract but you will be able to see the easement on the plat. • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 34 Hoffman: Shouldn't we have that before it goes to council so they can see it9 Conklin:. We can get that and forward it to the City Council. We did talk about going back RZN 01-19.00, I'm not sure what your discussions were, it is such a small area, the scale of map I can't be able to tell. Our drafting department would have to plat that legal description for me to be able to give you that information but they are retaining that easement for access to Razorback Road. Hoffman: My concems continue to be I'm rezoning something to C-2 commercial that an adult live entertainment club or bar is a permitted use as well as used car sales that would be to me objectionable. It sounds like even though we're not supposed to really talk about it, the plans are fairly solid for the hotel and restaurant to go in. Conklin: That is currently allowed under the I-1 zoning so if someone purchased the property, those uses are currently allowed, once again, we're downzoning this. It does not remove the possibility of that occurring but at least on a large portion of this property we're taking off the commercial uses and the used car sales and the other mini storage warehousing uses that may not be appropriate next to these facilities the University has developed. Hoffman. Let me ask you this. If a hotel and restaurant are allowed under the 1-1 zoning is this rezoning necessary? Conklin: A hotel is not allowed. Hoffman: Ok, I misunderstood then. Conklin: The main use, I don't know if the applicant is going to build a hotel or not but the main use that you need the C-2 for is the hotel/motel use. Hoffman: The way our zoning ordinances are structured sometimes confuses me because it seems that there are sometimes when you can have the least restricted type zoning then would allow the more restrictive type zonings under that umbrella but that is not the way ours function. Conklin: It is somewhat of a form ofa pyramid type zoning but then again it is not. There are areas where we've gone out and removed certain parts of that where it doesn't just completely go from residential down to industrial where it allows everything. • Hoffman: Thank you. Any further discussion, motions? • • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 35 MOTION: Marr I'll move for arezoning 01-19.00 based on the staff report recommendations that it meets the findings to forward it on to the City Council. Just with a comment. The easement documentation being added so that the City Council has what they need to look at that and Just for my own conscious, now that it is the third one, reiterate the close work with the City on the availability of all the utilities, sewage included for this scale. Hoffman: We have a motion, do I hear a second? Bunch: I'll second. Hoffman: Commissioner Bunch has seconded it. This is to rezone this property from I-1 to C-2 with the provision that the applicant provide staff with the easement plat documentation prior to the hearing by City Council. Anybody else? Would you call the roll please? ROLL CALL• Upon the calling of roll the motion to approve RZN 01-19.00 was approved and forwarded to City Council by a vote of 6-0-0. Hoffman: The motion passes by a vote of six to nothing. Is there any further business? Conklin: There is no further business. I would like to make a couple of statements and announcements. First of all, with regard to the questions that came up regarding our sewage treatment capacity. Planning Division is always in close contact with our Public Works Department. Just as recently as a month ago we sat down with the City of Elkins, the City of Farmington, Greenland, Johnson, the University of Arkansas along with our Public Works Director, Assistant Public Works Director, City Engineer and staff to discuss where we're at with the sewage treatment capacity and growth that occurs in those communities and the University of Arkansas. It is important that the University is aware of our current situation. Especially with plans to add 10,000 students over the next ten years. At that meeting, those communities, along with the University of Arkansas, they were given our sewage capacity warning form. They were also told about our ongoing studies and our vote on November 6th for the 3/4 cent sales tax as the proposed method of paying for the sewage treatment plant improvements. I do want to make sure the Commission is comfortable and that you know that staff is always talking with our public works division anytime we do have large developments come forward I do make sure that they are aware of what is on our agenda. For example, last August when we looked at those 500 apartment units with The Cliffs and Shiloh West out on Wedington. I made sure they were aware of those apartments. That is the first thing I wanted to let you know. • • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 36 With regard to impact fees, for those who are watching and any Commissioners who may be interested. If you go to our website, accessfayetteville.org, that is probably the easiest way to get there, you'll have to go to the city link to get to our current website. Under the what is hot section of that web page there are two documents available that were prepared by Duncan & Associates. The first one is a policy directions memorandum and it talks about the legal authority to enact impact fees, case law and has recommendations with regard to the facilities that they are looking at and studying. They are looking at four infrastructure type facilities that we provide. Roads, water, sewer treatment, collection water distribution, storage and parks. There is information in that first study that they have done. There is another study out there that was completed in association with Duncan & Associates by Cooper Consulting and that is a development fee survey. It looked at jurisdictions in the state of Arkansas and in the United States similar to Fayetteville with regard to how they pay for infrastructure and the types of fees they charge. Those two documents are available, they've been accepted by the City Council and that work is complete. I encourage anybody that is interested in impact fees to look at those documents, they are available. The tree ordinance, once again has gone to the City Council. It will be at council a week from tomorrow for the third reading. We do have several copies of the most recent draft in our office, I'm sure the City Attorney's office and the City Clerk's office also has copies. Anybody interested in the latest updated tree ordinance you can pick that up at City Hall in the Planning office. One other thing coming up in October and those Commissioners that are interested, please let me know. There is an Arkansas Trails and Greenways forum coming up October 25 and 26 at the Fayetteville Town Center in Mount Sequoyah Assembly. The two day event will be Thursday the 25th with a reception and key note address by the nationally acclaimed Mr. Edward T. McMahon, Vice President and Director of the American Greenways program. The conservation fund, Mr. McMahon is an attorney, community planner, lecturer and author. He is a cofounder and former president of Scenic America. On Friday's day long forum it will be led by the Rails to Trails conservancy training team consisting of Hugh Morris, Research Director and Jeffery Ciabotti, Trails Implementation Manager, joining them will be the National Park Service Representatives working in conjunction with the noted professionals from across the state. This will be an excellent event. Of course, as you are aware, the City of Fayetteville has been very active in the past few years looking at green ways and trails. We have the Trees and Trails Taskforce that is looking at how to spend $450,000 for open space and trails and we have the Sidewalk and Trails Committee that Nancy Allen just recently began being the Planning Commissioner Representative for the Commission. Looking at a Master Trails Plan and then also we have the Master Parks Plan that you recently saw at your last Commission meeting. As a Planning Commissioner I think this would be valuable information to you and please let me know as soon as possible on that and that is all I have. Thank you. • • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 37 Hoffman: Thank you. Bunch: Tim, is the latest update of the tree ordinance on the website or is it only available in hard copy at your office? Conklin: I have not checked the website. Do you know Kit? Williams: I am not sure. There were several changes that the City Council made last time and we do have hard copies of that. I am not sure if that has actually made it to the website or not. Conklin: I certainly tomorrow can check and see if it is on there, and if not, I can see if our City Attorney's office can get that to the appropriate person to get it on the web. Bunch: I have had some questions concerning that. One other item, it may be a little premature, does our engineering department check the spiking of our sewer system associated with the Razorback football games? I guess since we' ve only had one game in our expanded stadium, it is probably a little earlier to have those numbers. Conklin: I'm not sure if they have done that. It might be difficult to tell because think it rained three inches when I sat in that stadium that night. Bunch: I realize that with the weather conditions that particular game was probably not a good one to be able to tell the impact. Hoffman: Is there a study that can be done? Marr: I think it is important, and I don't want my comments earlier on the sewage to in anyway indicate that the city is not doing what they need to do to make developers aware, I think we have probably one of the most important votes coming up in November around this issue. Ifthere truly is a correlation like we heard tonight between quality oflife and some of the functions that we now are able to do which have come through this development. November is not that far away. I think the reason it is important for us in every instance to bring that up is the fact that people need to understand that a lot of the reason we have it so well in Northwest Arkansas is because of our ability to handle those types of issues and the first development that comes across that we can't, particularly when the majority funding source was sales tax as a recommendation I think creates a very big issue. I hope that the city, our Mayor, our council and this commission every time reminds people the importance of voting for that. • • • Planning Commission September 24, 2001 Page 38 Hoffman: Thank you. Anybody else? It is an important issue and for those watching I think it is certainly brought home by the large scale developments and the rezonings that we are approving. They need to know that this is an ongoing process and to be aware of it. I also want to encourage public input at every level. We have seen a resurgence of it with the tree ordinance and I think it is really important that our citizens come out to these meetings, join committees and be involved. That being said, no further business, we'll be adjoumed until our next meeting. Meeting adjourned: 7:25 p.m.