Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002-05-13 MinutesMINUTES OF A MEETING OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION A regular meeting of the Fayetteville Planning Commission was held on Monday, May 13, 2002 at 5:30 p.m. in Room 219 of the City Administration Building, 113 W. Mountain, Fayetteville, Arkansas. ITEMS CONSIDERED ACTION TAKEN FPL 02-6.00: Final Plat (Yorktowne Square, Phase III, pp 214) Approved Page 2 PPL 02-2.00: Preliminary Plat (Clabber Creek Place, pp 322) Page 4 RZN 02-13.00: Rezoning (CMN Business Park II, ph. I Lot 1A, pp 134) Page 10 Stakeholders Report Page 15 Neighborhood Zoning Study Page 34 MEMBERS PRESENT Lee Ward Nancy Allen Donald Bunch Sharon Hoover Lorel Hoffman Bob Estes Don Marr Loren Shackelford Alice Church Approved Forwarded to City Council No Action Required No Action Required MEMBERSABSENT STAFF PRESENT STAFF ABSENT Kit Williams Tim Conklin Renee Thomas Ron Petrie Dawn Warrick Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 2 FPL 02-6.00: Final Plat (Yorktowne Square, Phase III, pp 214) was submitted by Mel Milholland of Milholland Company on behalf of Peggy Bishop Irrevocable Trust for property located north of Stubblefield road, between Yorktowne Square, Phase I and Brookhaven Subdivision. The property is zoned R-1, Low Density Residential and contains approximately 14.12 acres with 30 lots proposed. Hoffman: Welcome to the Monday, May 13th Planning Commission meeting. Tonight we have the minutes from the April 22nd and the April 29th meetings to approve and I would like to make a note that the April 22nd meeting minutes have been amended, so please take a look at those before we vote on that. Renee, would you call the roll please? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call there were nine Commissioners present. Hoffman: All present and accounted for, thank you. We will go ahead and if I have a motion for approval of the minutes for April 22nd and April 29`h Motion: Allen: I will move for approval of the minutes. Shackelford: I will second. Hoffman: All in favor? Minutes stand approved. Our second item of business is a consent agenda item and it is FPL 02-6.00, which is a final plat for Yorktowne Square Phase III, which was submitted by Mr. Mel Milholland on behalf of Peggy Bishop Trust for property located north of Stubblefield Road between Yorktowne Square Phase I and Brookhaven subdivision. This property is zoned R-1, Low Density Residential and contains approximately 14.12 acres with thirty lots proposed. Is there any person that would like to remove this from the consent agenda, either on the Planning Commission or in the audience? Estes: It will be necessary that I recuse from voting on this consent agenda. If this item was before us for discussion t would have to recuse. Hoffman: So noted. Do I have a motion to approve FPL 02-6.00 on the consent agenda? Marr: So moved. Ward: Second. Hoffman: I have a motion by Commissioner Marr and a second by Commissioner Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 3 Ward. Renee, would you call the roll please? Roll Call: Upon completion of roll call the motion to approve FPL 02-6.00 was approved by a vote of 8-0-1 with Commissioner Estes abstaining. Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 4 PPL 02-2.00: Preliminary Plat (Clabber Creek Place, pp 322) was submitted by Mike Bender of Northstar Engineering Consultants, Inc. on behalf of Mathias Properties for property located north of Mount Comfort Road and west of Rupple Road. The property is zoned R-1, Low Density Residential and contains approximately 36.35 acres with 109 lots proposed. Hoffman: Our first item of new business is PPL 02-2.00 which is Clabber Creek Place, which was submitted by Mike Bender of Northstar Engineering Consultants, Inc. on behalf of Mathias Properties for property located north of Mount Comfort Road and west of Rupple Road. The property is zoned R-1, Low Density Residential and contains approximately 36.35 acres with 109 lots proposed. There are fifteen conditions of approval. Tim, do we have signed conditions on those? Conklin: Yes. Hoffman: I will read those into the record now. 1) Planning Commission determination of offsite improvements to Mount Comfort Road. The Engineering Division recommends that the portion of Mount Comfort Road adjacent to the subdivision be widened to 18' from centerline with curb & gutter and underground drainage. 2) Planning Commission approval of an offsite street assessment in the amount of $19,740.00 for the Rupple Road bridge across Clabber Creek. See the attached memo from the Engineering Division for the rational nexus calculations. 3) Planning Commission determination of additional assessments for Rupple Road. A. Rupple Road from Mount Comfort Road to the Southern Boundary of the subdivision: The Engineering Division has provided rational nexus calculations for the past construction of Rupple Road from Mount Comfort Road to this subdivisions southern boundary in the amount of $19,305.58. B. Rupple Road Onsite: The Engineering Division has provided actual costs for the installation of street subgrade material and drainage structures that were previously constructed onsite in the amount of $21, 889.63. C. Rupple Road Onsite [Not to be Constructed]: Approximately, the northern 180 L.F. of street is shown not be constructed on the preliminary plat. This portion of street has been estimated to cost $39,600.00 to construct. The Engineering Division recommends that in lieu of collecting these assessment and payments, the developer widen Rupple Road from a 28' wide street to a 36' wide street. The cost for this widening has been estimated to be $80,603.00 and the total developer assessments/payments would be $80,795.21. See attached memo from the Engineering Division. 4) Waterway Drive shall be dimensioned from centerline. 5) The lot widths for all lots shall be indicated on the plat. All lots shall meet the minimum lot width in an R-1 zone, which is 70 feet. 6) The approval Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 5 from the Corps of Engineers to construct the stormpipe in the wetlands shall contain the removal of wetlands through the trail corridor. 7) Access to the adjacent lots shall be prohibited from Mount Comfort and Rupple Roads. 8) Park land shall be included in the subdivision boundary and labeled as a lot in the subdivision. 9) Planning Commission approval of the tree preservation plan. Currently, 8.94% of the site is covered with tree canopy. The applicant is proposing to preserve 5.34% and contribute a payment in the amount of approximately $40,000 to the tree fund. The Landscape Administrator is recommending this approximate amount due to the possibility of a decreased assessment upon further determination of tree health. 10) Planning Commission recommendation for a City cost share to widen the six foot sidewalk along the west side of Rupple Road to a ten foot trail to match the trail from Mount Comfort Road to the subdivision's southern boundary. This cost -share is estimated to be $10,980 which would require the approval of the City Council or Mayor in order to allocate the funds for the cost -share. 11) Plat Review and Subdivision comments (to include written staff comments provided to the applicant or his representative, and all comments from utility representatives. 11) Staff approval of final detailed plans, specifications and calculations (where applicable) for grading, drainage, water, sewer, fire protection, streets (public and private), sidewalks, parking lot(s) and tree preservation. The information submitted for the plat review process was reviewed for general concept only. All public improvements are subject to additional review and approval. All improvements shall comply with Cityas current requirements. 12) Park land dedication in the amount of 2.54 acres. 13) Sidewalk construction in accordance with current standards to include a six foot trail along the west side of Rupple Road (10 foot if cost -share approved by City Council), six foot sidewalk on the east side of Rupple Road, six foot sidewalks along Brookside, four foot sidewalks along Creekside, Cattail, and WoodDuck, and a four foot sidewalk along Edgewater and Water Way and a six foot sidewalk along Mt. Comfort. 15) Preliminary Plat approval shall be valid for one calendar year. Is the applicant here and would you tell us who you are please? Bender: Mike Bender with Northstar Engineering representing Mathias Properties. Hoffman: Mike, do you have a presentation or do you just want to answer questions? Bender: Basically I will just answer questions. I have got a few comments. Concerning the tree preservation, we are in the process of hiring a certified arborist to look at the health of the trees so that we can make a professional opinion on that and get that cost narrowed down. Then, on the parks, the 2.54 was calculated before when we had 106 lots. There are 109 lots and the park dedication is 2.75 acres. Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 6 Public Comment: Hoffman: Thank you very much. Is there anyone from the public that would like to speak on this plat? Thomas: I am Stan Thomas and I am the adjoining property owner. I have got three acres that is going to be somewhat affected by the development. We have horses and I had a concern that I want to try to address as to whose responsibilities it will be that these houses that back up to our pasture don't have kids getting bit by a horse. Maybe if there was any way that the developer could put some kind of a privacy fence or something like that up. Hoffman: Ok, thank you Mr. Thomas. Who would like to speak to that on staff? Would that be Tim or is that more of a legal matter for our City Attorney? The proximity of farm animals to an urban subdivision would seem to me to be a liability issue in any case. Conklin: In the past we have not required fences for subdivisions. This is one of the situations, I'm not sure if you're in the City or the County at this time, but we typically have not required a fence to be built along the edge of a subdivision. There is no ordinance for that. Williams: I agree with our City Planner. If that was going to be something that should be required in all cases I would expect that the City Council, with your recommendation, would include that in an ordinance. We do require some buffers between commercial and residential but I would think this would be a policy decision that the City Council should make if they are going to attempt to require in all cases some sort of privacy fence between uses that are agricultural as opposed to home owners. Hoffman: This is the second meeting that this has come up. I think we had the older development last meeting that had agriculturally used land that was inside the city limits that was directly adjacent to a new subdivision. I am wondering if it would be appropriate to bring something forward to the ordinance review committee to at least look at the insurance issues or liability issues that might affect the City. Williams: You are talking about insurance and liability between two parties here. The City would not be liable at all in this and I would kind of hesitate to put the City in the middle between two private landowners for just pure insurance purposes. Obviously we have required some buffers or blocks between different land uses in the past and so that can be allowed in the proper circumstances. Whether or not the Planning Commission or the City Council would feel like this is the proper circumstances to require that is certainly an open question. They have not in the past. Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 7 Hoffman: Tim, I guess this is for you. I am just wondering if other cities have enacted any kind of ordinance to deal with this issue. I really don't know. Conklin: I would have to research it. I am not aware of any cities off hand. We do, within the central part of Fayetteville, have horses and cows running around when it is just three or four strands of barbed wire. It would be a departure from what we currently see in Fayetteville. Even within town, we don't have any privacy fencing requirements and I guess that is what we're talking about or chainlink where a child could not physically get into the pasture area. I am sure many of you are aware that on Dickson Street north of College and Old Wire we have horses and cattle running around without having the privacy fences added. I would be more than happy to research it and see what other cities have. Hoffman: If you would do that I think that would be a good idea and then we could probably get back to the Thomas' and let them know if there is any other kind of ordinance that would help them. Williams: I don't want to try to make some sort of all encompassing rule, but usually in a situation where there is a trespasser there is a very low standard of care owed to a trespasser who would be invading your property. Obviously, you are never completely and perfectly safe but I think that a general rule is that a trespasser is pretty much on his own, you can't do anything to harm them intentionally but you don't owe the same sort of care to protect a trespasser as you would if you had a guest there. I can't speak in all instances and don't want you to rely upon this as some sort of legal advice and that you're safe forever, but I do think it is not a kind of situation where normally you are going to be in trouble if someone is trespassing upon your property. Thomas: What we've got is a little bit of an unusual situation. We moved there about fourteen years ago and we were definitely outside the city limits when we moved there. I guess we were annexed in or part of the surrounding area around us was annexed into the city, we have made several attempts to even try to purchase some of the property and was not successful in any of our bids but I was concerned because the piece of property didn't really look like it was going to be big enough to accommodate as many houses that are out there. That was part of my ignorance in not understanding how many lots could go in. It appears to be seven or eight houses, or six or seven I guess, houses that are going to back up directly, the backyard is going to back up directly to what we have right now is a four rail wood fence, typical for any horses. I am not trying to say who is going to be responsible as much on the insurance as I am concerned about maybe some of the kids that might want to come and just pet the horse or something, or maybe try to feed them some grass or Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 8 something and something happen. I guess I am less concerned about my liability as I am about the danger that it is posing and would think that with the new development coming in that the developer might be able to do something even if I was in a position to agree to maintain the fence or something. We originally called and just asked the engineer if they had any plans or would entertain the idea of doing something and the engineer discussed it with Mathias and said at this time they didn't plan on doing anything. I just wanted to see if maybe we brought it up here tonight that there was something that could be further looked into to help us out. Williams: Certainly you can talk with the neighbors that are going to be building there whose children are going to be affected. Even if the developer is not intending on doing anything themselves, I think your new neighbors will certainly be willing to consult with you and hopefully get this problem resolved as best is possible. Hoffman: Thanks for coming. I hope that gives you some guidance anyway, but apparently there is nothing in the ordinances that we have for you. Is there anybody else that would like to address us about this plat? Seeing none, I will bring it back to the Planning Commission and the applicant for further discussion. Estes: I have a question of the applicant. Engineering has recommended to us that in lieu of collecting the assessment and payments that the applicant widen Rupple Road, what is your position of this recommendation? Bender: Cost being the same, we would rather do the work. Estes: You would rather widen Rupple Road? Bender: Yes. Hoffman: You are in agreement with the cost share? Bender: Yes. Motion: Ward: It seems to me to be a very nice subdivision out there next to our Holt Middle School and they have signed all fifteen conditions of approval that we are requiring which is quite a bit. We are talking about impact fees later and there are a lot of impact fees in here on different items so I will go ahead and recommend approval of PPL 02-2.00 for Clabber Creek Place. Hoffman: I have a motion by Commissioner Ward, do I hear a second? Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 9 Shackelford: Hoffman: Shackelford: Hoffman: Williams: Hoffman: Ward: Shackelford: Hoffman: Roll Call: Hoffman: Bender: I will second. I have a second by Commissioner Shackelford. Also, we need to remember on condition 13, park land dedication in the amount of 2.75 acres, we probably need to make that part of the public record. We will change that to 2.75 and I have a question about item 10, this is going to require action by the City Council or Mayor Tim? Yes, the City Council or the Mayor, if there is money appropriated, decide to go forward with this cost share. Ok, so I need the movements to specifically include that in their motion I guess. I will go ahead and amend my motion. As will I, the second. Thanks. Is there any further discussion? Renee, would you call the roll please? Upon the completion of roll call the motion to approve PPL 02-2.00 was approved by a vote of 9-0-0. The motion carries unanimously, thank you very much. Thank you. Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 10 RZN 02-13.00: Rezoning (CMN Business Park II, ph. I Lot 1A, pp 134) was submitted by Mel Milholland of Milholland Engineering & Surveying on behalf of Bristol Development Group, LLC for property owned by CMN Properties and located on Lot 1A of CMN Business Park II, Ph. I. The property is zoned C-2, Thoroughfare Commercial and contains approximately 32.62 acres. The request is to rezone to RMF - 12, Moderate Density Multi -Family Residential. Hoffman. Our next item is RZN 02-13.00 for CMN Business Park II, Phase I Lot 1A, which was submitted by Mel Milholland of Milholland Engineering on behalf of Bristol Development Group, LLC for property owned by CMN Properties and located on Lot lA of CMN Business Park II, Phase I. The property is zoned C-2, Thoroughfare Commercial and contains approximately 32.62 acres. The request is to rezone to RMF -12, Moderate Density Multi -Family Residential. If the applicant is here would you say your name and give us the benefit of your presentation please? Milholland: Conklin: Milholland: Hoffman: Conklin: I am Melvin Milholland, Milholland Engineering. We have a client that is interested in doing something different from commercial, which was discussed to some degree during the rezoning process originally and in the same location. They feel it is an appropriate location for their investment. I have with me tonight the Senior Project Manager, Mr. Raymond Ledoux. He is here to answer any questions you may have as to their intent, quality of construction or whatever, if you needed that. Otherwise, we would respectfully request to rezone this to, we asked for R-2 and then they changed it to the RM, help me out here Tim. RMF -12. RMF -12, which is 12 units per acre average I understand. The number of units that is being requested, which is not a part of the rezoning, but just for your information. The highest, best use for the land is 272 units if it is zoned it would allow 391, so we are well under, actually by 69% with the layout that we have presently. If you have any questions I would be happy to answer them. Ok, thank you Mel. I appreciate it. Is there any member of the audience that would wish to speak to us on this rezoning? Seeing none, I will bring it back to the applicant and to the Planning Commission for further discussion. Tim, could you talk to us a little bit about downzoning in a commercial district? This is an area that was rezoned back in the mid to early 90's. Most of it was rezoned to commercial, C-2, Thoroughfare Commercial, which is what you see around the mall with the large, big, box type retailers going Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 11 Hoffman: Ward: Milholland: Ledoux: Ward: Marr: Hoffman: Milholland: Hoffman: in. The applicant has requested that this property be changed to Residential, RMF -12, which is 12 units per acre for apartments. Our land use plan does have policies that do encourage mixed use type use developments. It encourages residential uses to be accessible to commercial areas. Typically when you go from a commercial or industrial zoning, and you change it to a residential type zoning, that is what is referred to as a down zoning, it actually restricts the type of use and the intensity of development. You can see many different things that can be built in C-2 from car dealerships to like a Lindsey 75' tall, six -story office building. This does reduce the potential intensity of land use on the site. Thank you. Thank you very much. Commissioners? I would like to go ahead and maybe get the developer to give us a real brief outline of what he is proposing and what they are going to be and what they are going to look like. This is Mr. Raymond Ledoux, he is with Bristol Development, Inc. from Nashville, TN. We have a plan, is it ok to show what we are proposing? Sure, just real quick. I have a question because we often get asked why we are considering design and actual plans in a rezoning. My only concern is I wouldn't want to confuse the public to think that that is a consideration for rezoning when we try so often to clearly distinguish the difference between the two. I will leave that up to your judgment. That is an excellent point. I am inclined to go ahead and allow the presentation because it is being voluntarily given. I think it is great when we can have more information that we should certainly, and I believe they are actively working with the Planning staff right now. If it is ok with everybody else, if you will make a short presentation, that is good. Are you saying that you want to see the presentation? A short one. Milholland: I was leery to bring it out because I knew from some of the past issues that the Planning Commission wasn't supposed to be looking at that. Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 12 Ledoux: My name is Raymond Ledoux, I am the Senior Project Manager for Bristol Development out of Nashville, TN. What we are proposing is a 270 unit apartment project. Basically, Bristol is a class A development project. We develop class A properties. We are active in Tennessee and in Texas. We have eight projects in various forms of construction of completion and new starts, this will be the ninth one. Average value of our portfolio is somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 million dollars. This particular project incorporates our big house unit, which is a 12 unit two-story apartment structure with six direct access garages. It is called a big house because it looks like a big house. It was developed by Humphrey's Partners in Dallas, TX, who are national award winning architects who have been used throughout the United States and various market places. We have also mixed in this project three story bridge way style apartments so we catch a diversity of both somewhat of an upscale and somewhat of our standard scale type apartments. Our goal is to produce a class A property. We spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,500 per unit for amenities as far as landscaping, irrigation, club house, security, fencing, trails, you name it, we do it. Bristol has been in business for approximately three years, it has ten employees, we have a combined multi -housing experience of somewhere around 40 years. We are very active. I play a key role on a lot of the design, development and the construction of these projects. I travel from Texas to Tennessee to here this evening. I believe this is our site plan, 272 units. I will be glad to answer any other questions you may have of it. Ward: What type of price range do these rent for? Ledoux: On an average range, the higher units will rent for about $900 a month and the flats, the three story configuration, will start at around $800 a month. We have the garages as well as also interior garages that serve as the big house units for the higher rent so you can actually drive into your garage and walk into your apartment. Ward: Thank you. Hoffman: Thank you very much for your presentation, it is most informative to get that on a rezoning. I realized after we had begun hearing this matter that I've got a conflict. I am going to have to recuse from this vote so I am going to pass the matter onto our Vice Chair, Chairman Estes. Excuse me, I should've known that before we got started, but go ahead. Estes: Commissioner Allen? Motion: Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 13 Allen: I think this is an appealing project with nice diversity and with that said, I would like to move for RZN 02-13.00. Estes: We have a motion to approve RZN 02-13.00 by Commissioner Allen, is there a second? Hoffman: I will second. Estes: We have a second by Commissioner Hoover. Are there any further questions of the applicant or the applicant's representative? We have a motion to approve RZN 02-13.00 by Commissioner Allen and a second by Commissioner Hoover, is there any further discussion? Marr: A couple of questions. Our General Plan 2020 actually has this as commercial and I understand that we have sited also in the plan the mixed use or transition, could you speak a little bit about how these developments in the past work well with commercial areas and did they consider any other already rezoned properties? Ledoux: Typically in apartment development in my experience, not only with Bristol but throughout the line of market, Dallas market, Houston market, it is nice to be in the commercial areas because it is convenient for the people. Once they are home they don't have to travel across town to go to the supermarket, the drycleaner, pick the kids up from child care or the schools if they are in the area and it is most beneficial from a marketing point of view to be in these areas. In fact, we try to target market, I at least try to target market in areas of commercial growth. For example, our project in San Antonio, at the entry to our apartment project is a subdivision, our apartment project, and a beautiful shopping center. It is very convenient. People come home, they can walk over to the grocery store, take it easy when they get off the freeway in some of the bigger cities. This is my first trip to Fayetteville. I am impressed so far, I've only been here 2' /2 hours but it is a definite plus. If we are stuck 30 miles out in the country somewhere without services, who wants to live there? Multi -housing is a convenience today. The rent we ask people to pay that is a fairly good rent between being a home owner and being a renter. It is not too much difference today. It is a definite plus to be in a commercial market. Marr: Thank you. Estes: Commissioners, the proposed zoning is a downzone from an intense commercial use to a less intense residential use and provides for a mixed Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 14 use. What is proposed is 12 units per acre, which is a reduced density. I will certainly vote for the pending motion and am very enthusiastic about the proposed project. We have a motion by Commissioner Allen and a second by Commissioner Hoover, is there any further discussion? Renee, would you call the roll please? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to forward RZN 02-13.00 to the City Council was approved by a vote of 8-0-1 with Commissioner Hoffman abstaining. Estes: The motion passes by a vote of eight in favor and one recusal. Thank you. Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 15 Stakeholders Report Hoffman: Thank you Commissioner Estes. Our next item is the Stakeholders Report, which is an informational item for our upcoming discussion on impact fees. I understand that staff has prepared a short presentation for us on this. What I would like to do is ask Tim to give us the presentation. I would like to ask our City Attorney, after he has done that, to weigh in with your legal opinion on what has been done to date and then we will take public comment. Tim, if you would begin, thank you very much. Conklin: Madam Chair and members of the Commission, I have put together a brief PowerPoint presentation. The first part of the presentation is going to include a brief history of how this began and where we are at today and then go into the Stakeholders Committee advisory report and their survey results so I will just start out. The purpose of the Impact Fee Study was to determine if impact fees could be adopted in Arkansas, to establish a system of collecting impact fees and to assure that new development pays a fair share of their cost of infrastructure needed to serve new development. What is an impact fee? It is a form of an exaction. A developer or a builder is required to contribute to the cost of necessary public improvements to serve new development. Typically the fee is levied on some easily measure unit of activity, such as a building permit or number of square feet of commercial or industrial space. The Impact Fee Study calculates the maximum impact fees that could be adopted to help fund growth related infrastructure improvements for new development. Once again, we are looking at infrastructure improvements that are necessary to serve new development. The selected facilities study include water transmission distribution and storage, it did not include the treatment plant or Beaver water district. It included an update in the review of the 1981 park land dedication ordinance. It included methodology for assessing road impact fees for collector and arterial roads. It excluded the local roads and freeways and it included the new capacity that is being generated by the new treatment plant, which is 10 million gallons a day and it is going to cost 42.5 million dollars to build. Those were the facilities that were selected and studied by our consultant, Duncan & Associates. There are three different methodologies. A plan based, where you have a master plan or facility study done to show what capacity facilities you are going to need to serve additional growth and development, incremental approach as development occurs you need to add for example, the example they gave is a police car. Or there is the buy in approach where you have existing infrastructure with excess capacity today where you require new development to pay for that existing capacity within your system. The project began in 1999 when the City Council Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 16 passed the Capital Improvements Program. This was part of that Capital Improvements Program. Money was funded to begin the study. In 2000 a selection committee was formed. The selection committee met numerous times. Consultant interviews were conducted. We had a lot of good information that went back and forth between the selection committee and the consultants. In October, 2000 the City Council passed a resolution awarding the contract to Duncan & Associates. A Policy Directions memorandum was completed and a development fee survey in April, 2001 a draft water and wastewater study was completed in October, 2001. The draft road study in January, 2002 and the final impact fee study, which included the three facilities selected plus updates to the park land dedication ordinance was completed in April, 2002. Here is a summary of the impact fees that could be assessed for a single-family dwelling. The consultant has proposed a sliding scale based on the square footage of homes. You can see that they range from about $2,000 to about $2,800 for the largest home. Some additional information, on multi -family, retail, office and industrial, they use some examples of what the fees could be based on the methodology. The consultant did provide a national comparison for a single-family equivalent. That is the infrastructure that is needed to serve one single-family home. Our fees are substantially less than the national average. Part of the reason for that, for example, wastewater, we are not looking at the collection system, we are only looking at 42.5 million dollars for treatment plant capacity that will generate 10 million gallons a day of capacity. On water, we are not looking at a water treatment plant. That is the difference in the numbers and why ours are much lower than on the national average for other communities. Policy considerations, the road fee supplements existing exactions. We saw tonight with Clabber Creek where staff calculates what the offsite improvements would be for a development. Also, what we saw was the developer building Rupple Road through the development. If we did an impact fee for roads, a developer would get credit and he would not be paying twice for the improvements that they are putting in so those are some policy considerations to consider. The park fee is only an update. Very little new revenue would be generated. Water and wastewater fees are new revenue sources. However, for water the developer would still put their local lines in to serve their development and it would be based on oversizing of those lines so they would not be being charged twice for putting the waterline in and the oversizing part. The wastewater lines were not included. The City of Fayetteville has gone to a two treatment plant system improvement. Because of that, many of the lines are either going to be rebuilt and the flows are going to be redirected and it would be difficult to determine how much capacity is actually within the system. There was a decision made early on that due to the fact that the entire system is being changed up from lift stations and pumping that flow in all Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 17 the way from the west side of town to the east side of town that would be difficult to show where the existing capacity would be within the collection. The water treatment, once again was not included. Waterline component is the oversizing of the lines. The residential fees are based on household size, once again the sliding scale. The non-residential fees are based on meter size. To kind of give you just a brief rundown of wastewater net cost for single-family equivalent, that is what S.F.E relates to, treatment plant cost is $1,084. One of the important things to remember about impact fees is that you must give credit for revenue that is being generated by other sources to pay for the facility. There is a construction sales tax credit that was proposed by our consultant, which was a $65.00 credit and then a non -construction sales tax credit as you keep in mind with the wastewater, we did pass a' cent sales tax so new development will be paying the 3 cent sales tax and our consultant went back and looked at how to give a credit for the potential revenue from that sales tax that will be being paid by new development. Those are the credits, which bring it to about $825. The water system, the cost of the line coming from Beaver Lake into the City of Fayetteville, storage cost, and then the existing buy in for the existing capacity within our system. Once again, you see credits that are proposed. There is a debt credit, the City issued bonds for waterline improvements, we are all paying for those so as new development pays for those waterline improvements they must receive a credit so once again you see a $103 credit. Then the construction sales tax credit and the non -construction tax credit, which gives you a fee of around $305 for the water improvements. In summary, it is about $1,130. Annual revenue potential of 1.7 million dollars that can be generated. That is based on historical development growth rates in Fayetteville. Our road impact fee used a consumption based methodology. It looked at our current transportation system, road system within the city of Fayetteville. It included state roads, state highways and by the way, 84% of our minor arterial and principal arterial roads are state highways so most of the major traffic congestion issues that we have in the city of Fayetteville are on state highways. It was very important that as we looked at this study that state highways were included. It does become very expensive to cost share with state highways and use our sales tax money. For example, Wedington Road, we cost shared with that just west of the bypass, one mile, 50% cost share was around about 1.8 million dollars It kind of gives you an idea of the scale of these projects and how much they do cost. They also calculated with and without right of way. The reason for that is that we do have a Master Street Plan and this evening you saw dedication of right-of-way like in Clabber Creek, the two methods would allow the city to continue that policy for right-of-way dedication if we calculated it with and without right-of-way and if we gave credit for the right-of-way then the impact fee would be reduced, so that Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 18 was a policy consideration. Credits for highway and sales tax funding, once again, if we receive funds from the state there are credits that are given for that. Also, credits for developer exactions. Once again, as I explained, as developers build roads within their developments that are shown on the Master Street Plan, they would receive a credit for those roads. I am not going to get into the detailed methodology on the road impact fee study. It is very involved. They are looking at vehicle miles traveled per dwelling unit and they are looking at trip generation rates per dwelling unit. Within the impact fee study, you will find that they have actually gone and found a study showing the size of single-family homes, the traffic volumes vary. The smaller the house the lower the traffic volume. Typically we see about 10 trips per day for a single-family home. In this study they have modified that. The net cost per unit, as you can see, with right-of-way and without right-of-way is $755 without the right- of-way and with the right-of-way is $849. On Parks, just a brief history on how long we've had that ordinance. In 1981 the Fayetteville Board of Directors approved ordinance 2695, that is our park land dedication ordinance. It has been litigated all the way up to the Supreme Court. We have been using that ordinance since 1981. We have acquired, through that ordinance, around 100 acres. Fourteen parks, nine of those parks have environmentally sensitive areas within them. It could be either steep hillsides or wetlands or floodplain. Duncan & Associates recommends the City retain this current system. They would recommend that we update it to reflect the current level of service as well as differences in household size by housing type. All new residential subdivisions are required to dedicate park land or pay a fee in lieu. We saw that earlier this evening with our Preliminary Plat. The dedication requirements per dwelling unit vary by housing type. The fee in lieu of dedication is updated every two years based on the average cost of park land. That is by ordinance. Just a side note, we have not done that this year in anticipation of our consultants coming back with our impact fee study to see what their recommendations would be. In 1994 the fees were based on $12,000 per acre. In 1997 $15,000 per acre. In 1999 $18,750 per acre. The city is divided into four quadrants. The fee is spent within three years. The fee collected within the quadrant is spent within that quadrant. Fees are spent on park land acquisition and development. The fees may not be spent on maintenance. Household size is something that our consultants are recommending that we look at. The current dedication requirements reflect the differences in average household sizes between owner occupied and renter occupied units. Their recommendation is that we look at housing types since it is available by the census and that it should be used. The recommendation is that we base our level of service of acres per person, on household population, excluding group quarters. Residents will calculate the persons per unit ratios in terms of household population divided by total units, Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 19 which includes vacant as well as occupied units. The last two slides, this one and the one before that, basically the current ordinance is based on owner occupied units or renter occupied units, which do not take into account vacant units and they are suggesting or recommending that we look at households based on the total number of units, which would put in the vacant number of units in that equation to account for those. This table shows our current park fee in lieu of dedication. A single-family home currently is $470. A revised would be $578. For multi -family the current is $375, revised would be $370, so it actually would go down. This is a reflection of the change if we went along with the recommendation for the City of Fayetteville. That you are actually looking at how many people households and the average size of household verses just occupied houses in Fayetteville. It is just a change in how you account for the number of dwelling units in Fayetteville. Mobile home goes up substantially from $280 to $463. I am going to go into the part of the presentation that talks about the Impact Fee Stakeholders Advisory group. Eleven members were appointed representing various interests. They met four times since May, 2001. They prepared a final report with opinions and concerns about impact fees and the impact fee study. That is in your packet. You have those surveys and the letter from Nathan McKinney, the Chair of the Stakeholders Committee. The committee consisted of a member from the Chamber of Commerce, a member from Friends For Fayetteville, Sierra Club, League of Women Voters, Board of Realtors, Society of Professional Engineers, and these are the local chapters in Northwest Arkansas. We've Had Enough, Northwest Arkansas Homebuilders Association, American Institute of Architects, Bank of Fayetteville and the University of Arkansas. They did a survey of the members on the Stakeholders Advisory Committee. One of the questions was "Who should determine if impact fees are right for Fayetteville, City Council or Public vote?" Eight of the ten members that did the survey, actually we lost the eleventh member at the very end, thought that the City Council should decide that issue. Should the dollar amount of impact fees be graduated according to home size or value? Seven said yes, three said no on that Committee. They also talked about if they highly favor or highly oppose enacting an impact fee for wastewater six highly favor, six highly favor for roads, two highly favor for Parks and Trails, three highly favor, and you can see by the rest of the numbers, where we're at. I just want to make one last statement with regard to the park land dedication ordinance. That is an existing ordinance. This is not an additional or new fee. All the consultant was contracted to do was to take a look at the current methodology and make recommendations with regard to how to improve that ordinance. I just want to make sure that everybody understands that the park land dedication part is not a new fee or a new land dedication requirement. It Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 20 also doesn't include, some cities in the country also look at what does it cost to provide facilities to their parkland and their parkland or park fees actually can be substantially higher due to the fact that new growth and development is costing the municipality money to actually put facilities on the land that we acquired. "If impact fees are implemented when should the fees be collected?" Six thought that it should be when the water meter is installed. Three thought when the building permit. One thought when final inspection is received and one had another. The advisory group unanimously agreed on the following items. They all want the best for Fayetteville. I must say, I am always impressed and amazed at the commitment the citizens of Fayetteville are willing to volunteer the time to spend on issues in the City of Fayetteville. The first meeting I set for three hours and I had a few phone calls asking me are we really going to meet for three hours? Every meeting we met for at least three hours if not more on this issue. They gave a lot of time and I really appreciate all the members giving that much time to that committee. They all stated that they are far more complicated than originally thought. It is a complicated subject. There are methodologies once again. That is why I wanted to spend time this evening to talk about that an impact fee also has to consider what other revenue sources are being used to pay for those facilities that are serving new development. That is why you see a credit for the debt of payments for the bond issue for the waterline and a credit for the % cent sales tax, because the fundamental theory behind impact fees is that you are not going to double charge someone for the same service. The consultant had to put those credits in there. That is all I have for my presentation. I will be more than happy to answer questions on this. I would like for the consultant to come back, possibly with a joint meeting of Planning Commission and City Council. We could fly him back in to answer any detailed questions regarding methodology. The consultant did prepare the methodologies that are in the report that came up with the fees and there will be another opportunity to get questions answered. This evening we are taking minutes and I would be more than happy to forward any questions that can't be answered this evening to our consultant to be answered at a future meeting. Thank you. Hoffman: Thank you very much Tim. That was most informative. We've been apprised, and the Planning Commission has been kept up on the various draft revisions and so on and so forth but I think it is really important for the public to be able to have a chance to see where we're at now because we are getting close to the point of getting into the real discussion of whether or not to enact these impact fees. I would like to ask our City Attorney, Mr. Williams, if you could enlighten us on your opinions about what has been done to date with these fees. I know that you have rendered some legal opinions via memos to the city staff and if you could go into Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 21 those now. Williams: Ok, thank you. In fact, our impact fee consultants initially began with kind of an overview of the Arkansas law and to kind of sum it up, the original impression was that water impact fees and sewer impact fees have a long history in Arkansas and I agree with them. They go back to the very early 1900s talking about sewer impact fees, even thought it wasn't exactly in the form we have here. They gave both of those the green light. Then, they looked at a couple of other types of impact fees including roads and they were a little bit more hesitant on that even though I think they gave that an amber light. Then on things like police or fire, which we did not consider, they just said that they couldn't find support for that and I certainly agree with them on that. I could not find support for that in the law either. In reviewing the law more recently, the most important case, and one of the few cases I could find on impact fees at all that is recent, is this City of Marion v. Baioni case, which is a Supreme Court decision in 1993, so it is about nine years old. In there, the City of Marion had imposed a total of $950.00 for sewer and water taps and they acknowledge that a sizable portion of this was beyond their actual tapping cost, so it was in fact, an impact fee. The Chancellor in that particular case found that fee unconstitutional. He said it was a tax and it was unconstitutional in his opinion. That was appealed to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court reversed and said 'No, this was a proper fee. It was not a tax, it was not an illegal exaction.' This case does stand for the fact that you can have water and sewer impact fees if they are carefully tailored. I want to tell you what the Supreme Court said here. They said "The tapping and access fees established by Marion are for the raising of funds to pay for the extension of existing water and sewer lines to the developments where new users reside. Raising such expansion capital by setting connection charges, which do not exceed a pro rata share of reasonably anticipated costs of expansion, is permissible where expansion is reasonably required, If the use of the money is limited to meeting the cost of that extension." As you see, they have to be carefully tailored only to new expansion, and I think that is what our impact fees are being attempted to be done by our consultants. I will note that in that case there was a standard fee per household. There was no variation on size of the house or anything else. It was per house. I am not saying that it is illegal or unconstitutional to vary it depending upon the size of the house or the size of the water main or whatever that would be coming in, the sewer tap, but the only case that we have in Arkansas that was sustained by the Supreme Court, used a single fee and did not have a fee that went up or down. When it comes to the road fees, I have a different opinion. I do not feel that a generalized road impact fee is legal in Arkansas. I did not say it was unconstitutional because we don't really need to get there. In 1995 the City Attorney for Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 22 Springdale, Jeff Harper, requested the Attorney General's opinion about some impact fees that Springdale was considering. I guess we are kind of behind the ball here, or behind the curve, since Springdale was thinking about this back in 1995. The Attorney General, whose opinion is merely persuasive, it is not nearly as strong in considering as the Supreme Court decision, which is controlling, but it is persuasive. What the Attorney General stated is that his bottom line was that "In sum, it is my opinion that a municipality may impose an impact fee only under the authority granted in A.C.A. §14-56-417(b) (6), and only in compliance with the conditions and limitations set forth therein and in applicable case law." That particular statute states that "When a proposed subdivision does not provide areas for a community or public facility based on the plans in effect, the regulations may provide for reasonable dedication of land for such public or community facilities, or for a reasonable equivalent contribution in lieu of dedication of land, such contribution to be used for the acquisition of facilities that serve the subdivision." I do not think that those facilities are roads. Roads in that particular statute are referred to as improvements, not community facilities. In the City of Marion case, the Supreme Court notes several times in their analysis of what impact fees are legal and what are not, they point out several times, several impact fees that were held to be illegal as taxes. One of the ones they point to was a case not in Arkansas, but in Maryland. Here, it was Eastern Diversified v. Montgomery County, which was a 1990 case in Maryland, where they said "Development impact fees to raise funds to finance construction of roads held a tax because funds benefited the general public." So even though that was not actually required in that case, so that is not a holding of the Arkansas Supreme Court, I think that they cited that to tell us something, to tell us probably 'This is one that you should watch out for.' If you also look at another part of their opinion, they point out the City of North Little Rock case, which was decided in 1983, in that case there was a public service fee put on the water bill to help pay for more police and they said that that was an illegal exaction, that was illegal. You can't do that. They stated that "Such a fee was in actuality a tax, because the so called fee was for the cost of maintaining a traditional government function and services already in affect, and not for a special service." As was in another case where they allowed it. I think that looking at the law in relation to a generalized road impact fee, I find very little support for its legality and so my advice both to you and to the City Council will be that I believe a generalized road impact fee would probably be illegal and I would certainly advise against attempting to impose one. In relation to the parks fee, it was originally held unconstitutional right here by a local Chancellor back in 1981 and it was appealed up to the Supreme Court and up there the Supreme Court did not find it unconstitutional because they said it was illegal because it was not carefully tailored to the impact fee Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 23 statute, the same impact fee statute that I just read to you. They said because we find it illegal, we don't have to address the constitutional issue. They did though say that in many cases something like this could be constitutional, and I think that the park land ordinance is constitutional. It was brought back then after that case, it was returned here and the City Board of Directors made some modifications to it, in fact, it went through ten different changes, including a few that we just changed the amount, and that is what we have had now for almost twenty years. My recommendation on the Parks part is that I would be more comfortable sticking with the approximate methodology that we are using right now. There are things that can be said in favor of the methodology used by the consultants but there are some criticisms that I would have of it also and some of the assumptions that they made. My major criticism is that it hasn't been challenged now in almost twenty years and I would rather not make dramatic changes in the formulation for how they come to the amount because I think to do so would simply be to invite a new challenge to it. Hoffman: Thank you very much. I certainly appreciate the update. The more information that we can get out the better. I will take public comment I assume you folks are here to talk about impact fees so if you would like would somebody come up to the front and tell us your name and give us the benefit of your opinions? Erf: Good evening, my name is Jeff Erf, I live at 2711 Woodcliff Road in Fayetteville. I am just curious, will the Planning Commission be taking some sort of action regarding this issue? Hoffman: No, we are just here for information. Erf: So at anytime in the future you will not be voting? Hoffman: We will not vote on impact fees, this is just for information. Erf: Then I would just state my support of impact fees for water and wastewater treatment and I hope the City implements them at the maximum rate recommended by the consultants. The City is currently the expenditures are greater than its revenue. The last year anyway we had a 2 million dollar difference I think. We need to look at other sources I believe to pay for capital improvements and I think this is a fair and equitable way and I encourage City Council to support them. Thank you. Hoffman: Thank you very much. We will be I believe having a joint meeting with the Planning Commission and City Council. The reason the Planning Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 24 Commission is involved is because the developments, if we eventually do charge impact fees, will be coming here first. Tim, do you want to tell us what is to come? Conklin- What I would like to have is a joint meeting with the Commission and the City Council. This phase of the impact fee study is pretty much complete. They were hired to look at how can you assess impact fees for certain facilities that are needed to serve additional growth and development. They have done that, they have completed the final study. The Stakeholders Committee met the last time and so we are to the point where their contract is complete. With regard to will the City of Fayetteville adopt impact fees, that will take another resolution by the City Council directing staff to negotiate some type of contract with the consultant if we do not do it in house and the consultant or the City Council will have to make that decision. What I did with part one of the study, which included the policy directions memorandum, and the development fee survey, I had the City Council pass a resolution adopting those two documents. I just wanted to make sure that the City Council finalized that they completed their contract and that is what I will do with this study also. I will ask the City Council to pass a resolution adopting this study. Estes: I have a question for Mr. Conklin just an informational point, Mr. Conklin, in the impact fee study report that we have, there is a paragraph and sentence that reads a major impotence of this project is the need for a major wastewater treatment plant expansion with an estimated total project cost of 120 million, the wastewater improvements will be most costly and extensive capital project ever undertaken by the City. Yet, have we not approved by a general vote of the public, funding that bond issue? Why are impact fees then necessary for water and wastewater treatment? Conklin: That is something that the City Council wanted to look at, was a way to see additional revenue sources to have new development pay for the cost of the increased capacity. We are pretty much at around a population of 60,000. We have a treatment plant out east, it is at capacity. If we don't grow anymore we probably wouldn't need to spend 42.5 million dollars adding 10 million gallons a day potential capacity for new additional development. This was brought up by the City Council many years ago when we all knew that we had to look at additional treatment plant capacity and alternative funding sources. That is why I spent time this evening going through our consultant's recommendations with regard to how do you calculate credits for that % cent sales tax because once again, you don't want to be collecting a sales tax and collecting an impact fee and not give credit to the people that are paying the impact fee. That is why there is a non -construction component credit and a construction Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 25 component credit. To make sure that we do recognize that people will be paying sales tax when they move to Fayetteville on construction as they shop in Fayetteville. Hoffman: Thank you. Is there any other member of the audience that would like to come up? Yes Ma'am. DuVal: I am Kay DuVal, Ward 1 and I did serve on this Committee. On this Committee, as on other city committees, I have learned much more than I have contributed I am sure. Some of the things that I did learn, in the year 2004 our sewer rate utility bills will increase by 29% for maintenance and operation. We have some real big bills ahead of us. In one of our meetings, litigation was thrown around quite a bit and I have listened to Mr. Williams and I trust him on his opinion on these things. I do know that in other states, I have talked to people from cities in three other states and impact fees work there on new construction. Because of what we see ahead of us in fee increases in this City it seems to me that the residents are paying already. New development is a fact, and it is a welcome fact in most cases, but new development does need to pay their share on water and wastewater especially. Otherwise, we are going to see our utility rates increase so much that it will be, just from a humanitarian point of view, I think it is going to be really hard on lower and middle income people in this town. Thank you. Hoffman: Thank you very much Ms. DuVal. Is there anybody else that would like to talk about impact fees tonight? Conklin: I am going to put Nathan McKinney on the spot. He was the Chair of the Stakeholders Committee and I would invite him to have any comments regarding the process and where we're at today. McKinney: Sure, and we have another member of the committee that is here tonight if you have any questions or anything. Tim did a good job of summarizing the study I thought, but it was a summary. We had three other reports that have been revised and massaged a little bit and so forth. Y'all are getting the boiled down version. I would also emphasize that we spent 12 some odd hours actually in a classroom setting learning about the situation and many hours beyond that reading and looking at other material to try to formulate our opinions. It is not an easy subject. I will remind this body that when you talk about impact fees you're not talking about opening up a small can of worms, you're talking about opening up a 40 gallon barrel of worms. Y'all will probably be dealing with these issues even more so than the Council when it comes to implementing the details of impact fees. There are a lot of questions that should be raised before you go any Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 26 further, I mean dozens of them, about how to implement them and whether there are exceptions to those fees and just the process. One thing that was not mentioned, that I think is significant, is how to spend them and when they can be spent. They must be spent, as our consultant said, before a prescribed deadline or those things have to be refunded. There are a lot of things that I urge you to look at and plan carefully for before we go any further. It is going to be a fun ride for you I think. There are other members of the committee here tonight. If you have any questions, we would be happy I think to address those. We disagreed in a friendly way on several subjects and didn't come to much consensus but the last thing I would tell you is that I don't think very many of the citizens in Fayetteville truly understand what impact fees are. I know I certainly didn't before the process began and I certainly fully don't understand them now nor do I think you do. It may be years before we fully understand them but I urge you to proceed cautiously and we appreciated serving with you. Tim, was there anything else that you thought we needed to address in this setting? Conklin: I would just agree with you that it is a complex subject and there are always a lot of questions. I think that as we go forward and the City Council decides what direction to go in that it is going to take some time to understand how the fees are calculated and how they are collected and when you have to spend the money and other issues include we provide water all the way out to the Madison County line and the City of Goshen and other communities, collection of fees within Washington County and other communities, if it is possible. We provide sewer to Elkins, Farmington and parts of Johnson and Greenland. There are a lot of policy issues, decisions that will have to be made. One thing that we want to make sure of is that whatever we do that we are fair and consistent and that if we do impact fees that we do address the issues outside the City of Fayetteville too where we are providing these services. Hoffman: I do want to thank the stakeholders for spending all that time because it is really a very large undertaking and I agree that we are at the beginning of it really. We are at the end of the study but now we're beginning to see how and when and if to implement and there are a lot of questions that need to be answered. I want to ask you what you think the most important thing is that you came away from your meetings with. What is number one on your priority list? McKinney: It would be hard to say number one. I certainly agree with Kit that based on what we heard the roads portion of this impact fee study was weak, it was the weakest part. In fact, I thought the numbers that they used were very weak and a slick lawyer could argue both ways on the very numbers Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 27 that they used to defend their recommendations in my opinion. I was philosophically opposed to impact fees when we began the study and they convinced me that this is a fairly practical way of solving the problem of paying for our sewer system. That was a very strong portion of the presentation. They did not convince me on the other portions, but on that one, I have to concede they did a good job. The consultants changed my mind. There were a couple of things that I thought they changed their minds on. One of them was when it was originally proposed the fees could not be scaled up or down according to home size or size of a project and it was based strictly on water meter size or water tap size. We asked some pretty hard questions. I have a distinct memory of the consultant saying it could not be scaled up or down based on home size and yet your final repot there actually suggests that we consider that. I didn't think that was intellectually fair. It either is or is not, based on a direct impact that a particular home or business is making on the infrastructure, that is a fairly simple answer in my opinion, but they did change their minds and your final report reflects that. The other thing that I think is important is that they told us initially, and I still believe it is in your final report, that where the fees are collected they must be spent, in the geographic location that is served by those things. I believe you will find that in there, which means there are certain wards in our town where not very many fees will be collected and they certainly won't be spent there. Other wards, those fees will be collected regularly and then of course, they will be spent there regularly. The last thing that I think is very important is they have to be spent within a prescribed period of time or they have to be refunded and I am not sure, well, I would just say that's problematic in some cases. I don't know, did that answer your question? Hoffman: Yes, and I think it is a very good dialogue to begin with and one of the things that I wanted to, and I will continue with public comment and the Commissioners comments here in a minute, to emphasize that in my mind when and if something is enacted, not all of the fees have to be implemented, the road fee doesn't have to be, the parks fee we've got in place, the water fee might actually cover the sewer fee based on the water usage. I think there are many things like that that need to be discussed as we go on through the process and decide how best to approach this. McKinney: I was a member of the committee who was dissenting on a lot of the things but speaking as Chairman of the committee, the majority of our committee wanted to proceed. They felt like this was a good thing for the City of Fayetteville and there were a few of us that didn't feel like this was the best approach. I still think that two or three years from now this Commission is going to be loaded down with how to actually collect and implement these fees. I think y'all are going to spend many, many hours Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 28 here deciding how to do it and when to do it and it is going to be a big, big job for y'all, but I know you're up to it. Hoffman: Maybe you ought to be on the Planning Commission. McKinney: Heck no! That may be the very thing that I came away with. Hoffman. There may be several vacancies so just keep that in mind. McKinney: I moved about three months ago, I moved 500 feet outside the city limits of Fayetteville. Not for that reason, but I don't think I'm eligible. Let me just also say that the Committee served very unselfishly and if y'all choose to have public meetings I feel pretty confident that the majority of our committee would be happy to attend and answer questions. People on that committee would disagree with me. They would have other insights that they would want to share with you but your committee spent untold hours. We looked into this deal, into the bowels of it so deeply it would embarrass most proctologists. The committee has some thoughts and insights that you would certainly appreciate and I am certainly not the only one that has those opinions Thank you very much. Marr: If I could ask Nathan a question before he gets all the way back. That is, there was a lot of discussion about whether or not to have them and maybe not as much in depth minutes around the methodology of them, assuming that we had them, other than the sliding scale issue that you talked about that appeared at the end, are there any other methodology concerns about how these rates are being calculated that the committee had? McKinney: You are looking at what your consultants say is a maximum fee. You don't have to implement the maximum, that is one thing. The timing and the collection of those fees is something you can certainly debate. I don't think there is a huge difference between collecting them at building permit and water tap issue but it is significant to some developments. Marr: In terms of looking at the financial numbers and how we actually came up with the rates that we used per unit, did the Committee feel comfortable with the methodology used to get to an actual rate that you then applied? McKinney: I think some committee members did and some didn't. The one thing that still bothers me greatly is that everybody on the committee was concerned about affordable housing and yet the initial presentation that we were given, did not include any measures for reducing that fee based on affordability and yet your final version does. I am not sure how we made that transition because if it is a true impact fee it supposedly is a fee that Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 29 Marr: measures the impact of that service. Sometimes small homes have a bigger impact than large homes. Sometimes small commercial developments have a much bigger impact on those services than a larger development would. My example is a car wash verses a Wal-Mart. Those are two very different impacts on the infrastructure and yet they are very widely differing sizes. If you just took a pretty straight line ruler to implementing those fees, the Wal-Mart sized project would pay a huge impact fee and the car wash would pay a considerably smaller fee. Yet the impacts are almost reversed. There are a lot of details that need to be ironed out. The other thing to keep in mind, and it is probably on the first page of your report, is that this is supposed to be based on fairness. That is probably the most difficult thing of all is to judge what is fair. I don't know if that answered your question, you are hearing one red neck's opinion on it. Thank you. I appreciate that. Tim, I had one other question. Is there an analysis somewhere that says of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, how many of the 50 states actually have case law that support impact fees and if we go further with that, are there specific studies or survey information that breaks that down into individual fee areas? Conklin: In their policy directions memorandum, they did include a graphics of the United States. Twenty-three states have enabling legislation that allows the communities to adopt impact fees. Marr: Are any of those bordering Arkansas? Conklin: I don't have that study in front of me. Texas has enabling legislation, I think that might be the only one. However, it should be noted that Florida, Colorado and a lot of states do not have legislation but they heavily use impact fees. It is not a requirement in every state to actually have the statutory authority. I know that is not the question you asked me, you asked me case law. In Florida and Colorado and other states, they do have case law that allows impact fees to be adopted by those communities. Our consultants, when we have them back, probably can answer that question better than I can. I would just like to explain a little about why at the very end through the stakeholders the change in methodology from a sliding scale, where they looked at the size of the home or how much traffic is generated per single-family home verses a single fee that is not on a sliding scale. I actually called our consultant this afternoon and asked him this question. Basically, the conservative approach to looking at impact fees would be to have the same fee regardless of the size of the home. We had a joint Planning Commission and City Council meeting. At that time, I believe a couple of the elected officials asked about the possibilities of Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 30 doing some type of sliding scale based on different impact for different sized homes. That was at the very end. It did take the Stakeholders Committee by surprised that that methodology was proposed at the very end. I asked Duncan & Associates this afternoon what was more typical or common. Typically, it is one fee regardless of the size of the home. However, in communities that want to look at ways of reducing the fee for smaller type homes, they have developed methodology that has been used in the United States, and they have done that. Typical methodology would be to have one single fee regardless of the size of the home. Thank you. Hoffman: Thank you very much Tim. Is there anyone else, maybe any other members of the Stakeholders Committee like to talk about this? I am seeing a headshake over there so I will close public discussion and bring it back to the Planning Commission and staff for any further comment. Church: I just had another question of Nathan. I have a big concern. I want Fayetteville to remain a vibrant community. I am just wondering if you looked at other communities and how they were affected after impact fees were implemented if this had anything to do with their ability to attract new business or if that became a major problem. McKinney: There were two or three examples that your consultant used and in each case those communities grew significantly after impact fees were implemented. It didn't appear according to them, that it slowed down growth at all. Part of me wants to argue that nuclear waste spread across the streets of those communities couldn't have slowed it down. I know a little bit about those three communities. If you are in the middle of the research triangle park in North Carolina, nothing is going to slow it. It didn't. On the other hand, my comment, which has been made public once before and I stick by it, is that impact fees is one simple thing that by itself would probably not affect growth in Fayetteville but compounded with some other things that we have implemented over the course of the years, we are beginning to develop a reputation of spreading an unwelcome mat for new growth. I think that is dangerous. I am not saying that it is done on purpose and certainly with no malice but that is a possibility and this is just one more thing that we need to consider. To answer your question, the communities that we studied, actually growth continued very rapidly after those impact fees were implemented. Our consultant almost said that it was like fertilizer to new growth and I don't believe that that is the case, nor was that probably his intention of making that case but that did appear to be the case in the three communities that he used. Tim, do you have a different recollection of that? Conklin: No, I think you hit it on the mark that that is what the consultant told the Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 31 Stakeholders Committee. Probably the only local example I can give you is that in 1981 the City of Fayetteville adopted the parkland dedication ordinance or fee in lieu. We know what has happened since 1981 where the other communities surrounding Fayetteville, and I believe we are probably the only city in Arkansas that has a park fee or a parkland dedication ordinance. It has not slowed or stopped growth in Fayetteville. We have had some of our biggest development in years, in 1993 and 1994. I really think growth, I'm just giving my opinion here, is quality of life. People want to preserve that. They want to preserve the community character. We are looking for ways for Fayetteville on how you do that. I think a lot of communities, we have something special here and we are trying to protect that. Just looking at the parkland dedication ordinance, it has not slowed growth down. Hoffman: Thank you Tim. Marr: One more question for Kit. I couldn't agree with Tim more on the last comment. When we look at impacting a particular development or a particular neighborhood, understanding that that can't be loosely interpreted to mean a city or the general public, help me understand why we can't look at it from a quadrant standpoint like we do with parks in quadrants of the city or schools within various sections of our school districts relative to any of these areas. Williams: In fact, we can. You look at the water and sewer impact fees, we are talking about the city basically as a whole. We have looked at the need for increased water transmission lines, water tanks and things like that for the water. Part of the impact fee is we're looking at the new sewer treatment plant and the cost of it for the sewer impact fee. I think those sort of things, you just have to look at that as where they are serving and those are inherently serving our community and so I think that we can, when we are looking at those particular types of service, look a little bit beyond. I hope we can. I will note that the Marion case that I talked to you about, which is really the only relevant recent case by the Arkansas Supreme Court on this subject, talked about water lines serving new developments and building these lines that the money had to be used just to serve this neighborhood and so we are actually stepping just a little beyond that when we say that we are going to use the impact fee cost of the new sewer plant rather than lines going to the new sewer plant. We are actually a little bit beyond what the City of Marion case said. I don't want to tell you that this is without any risk at all. Certainly some people might be able to argue that this is beyond what the statute tells us and that in fact, we have to be more specific to the actual neighborhood or development. I think that that is certainly possible. We have our best legal defense with sewer Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 32 Marr: and water but it is not guaranteed and I don't want to try to tell you or the citizens of Fayetteville that we can not get sued if we passed a water or sewer impact fee. In fact, we can. I hope we would not or I hope it would be moderate in any attempt to apply them but I can not guarantee that we would not get sued. The Supreme Court might say 'No, the very end line was The City of Marion case.' That they are not going to go a step beyond that. If they would not go a step beyond that then an argument could be made that the methodology used by our consultants actually goes beyond that case. If they looked at our city and they looked at each of these fees and they tried to quadrant what they would describe as neighborhoods or impact areas from particular land being developed, how they might quadrant our city, relative to parks, relative to roads. Obviously, we are looking at it for water and sewer city wide. I would just like to see if they had a recommendation on that because I certainly think that we have been doing parks and I think having a master plan and knowing that we have certain areas that need further development, we need to continue with that. Conklin- The consultant actually worked with staff and part of the report, especially for roads, said they could not do an improvements based type impact fee. There are some communities that go out and they know exactly that you're going to have 10,000 people within this geographic area and then in that build out you are going to need five bridges and three four lane roads and how you are going to serve that development. We do not have that level of detail for roads. To do an improvements based plan. With regard to the wastewater treatment, that is just the treatment plant capacity and instead of being pumped over, it is going to be divided, the east side will treat a lot of the east side and the west side will treat a lot of the west side. That is just basic capacity for the treatment plant. The water, I can ask the consultant that question. They did propose two methodologies, one an improvements based and one a buy in approach. They thought the buy in approach, and I believe the stakeholders that are here can help me out on this one but there was discussion with regard to who collected an impact fee for improvements shown on the master plan. We have to build those improvements. There was some concern by the consultant and the City about the ability for us, are we going to build those improvements. So they looked at a consumption based approach for the waterline. It goes back to master planning, master facility planning to get a clear, good understanding of what is needed. Of course, the treatment plant, we know we have good cost numbers on that because we are going to be building it within the next two or three years. Hoffman: Ok. Thank you Tim. Is there anybody else? I just appreciate the Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 33 Stakeholders Committee for coming and giving us the benefit of all of your hours and input and I know that we will be talking about this in much more detail as time goes on. Planning Commission May 13, 2002 Page 34 Hoffman: We have one more item tonight and that is the Mill District Neighborhood Zoning Study update. Conklin: I will quickly go over this. We will be having our third meeting with the Mill District neighborhood. This is part of the process, we want to look at updating the 1970 zoning map. We have targeted neighborhoods that have I-1, Heavy Commercial/Light Industrial zoning in residential areas. The Mill District neighborhood north boundary is Center Street, the east boundary is School Street. The western boundary is University Avenue and some lots west of University Avenue and the south boundary is Sixth Street. The meeting is May 15th, it is at 7:00, it is in room 111. We have been working with the neighborhood. They have gone out and have done an existing land use study so we will have a lot of good data to understand what the neighborhood is today and what their vision of their neighborhood is in the future. It will be a good meeting. Eventually this will be coming to the Planning Commission with a recommendation from the neighborhood with regard to what they would like to see in their neighborhood with regard to zoning and down zoning potentially heavy commercial/light industrial in a neighborhood consisting of single-family and multi -family homes. Thank you. Hoffman: Thank you Tim. Is there any other business that we have tonight or any other announcements? Conklin: I have no other business and no announcements. Hoffman: Alright, with that we will stand adjourned. Meeting adjourned: 7:07 p.m.