Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2003-05-12 MinutesMINUTES OF A MEETING OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION A regular meeting of the City of Fayetteville Planning Commission was held on Monday, May 12, 2003 in room 219 of the City Administration Building, 113 W. Mountain at 5:30 p.m. ITEMS CONSIDERED ACTION TAKEN Presentation by a representative from OMI, Operations Management International, Inc. Page 3 No Action CUP 03-13.00: Conditional Use (Sequoyah United Methodist Church, pp 369) Tabled Page 6 RZN 03-16.00: Rezoning (Lindsey, pp 136) Failed for Lack of Motion Page 20 LSP 03- 37.00: Lot Split (Scott Miller, pp 562) Forwarded to City Council Page 24 PPL 02-7.10: Preliminary Plat (Legacy Point, pp 435/474) Approved Page 26 LSD 03-25.00: Large Scale Development (O'Charley's, pp 212) Approved Page 29 R-PZD 03-3.00: Planned Zoning District (North College Development Company, pp 485) Forwarded to City Council Page 33 Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 2 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT COMMISSIONERS ABSENT Bob Estes Alice Church Christian Vaught Alan Ostner Jill Anthes Sharon Hoover Don Bunch Loren Shackelford Nancy Allen STAFF PRESENT STAFF ABSENT Dawn Warrick Jeremy Pate Matt Casey Renee Thomas David Whitaker Tim Conklin Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 3 Hoover: We will start the meeting of the Planning Commission for May 12th. Renee, will you call the roll please? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call there were nine Commissioners present. Approval of the Minutes Hoover: Thank you. With that, do I have a motion to approve the minutes from the April 28th meeting? Shackelford: So moved. Allen: I will second. Hoover: Renee, will you call the roll? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to approve the minutes from the April 28, 2003 meeting was approved by a vote of 9-0-0. Presentation by a representative from OMI, Operations Management International, Inc. (The operation and maintenance of the City's wastewater treatment plant and the 33 sewer lift stations scattered throughout Fayetteville, as well as the administration of the Industrial Pretreatment Program for Fayetteville's 11 permitted industries, has been outsourced to Operations Management International, Inc. (OMI) since 1987.) Hoover: Thank you Renee. We have a presentation tonight from OMI and if you were at agenda session on Thursday we had a tour of the waste water treatment plant and we would like to thank Billy for that tour, it was great. We are going to now have a presentation. Ammons: I am Billy Ammons, I work with OMI at the waste water facility here in Fayetteville. I have been there since 1981. I graduated from Fayetteville High in 1977. I have had a great time in Fayetteville. Here is a brief review of events and circumstances surrounding the wastewater facility in the last calendar year. This is just a very brief, hopefully informative review, of that activity. We talked about what comes into the facility. Everybody is concerned about capacity and flow and those kinds of things so we will talk about that in a couple of different ways. This graph depicts the flow into the facility in million gallons per day. Over the last five years the average number of millions of gallons per day that we have received over that period of time. The design of those facilities is depicted up here at this line, 12.6 million gallons per day. You can see that this number varies fairly significantly. It isn't necessarily trending in a certain direction all the time. Variation here is due in large part to the amount of rainfall we receive, the conditions of the groundwater at the time we Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 4 receive that rainfall, the time of year it comes, various factors go into those issues. Flow is not always a very good indication of population that is being treated from or actual loading to the facility but it is one way to measure the flow and it is the most common way that people think of the capacity of the plant. Again, it is rated at 12.6 million gallons per day. We almost got there in 2001, 12.5. It was 11.95 in 2002, it is actually a little lower than that so far in 2003. That represents 95% of rated capacity. A different way to look at the loading to the facility would be the influent BOD, that stands for Biochemical Oxygen Demand. It is a way to measure the organic strength of the waste water as it accounts for the facility. This number has a much more steady rate of increase which much more closely reflects the population that's being served. Design loading up here at just over 25,000 pounds per day. We have not achieved that. Last year it was at 72% capacity, just for your information, in April of this year it was 75% capacity so we are running right in that same range. That is an indication however that the population base is increasing pretty steadily as time goes on. We know what comes into the plant, how do we measure what goes out of the plant. We have put here the four parameters that are most commonly referred to and thought of'. The red bars indicate the average permit value. We have a seasonal permit so that the limits are somewhat different, somewhat higher in the winter time than they are in the warmer months of the year. I have averaged those so you can see what the number would be for a look out on average per year. Then the blue bar indicates what we have actually discharged. In each case we are significantly less than what we would be permitted to by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality. The little blue line here indicates how much better we do than we would have to do and the percent of each of these various pollutants that is removed is indicated by the yellow line. Nearly, we are at 97% in every category and about 72% or 76% better than we would have to do. Another indication of the quality or influent would be how does it look. This is the receiving stream that we discharge into. From the right side of the screen is the flow from upstream of the White River. This photo was taken in October of last year. An indication of the flow coming from the plant from the left side of the screen, our flow is much more clear. It is also highly oxygenated and you can just barely see some little shadows down here which are a little school of fish. That is very common to find those fish swimming in our outfall. Their bigger cousins are hiding just underneath the shadow here. They are a little camera shy but they are always there. When the flow is not too high in the stream we always have this type of reaction from the aquatic life. How do we measure up with other facilities in the area? First I want to say that everybody in this area does a good job of treating waste water compared to many other places in the United States and in the state of Arkansas. Fayetteville, as compared to Prairie Grove, Rogers, and Springdale. On the issue of phosphorus, which is on a lot of people's Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 5 minds these days, especially in the Illinois River Watershed, it can be seen that Fayetteville over the last five years has really done its job in contributing a very small fraction of the total amount of phosphorous that goes into that watershed. It is almost exactly the same amount as Prairie Grove in pounds but with a flow that is about ten times higher. Fayetteville does a great job of treating for phosphorous and people should be justifiably proud of the environmental protection efforts of the City of Fayetteville. We have had some challenges over the last year, especially from the regulatory point of view, the EQ has taken a different stance on a couple of issues that have made life difficult for us. They have decided not to allow us to use plant affluent no the land application site because of a technicality in our permit where we have applied for a formal permit to allow that practice to go forward. It is going to greatly complicate things for us this summer if that does not improve but hopefully they will grant us that. They also decided that we were reporting our affluent BOD numbers at too low even though the numbers that we were reporting were real they decided that a limit of two milliliter or two parts per million would be the least we could report no matter if the water was perfectly clean. We were able to get that modified so we are able to report what we actually do produce, which gives us a great advantage, especially as it relates to the potential new plant on the west side since the treatment over there will have to be at a much higher level. What do the citizens of Fayetteville get from the Fayetteville Wastewater facility? Award winning performance. For the Planning Commissioners who toured last week you noticed that we won about every award that we could apply for over time. We wouldn't mind having a few more of those national instead of regional awards but we will take the regional. It is very, very good quality affluent. We do a good job of protecting water environment. It includes 97% removal of the pollutants that come in and 79% better than we would have to do. Already we have a more stringent permit than anybody else in the area and a rebate last year of almost $75,000. A brief pictorial view of the plant in the fall. There are some nice colors around. I always like to see the plants when the colors are there. It is a pleasant place to be most of the time. That is all I have. Hoover: Thank you Billy. Do we have any questions from the Commissioners or comments? Thank you again for the tour and the presentation. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 6 CUP 03-13.00: Conditional Use (Sequoyah United Methodist Church, pp 369) was submitted by Milholland Company Engineering & Surveying on behalf of the Sequoyah United Methodist Church for property located at 1910 Old Wire Road. The property is zoned R-1, Low Density Residential and contains approximately 7.64 acres. The request is for a 1080 square foot District Superintendent Office and an additional 22 parking spaces. Hoover: Item number one on the agenda is a Conditional Use for Sequoyah United Methodist Church submitted by Milholland Company Engineering & Surveying. Dawn, would you come to the podium and present this? Warrick: Sure. This is a Conditional Use request for an expansion of an existing facility. This is a church within an R-1, Low Density Residential zoning district. The subject property is the site of the Sequoyah United Methodist Church. The property is currently zoned R-1. In 1966 the property was rezoned from R -1A to P -1A a special church district. This was prior to our current zoning regulations which were adopted in 1970. At that point in time the property was zoned R-1. Additions over the years have resulted in a church facility of approximately 19,800 square feet. There is also a child daycare center, the Sequoyah Children's Garden, which operates from this site. The proposal at this time the applicant is proposing to add a new structure to the site. It is an office building containing 1,080 square feet which is proposed to serve as an office for the district superintendent. It would house two employees. Hours of operation for the office will be Monday through Friday 8:00 to 5:00 with an average of six patrons anticipated daily. Outdoor lighting is proposed to be minimal, only enough to provide security to the office building, the porch entry and then a small wall light at the backdoor. With this project the applicant is also requesting 22 additional parking spaces. That will serve the new building and supplement the parking provided for the existing facility. There are currently 157 parking spaces located on the site to serve the church. The church has a seating capacity of 250 persons and a total assembly area of 2,800 square feet. These numbers are important because that is what we use to calculate the parking requirements for this type of facility. The parking requirements for the facility is approximately 91 spaces. The office building would require an addition of four to five spaces. That is using a ratio of one per three hundred square feet. The request is approval of the Conditional Use Permit to allow the addition of the accessory office building and to allow the additional parking spaces. Staff is recommending in favor of this request with some conditions that are outlined in your staff report. Item one is Planning Commission determination of compliance with Commercial Design Standards. The applicant has supplied us with black and white elevations of all four sides of the proposed structure that should be in your packet. Staff will require that color elevations be submitted at Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 7 Hoover: Bainbridge: Hoover: Milholland: the time of building permit application. Planning Commission approval of the parking in excess of that permitted by code. Staff has calculated that excess of the difference between 179 spaces and 96. I believe that is 83 parking spaces. Item number three, a grading plan will be required prior to the issuance of a building permit. Item four, tree preservation plan will also be required prior to the issuance of a building permit. Item five, installation of a 6' sidewalk along Old Wire Road at the location of the Master Street Plan right of way for this minor arterial. Item six is an increased setback from the north property line to accommodate Code § 163.23 which requires a 50' setback between non-residential uses which are enclosed and fully air conditioned and adjacent residential properties. The applicant has complied with that by submitting a revised plan today in which the structure has been shifted further south to meet the 50' setback requirement. I have that in hand. I have got one copy that I can pass around for you. Item number seven is the installation of a 6' tall wood board privacy fence or a continuous planting of trees and shrubs to be approved by Planning staff to provide a screen between the proposed parking and building addition and the adjacent residences to the north. The applicant has also on this revised plan provided several trees and a row of shrubs in that area and with that there was a question with regard to the tree preservation. The applicant is proposing to mitigate with additional trees in this area. I am going to pass this plan around for you and I will ask that they address that in their presentation. With those conditions, staff is recommending in favor of the request and we do have signed conditions of approval from the applicant's representative. Thank you Dawn. Would the applicant come forward please and would you give a presentation and be sure to address the issues of the extra parking that you are requesting and also the tree mitigation. I am Reverend Bainbridge, I am the pastor of Sequoyah United Methodist Church and I will be here to help address the parking issue. Ok, thank you. Go ahead Mel. I didn't hear all of your request but let me say what Ms. Warrick has said. We concur with all of the conditions that she spoke of and item number six, like she said, we have concurred with that 50' setback and added additional parking spaces. We do respectfully request those additional items. Madam Chair, I'm sorry, I was going through the papers, what was your statement? Hoover: 1 wanted you to address the extra parking and the tree mitigation. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 8 Milholland: The extra parking was what we were told by the architect that the church would like to have in addition to the five spaces that are required for the district office. That is why the pastor is here tonight to address that issue. If I may let her come and address you on the need for that extra parking. Hoover: Will you address the tree mitigation I guess that Dawn just mentioned? Milholland: Some of the improvements, I understand that some of the parking improvements are actually under the limbs of some of those trees but only one tree is to come out. Whatever it took to mitigate that we would be happy to. Hoover: Thank you. Would the pastor come up? Bainbridge: I am Reverend Sara Bainbridge and I am the pastor of Sequoyah United Methodist Church. Many of you all know that churches don't operate parking spaces like businesses do. We run from 240 to 280 on a Sunday morning and you know, there are parking spaces at the 9:00 service and parking spaces at the 11:00 service but we have a combined Sunday school so at that point we have no parking available. We cannot really grow in numbers as a church until we get some extended parking. The church has been wanting to do this for several years and with the work of the district we would be able to do that. That is why we are requesting this additional parking. If you are running that many people on a Sunday morning you are out of parking spaces and we need more. Do you all have any questions? Hoover: We are going to take public comment first and then come back to that. Thank you though. I would like to take public comment now on CUP 03- 13.00 Sequoyah United Methodist Church. Is there any member of the audience that would like to address this? Yes Ma'am, would you come up? Be sure, there is a sign in sheet at the podium if you would be sure to sign that in so Renee will be sure to get your name spelled correctly. Sikes: Hi, my name is Angie Sikes and I am here on behalf of there are about five neighbors that this directly impacts on the north side. These trees that line our property kind of in an easement area if you will, it is kind of not clear to us what trees are going to be removed with this new addition to their property. These trees are significant trees. They are 50' or 60' trees. They are elms There are about 15 of them. It provides a lot of we can't see the property all the time. In the winter time obviously we can. There are a lot of birds and it is also a sound barrier for us. That seems to be, we can't really get a good answer on what is going to be removed but they are significant and we really would like some sort of reassurance that these trees are going to stay. Then also we are concerned with getting access. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 9 Our lots are fairly large, almost an acre, and we would like to have occasional access to the back. Right now you can do that. With their new proposed lawn area that is not going to be possible. They have worked with us in the past to let us have this access if we wanted to add an addition, add a pool or do any sort of work in the back. That is one of our concerns. They said that they were going to do landscaping, adding shrubbery. We have 6' fences right now and with the 50' view obviously that will do a lot but removing a tree and adding shrubbery is not going to do anything from our perspective in blocking what we have to see every day. We just wanted you all to be aware that we are here. There are four of us here right now that are concerned with this issue. Hoover: Thank you. Is there any other member of the audience? Yes Sir, would you come up here? Lee: My name is Gary Lee, I live at 1852 Old Wire Road, which is the property just south of Sequoyah Methodist Church. We have about an acre and a half there. We are concerned not only with the additional traffic but with the additional lighting. Right now at midnight you can read the newspaper in my living room from the church light. We have lived there about ten years and our family has owned that property since 1982. The other concern I have is if they rezone this to accommodate them there is about four acres across the street from me that is empty now and I am concerned with that remaining residential down the road because that is a residential neighborhood. That is all I have. Hoover: Ok, thank you. Is there any other member of the audience that would like to address this Conditional use? Seeing none, I will bring it back to the Planning Commission. Would the applicant come back to the podium please because I'm sure there are some questions. The first thing I would like clarification on is which trees are being removed? Just to let the public know, at agenda we did go on a tour and we saw the property and we know the trees that you are speaking of. Are there any trees that are being removed that you have shown on this plan? Bainbridge: I don't know of any trees that would be removed because we purposely put it to a place where there would be no tree removal. We are very cognizant of that. We want greenspace. Milholland: I am going to let Tom Jefcoat from my office speak. He indicated to me that there may be one tree that may be removed and I will let him discuss that at this time. Jefcoat: Yes, Tom Jefcoat with Milholland Company. You will notice that the existing overhang of the canopy is over the parking area so what we are Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 10 talking about is canopy overhang and according to the ordinance it says that the canopy, if construction occurs underneath the canopy it would have to be removed from the greenspace allotment, it could not be counted as your canopy. Therefore, it has to be mitigated for. The actual removal of trees along there, it does appear that one trunk of one tree would have to be removed. The others hopefully can be salvaged and will survive the paving and that is what we are hoping for. We are not going to intentionally take out any additional trees but we will mitigate for the canopy that we are not getting credited for. Hoover: But that is one tree? Jefcoat: Yes. Our canopy that we're mitigating for that falls inside the parking will account for ten additional trees so we will be providing ten additional trees. Hoover: Ok, ten new trees in replacement of that one tree. Jefcoat: Right. Not in replacement for the one tree but the total canopy that falls within the parking lot. Milholland: Item seven, I think this is what you are asking about. Item seven addresses it with a continuous planting of trees and shrubs installation to be approved by the Planning staff and we concurred with that so whatever the staff feels that we need to do is what we plan on doing. That is just to provide us green. Bainbridge: As the pastor I wanted to assure the people that live around there we want a beautiful place not only for our children to play but for the whole area because we are a neighborhood church. We will do everything to ensure that this is a beautiful spot and anything you all might need you all just come over and tell us and we will work with you, we will be more than happy to do that. We are a neighborhood, that's what we want. Anthes: Mr. Jefcoat, you just eluded to the fact that you were hoping that the trees would survive the parking being placed under them. Are you coming with your curb line so close to the trunks of these trees that you are fearful that they will indeed not survive? Jefcoat: Let's say that we are adding pavement underneath the canopy of the tree. Anthes: So let's say half of those came out during the course of this. Jefcoat: Anytime that you compact the soil underneath the canopy of the tree you have potential for those trees to suffer some damage, yes. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 11 Anthes: Jefcoat: Anthes: Jefcoat: Estes: Jefcoat: Bainbridge: Jefcoat: Estes: Bainbridge: Estes: Milholland: Bainbridge: Have you looked at reconfiguring your curb line to have a better chance of the survival of those trees based on these neighbors' concerns? We are not taking any significant trees out. These are small trees and they are not significant trees according to the ordinance so they could be removed for construction. We are strictly talking about aesthetics here. You are also talking about neighborhood concerns. We will make an effort to, we are trying to save those trees, yes. Mel, your plat note under trees says no significant trees located in construction area and we have learned this evening that will one tree will be taken out and, if so, which tree is that? Those trees were not picked off in the survey. You would have to know what trees are there because they are not significant trees. It is just shown as canopy. Actually it is scrub brush more than anything. That is why we put it on that side of the property rather than the other side. The other side of the property you would have to take out significant trees. This way it is really just scrub brush. There are trees there, yes but they are not classified as significant trees. With regard to the additional 22 parking spaces we have heard some explanation regarding with the addition of 1,080 square feet of office why we need 22 spaces. If I understand correctly those 22 spaces are not related to the 1,080 square feet that are additional spaces you need for parishioners, is that a fair statement? Yes Sir for Sunday morning. They would only be used probably on Sunday morning or you know, special times in the church. Mel, with regard to the addition of 22 spaces will there be any additional outdoor lighting and, if so, what type of outdoor lighting do you propose? I don't believe that any additional lighting is required. Again, may I say that the church will work with the neighborhood you know if we need lighting back there for security we will be happy to invite the neighborhood over. We want to work with the neighborhood and we will bend over backwards to do that. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 12 Estes: That is all I have. Allen: I would like to ask staff why if the existing parking greatly exceeds the maximum and more is being added why they would be for approval of that. Warrick: In this particular situation you are dealing with a lot that has frontage on a minor arterial street and no additional provision for overflow parking. If there are too many vehicles within this lot there is nowhere for them to go. There is no provision for parking along the street on Old Wire Road which would certainly be undesirable with regard to traffic flow. If there is truly that demand for parking spaces on the site they need to be accommodated on the site. Church: Just a question for the applicant. It sounds like there is already an existing problem and I guess I would just like to know where are people parking now when there is not a space? Bainbridge: I guess what they do is they leave. There is about a half an hour time span there where there is just no parking so people just drive around and leave. We are at the maximum of what we can do now with the parking that we have. Church: Thank you. Hoover: I have a question for staff. Historically are we granting churches additional parking exceeding the amount that we have in the U.D.O.? Warrick: We have looked at shared parking agreements as well as Conditional Uses for extra parking on church sites on a few different occasions. I can't say that on every single one we are looking at that. There is a provision within the ordinance now that allows for an applicant to provide 30% more parking than what the ordinance provides, also 30% less. That was an update to the ordinance not long ago. Hoover: 30% more would be something along 120 or 125 in this case. Warrick: I believe that our numbers on the chart on page one of your report represent the maximum permitted with the 30% overage. Allen: I would like to ask also about the structure that you are building. It seems like a lot of this could be avoided by locating it on another part of your land, just from my little drive out there with the Commission. I wondered Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 13 Bainbridge: Estes: Milholland: Bainbridge: Milholland: Bainbridge: Estes: Milholland: why another section of your property wasn't thought about moving it further away from the neighbors. One of the things is that there may be a time, there are fields back there where the kids play. There are soccer fields, it is used all the time for baseball and things like this. If we moved that over more to the center that would destroy all of that usage. There are a lot of kids from the neighborhood that go out there and use that. If we put it over the other side on the south side that would have torn down a lot of trees, which we did not want to do because it would destroy the greenspace over there plus I think making it further for utilities to go over there. We want a beautiful place. That is part of the church property that is just ugly quite frankly right now. It is not used, it is ugly and the improvements proposed would make it a beautiful piece of property with additional trees. The church members are already buying trees on their own to plant out there. They want a beautiful area. Mel, because we are required to make a finding regarding compliance with the commercial design standards and we have no color elevations and we have no building materials could you be as descriptive as possible and help us meet that finding? Could you tell us what this is going to look like, what are the materials? My understanding from the architect and maybe from the pastor, she might know, that the materials that are on the church presently will be duplicated. It will match the church. Yes, that was one of our conditions. As far as the parking, it will be just a continuation of the parking lot a short distance. With the turn around that this will provide this will actually provide better safety for our children's garden when the parents come pick up the children they can also use this to turn around and then go back out rather than going across the area where the children cross to go to the play area. Mel, what is the roof going to look like? We are at a real disadvantage here. The ordinance mandates that we make findings regarding the commercial design standards and we have no materials, we have no color elevations, are we going to have composite shingles? My understanding is of course, quite frankly, when I went and asked about what we had to do here I thought we need a Conditional Use and wasn't expecting those. The architect that is working on this project I do not have their plans with me. I was just told that it would portray the image that Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 14 you see on the existing church. As far as the roof, I do not have the materials for that right here. This item seven, let me look just a minute here. Estes: Item seven is the wood privacy fence. Milholland: The color rendered elevations would be required at the time of building permit and I thought I saw one here that related to, it is item one that this applies to commercial design standards. The architect would submit that to the staff my understanding is before the building permit. That was my understanding. Estes: Madam Chair, may I ask our City Attorney, is that permissible? May we defer a finding regarding commercial design standards to staff? Whitaker: I have to tell you that I have not heard of that before but I am not prepared to say definitively one way or the other. I can look at it for you but it would have to be at a later date. Warrick: Madam Chair, in your packets on page 1.12 there are black and white elevations with all four sides of the structure and there are materials called out with regard to the face brick. There are notes on that to match existing. Also, in staff's recommendation on item number one I stated that staff recommends that the brick chosen for the proposed addition match the existing facility in order to tie the two buildings together visually for a unified development of the site as well as the criteria for commercial design standards. You do have in your packet a visual piece of information with regard to the four sides of the structure as well as the roofline that is proposed. Hoover: Commissioner Estes, does that satisfy your needs? Estes: No it doesn't but it answers my question. Allen: I would like to ask the minister if you have met with these concerned neighbors. Bainbridge: No, quite frankly we didn't even know there were any concerned neighbors. Nobody has come to the church. Some people I guess have come but that wasn't passed onto me. I would be more than happy to meet with them, heavens yes. That would be no problem at all. I think somebody came over to ask if we were going to build a huge big development I said heaven's no. We are just doing this one thing. In fact, if you would like to sit down and talk before stuff is done we would be happy to do that, no problem. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 15 Hoover: Commissioners, are there any other questions or comments? Shackelford: A question of staff. Dawn, this property is zoned R-1 with a church, is that typical in the City of Fayetteville? Are churches typically in a R-1 zoning? Warrick: We have many churches that are located in residential districts and we see them through this Conditional Use process typically. Shackelford: Do we see churches in P-1 zoning as well? Warrick: We do. It is not as common but we do. Shackelford: Are there any differences, I am going towards the parking issue that we have been discussing. Is there any difference in parking as far as the number of spaces that are allowed between the different types of zonings? Warrick: No, the parking ratios are based on the use of the property and not on the zoning. Shackelford: Ok, so these requirements that you have listed for us are actually directed towards churches is that correct? Warrick: That is correct. The Conditional Use is required because this is a use not permitted in a residential district and you are seeing it because it is something that is deemed appropriate if you choose to place conditions on it that would keep it in keeping with the character of the neighborhood and not having a detrimental impact on adjoining properties. Those are the reasons that the Planning Commission would look at a Conditional Use application as opposed to a use by right. Shackelford: Our ordinance doesn't take into account the size of the site but just strictly the size of the building and the number of seats that are available in the building? Warrick: That is correct. The parking ratio for a church depends upon the seating capacity of the main auditorium space and one parking space would be required per four seats or one space per 40 square feet of that space, whichever allows for the greater number of parking spaces. The addition in this particular application is for an office building. The parking requirement for an office structure is one parking space per 300 square feet. Shackelford: Thank you very much. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 16 Allen: Bainbridge: Allen: Estes: Allen: Hoover: Estes: Hoover: Shackelford: Hoover: Anthes: Hoover: I know this will be unpopular but because of the concerns about the commercial design and the trees and the positioning of the building on the lot and the neighbors' concerns I am going to move that we table this item and give them the opportunity to meet with the neighbors and see if it might be possible to reposition the building slightly on the lot. I think that has already been done. 1 know it was positioned but according to my drawing it seems ever so slightly. Anyhow, that is my motion. Does the motion also provide for a presentation with colored elevations and a material board? Yes it does. Would you be seconding that? I will second that motion. Thank you Commissioner Estes. Is there any more discussion from the Planning Commission about tabling? I won't vote for the motion to table. I understand the comments. It sounds like we have a few issues to look at. I am in disagreement with the concern about our current drawings. As condition number one is read it looks like we would be requiring colors and anything we learn from that side to match what is existing with the church. I feel that we can make with the elevations in hand a determination of whether or not this is a square box like structure and some of the other things we are used to looking at on commercial design standards. I would like to see this move forward and will not be voting to table. Thank you Commissioner. Is there any other discussion? Commissioner Anthes? I have one comment about the additional parking spaces that are needed in order to comply with the new structure. I would submit that they are not additional spaces needed to add to the existing lot as the existing lot already contains almost the double amount of required spaces for the existing building. I would also like to make a comment about the additional parking. This seems to be an issue that comes up often. I would like to be consistent Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 17 with all churches and all development and I can't remember one where we have given additional parking to a church. We do do shared parking agreements which is different than adding more concrete surface area. Just to weigh in on that. Are there any other comments from Commissioners before we take the vote? Shackelford: Again, I hate to be disagreeing. This is a unique situation. I drove out this afternoon and looked at this property. There is not a lot of opportunity for shared parking given the location of this property. The fact that our ordinance does not take into consideration the actual site size. If you put a 200 seat church on 1/3 of an acre parking is going to be significantly more of a problem than if you put a 200 seat church on three acres. In a situation like this where there are no other opportunities for shared service or off site parking, street parking and that sort of thing, I would encourage the Planning Commission to reconsider that position on parking. Thank you. Hoover: Are there any other comments? Vaught: I agree with Commissioner Shackelford on the commercial design issue and also on the idea of repositioning. It is my understanding that this meets the requirement of a 50' setback now. I would also like to preserve the open space for kids and for the uses that they have because I think that is just as important as long as mitigation is adequate along that side and it can be agreed with the residents neighboring that. I think it is a reasonable request. Thank you. Ostner: I would agree with my fellow Commissioner here that the building has been moved and does meet the rule. However, it is the parking lot being at the absolute maximum to the north that endangers the trees which you all have admitted. If the parking lot were 20' to the south that hedge row which you all like and the neighbors like would be out of danger. That is all I am talking about. About moving it not 150' to disrupt the ball fields or 1,000' to the south. Bainbridge: May I address that please? We do have a state certified daycare and there has to be a playground with certain dimensions and certain ways. If we move that over that far we have a cement basketball goal for the neighborhood kids out there and that would remove, there would be no room then for the kids playground as the state requires. We looked at that very closely and we tried to work it out. We are going to plant trees. We are not going to let anything happen to that area. We are just not. Ostner: Is the playground on this drawing? Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 18 Bainbridge: Hoover: Ostner: Milholland: Bainbridge: Hoover: Whitaker: Hoover: What you are seeing there is the cement basketball court. The playground itself, you can see I guess with the little things, they are moving the way the playground exists right now and they are putting in a whole new playground. Commissioner Ostner, does that answer your question? Not really. If you are putting in a whole new playground then I am just wondering why it can't be 15' further to the south anyway which would avoid the risk to the trees. If you shift the parking it would not line up with existing parking. Continuity in traffic patterns are important. Even from your perspective, if you shift it south if you are coming over from the north side you would have to shift over and turn back in. Now it goes straight on through. As far as those trees or the shrubs and stuff along the north side, we are not taking any of them out. It is obvious that underneath the canopy of some of them we are putting parking in but we are also mitigating all of that canopy in addition to trying to save the canopy that is there. To guarantee that it will not die, I don't think anybody with any sense would do that. What we will do is mitigate whatever canopy we have there. We have the building setback to meet the standard requirements. To go off in another part of the parking lot for that area to the back is going to divide the part of the playground area back there with a driveway going right through the middle of it. From an engineering standpoint I am thinking that this is the best location to put it. It does line up with existing parking. And for the safety of our children and the children's garden also. Thank you. Is there anymore discussion? Madam Chair, just a point of parliamentary order, a motion to table is not debatable so all that being said, the motion before the Commission is to table. Thank you for clarifying that. Can we call the roll now? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to table CUP 03-13.00 was approved by a vote of 5-4-0 with Commissioners Vaught, Church, Shackelford, and Anthes voting no. Thomas: Milholland: The motion carries five to four. Now may I ask what we are instructed to do? Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 19 Estes: Hoover: Bainbridge: Hoover: Shackelford: Warrick: Shackelford: Warrick: Shackelford: Bring us some color elevations and a material board. We cannot make either a positive or a negative finding of fact regarding commercial design standards if we don't have the evidence before us upon which to base that decision. Bring us a material board and bring us color drawings, colored elevations. May I add if you would meet with the neighbors before coming back and also have a plan that clearly shows what trees, sounding like if you can keep all of the trees, that it clearly shows the tree preservation plan. One thing, we would definitely have met with the neighbors had we realized. We truly did not know there was a concern. Thank you. I want a clarification before we move on. Dawn, it was mentioned here a specific finding of trees associated with the tree preservation act. My understanding the trees that we are talking about, the endangerment of these trees on the north property line, my understanding was these are scrub brush either by species or size, they are not defined as part of the canopy in the tree preservation? That is information from the applicant's representative. My understanding is that the trees have been identified as canopy on the site. However, have not been individually identified as would be required if they were classified as a significant tree. Ok, so we are asking the applicant to make a finding of fact specifically to what trees are going to be removed. Should we be doing that if these trees are not defined and protected under the tree preservation act? If that is the desire of the Planning Commission for the Conditional Use I think you can ask for that. Thank you very much. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 20 RZN 03-16.00: Rezoning (Lindsey, pp 136) was submitted by Jerry Kelso, P.E. of Crafton, Tull & Associates, Inc. on behalf of Lindsey Management for property located at SW corner of Zion Road and Vantage Drive. The property is zoned R-2, Medium Density Residential and contains approximately 3.0 acres. The request is to rezone to R- 0, Residential Office. Hoover: Moving on to item number two, RZN 03-16.00 for the property at the southwest corner of Zion Road and Vantage Drive. Dawn? Warrick: The subject property is located at the southwest corner of Vantage Drive and Zion Road and contains approximately three acres. There are currently three single-family homes located on this property. It is divided into three lots. Currently each tract contains five acres and the southern portion of the property, the southern 12 acres of the site is proposed to be adjusted onto property which is further south and is proposed to become part of the future multi -family residential development. The current request is for rezoning the property. There are no development proposals for this project right now. As I said, the request is to rezone the tract from R-2, Medium Density Residential to R -O, Residential Office. With regard to findings of fact that are required on a rezoning, the future land use plan, the General Plan 2020 designates this area as residential. Therefore, the rezoning request to Residential Office is not specifically consistent with that plan. We have seen properties in the past that have made similar requests to have a Residential Office designation in an area that is classified on the future land use plan as residential. I feel that those types of requests have been in different circumstances at areas that are more visible to thoroughfares or at intersections or nodes of higher traveled streets. This particular property is planked by residential as well as agricultural properties. Staff is not in favor of this rezoning request. Hoover: Thank you Dawn. Would the applicant come forward? Kelso: Good evening, I am Jerry Kelso with Crafton, Tull & Associates. I am representing the owners out there. This property is directly off of Zion Road and directly to the west of this property is R -O so we do feel like it is consistent with existing land uses out there because there is a lot of Residential Office and Commercial on through there. If you recall, a couple of Planning Commission meetings ago we got a Conditional Use on about ten acres that is directly southwest of this piece of property. With that of course we were limited to 18 units per acre on that, R-2 is 24 units per acre. With rezoning that we feel like we have decreased the traffic quite a bit and helped that situation there as far as that. By doing that, we are thinking that this may be kind of a tradeoff or flip flop because this is just three acres we are talking about going from R-2 to R- Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 21 O. With that, we respectfully ask you to consider rezoning this from R-2 to R -O. Thank you. Hoover: Thank you Jerry. Is there any member of the audience that would like to address this RZN 03-16.00, Zion Road and Vantage Drive? Jones: My name is Jamie Jones. I live on the north side of Zion Road just to the east of this tract of land. My main concern about this request is I don't want to see anything that will open up the possibility for there to be more commercial activity along Zion Road. I have been living where I live now since 1966 and my neighbor to the west has been living there longer than I have. I am just afraid that if we have a request like this granted that it would just open the door to more commercial types of enterprises. Thank you. Hoover: Thank you Mr. Jones. Is there any other member of the audience that would like to address this rezoning? Seeing none, I will bring it back to the Planning Commission for comments or discussion. Estes: I guess I would like to have a dialogue with staff. I am a little confused. Vantage Road on the east is proposed to connect with Zion and then to the west of Zion we have commercial but yet staff's findings are that the proposed zoning is not specifically consistent with land use planning objectives and I see the word specifically which causes me to stop and think about that. The second finding is that the proposed rezoning is not justified or needed. The third finding is development of this property with office uses would create an increase in traffic activity and then the police finding is that it is the opinion of the Fayetteville Police Department that we must determine a determination affirming this proposal would increase an appreciable increase in traffic danger and traffic congestion. What is going to happen when Vantage Road is completed and connects with Zion? We are only going to have three north/south connectors, 71, Vantage, well I guess we are going to have four, Mission, Old Wire, and then 265. Can you speak to any of that? Warrick: Sure. With regard to the comment about development of the property for office uses, that was based on the applicant's written description of the request. Basically speculating that an office development on the site would be the future development potential with the rezoning. The current zoning of the property under the R-2 designation allows the applicant to come to the Planning Commission with a request for a Conditional Use for a residential or professional type office. Under Use Unit 25 that is a Conditional Use allowance in the R-2 zoning district. Another option for this three acres at the time of development would be to process a Planned Zoning District. Both of those two options would allow the Planning Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 22 Commission, and in the case of the Planned Zoning District, the City Council some understanding and ability to control the type of development that is proposed for the site. A straight rezoning to the R -O designation would not. That would be a use by right and it would come before you only as a Large Scale Development if it was not broken out into smaller lots. There is some flexibility with regard to the Planning Commission's authority with the zoning being retained in the R-2 designation. You mentioned the comments from the Police Department, there is concern with regard to increased traffic and development potential of the site with the current conditions on Zion Road. Those concerns were voiced by the Police Department and I believe I attached that letter with your packet of information on page 2.7. Obviously, when, and if, the development proposal came forward we would be looking at improvements and access issues so some of that would be able to be addressed at that point in time. Without understanding more about what the project would entail that is purely speculative. Those types of things were considerations when staff formulated this recommendation. Also, just with regard to the comment earlier, a portion of the property south of this was designated Residential Office and did come before you recently for a Conditional Use approval for multi -family. This is the exact opposite type request but it does demonstrate that there are existing vacant Residential Office developments that are being proposed to be developed under multi -family type densities. This is a site that could, by right, right now be developed with multi- family densities. Estes: If I hear what you are saying staff's real issue is that you would like to see this as a PZD instead of a straight rezoning, is that right? Warrick: I think that would be appropriate, yes. Estes: Let me ask this. When Vantage Road is completed and connects Joyce with Zion are there any plans to improve Zion? Zion just cannot handle the traffic. You are going to have a traffic flow from Joyce to Vantage to Zion, from Zion back to College. Where are we on improvements to Zion? Warrick: I don't believe that is designated as a CIP project right now. It would be dependent upon a development proposal and what kind of impact that particular development would have with regard to traffic generation on those streets that would be impacted. I believe that that is something significant that we will have to address Estes: In conclusion, staff would like to see a PZD instead of a RZN, is that fair? Warrick: Yes, that is fair. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 23 Estes: Hoover: Ostner: Hoover: Whitaker: Shackelford: Whitaker: Hoover: Thank you. Thank you Commissioner Estes. Are there any other discussion items? Historically, not just historically but as a tool of zoning, R -O has been a good buffer between straight commercial and residential. It is commercial but it is a lower impact. This seems to me to be growing the buffer. I don't think I am in favor of this rezoning. Especially since, as Dawn clarifies, there are other avenues to go about another development. Thank you Commissioner Ostner. Are there any other comments? Are there any motions? There must be more discussion then. I will call three times for a motion. I will call for a motion. I am calling for a motion the second time. Seeing none, I will call for a motion the third time. Seeing none, the rezoning fails because there is no motion. There is no motion. The agenda item is just dead for want of a motion. As somebody that is nowhere near an expert at parliamentary procedure, what does this do in regards to a right to appeal or a right to rehear when something dies for lack of a motion, can I get some clarification on that please? Normally it falls under, it gets rather speculative, but it falls under much the same category as what we refer to as tabling something to death. Basically when a body refuses to hear an item or refuses to give someone a person. That could be an argument to take to the next level as an appeal to say there is no point in me getting on this agenda, these folks won't do it. I think obviously beyond the purely legal answer there is certainly a right to ask this body for a rehearing certainly you can submit a changed item or submit an item that is materially different, which is the phrase we use for when we have rejection. At this point I think it is treated as if it was a denial. I think the strong argument is to either resubmit and request a rehearing or ask for an appeal. Thank you for the clarification. Did you understand that Jerry? Kelso: I think so. That is why I came up here so I could understand it. Thank you. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 24 LSP 03- 37.00: Lot Split (Scott Miller, pp 562) was submitted by Scott Miller on behalf of Gene Barbee for property located at 729 and 815 S. School. The property is zoned C-2 and contains approximately 1.20 acres. The request is to split the property into two tracts of.45 and .75 acres. Hoover: We will move onto item number three, LSP 03-37.00 for the property at 729 and 815 S. School. Dawn? Warrick: This request is to split the subject property into two tracts containing 0.45 acres and 0.75 acres. There are mixed commercial uses surrounding this property with an industrial designation to the west, which is to the rear of the property. The applicant is showing on their plan. A right of way designation of 55' from centerline for S. School Avenue, which is the required dedication for this principal arterial street. The applicant does propose to dedicate the required right of way except where it encroaches an existing structure, which is why the Planning Commission is asked to hear this request. Typically, the Subdivision Committee has the authority to approve a Lot Split. However, this is a lesser dedication of right of way. The applicant is showing on their plan a right of way dedication of 55' from centerline for S. School Avenue, which is the required dedication for this principal arterial street. The applicant does propose to dedicate the required right of way except where it encroaches an existing structure, which is why the Planning Commission is asked to hear this request. Typically the Subdivision Committee has the authority to approve a lot split. However, this is a lesser dedication of right of way which is required by the Master Street Plan and in this instance the Planning Commission is asked to make a recommendation to the City Council which is where this lesser dedication must ultimately be determined. Staff is recommending in favor of the request. Hoover: Thank you Dawn. Would the applicant come forward? Miller: Hello, my name is Scott Miller. This is pretty straight forward. It is a Lot Split. We just have two properties that are together and I am attempting to purchase one of those buildings. We are just looking for a Lot Split. Hoover: At this time can I ask if there is any member of the audience that would like to address LSP 03-37.00 at 729 and 815 S. School? Seeing no member of the public I will bring it back to the Commission for discussion. MOTION: Estes: I would move for approval of LSP 03-37.00. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 25 Hoover: I have a motion by Commissioner Estes. Bunch: I will second. Hoover: There is a second by Commissioner Bunch. Is there any other discussion? Seeing none, Renee, would you call the roll please? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to approve LSP 03-37.00 was approved by a vote of 9-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries nine to zero. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 26 PPL 02-7.10: Preliminary Plat (Legacy Point, pp 435/474) was submitted by Jorgensen and Associates on behalf of Charles Sloan Properties, Inc. for property located east of Double Springs Road and south of Owl Creek. The property is zoned R-1, Low Density Residential and RM -6, Low Density Multi -family Residential and contains approximately 49.80 acres with 132 lots proposed. Hoover: Item number four is a Preliminary Plat for Legacy Point submitted by Jorgensen & Associates. Dawn, will you tell us about this one? Warrick: This is a Preliminary Plat for a residential subdivision containing 49.8 acres with 132 single-family residential lots proposed. The zoning on the property is R-1, Low Density Residential and RMF -6, which is multi- family residential at low density. The Planning Commission did approve a Preliminary Plat for this development on March 25, 2002. At that time the development contained only one phase. Construction has begun on the subdivision and the developer would like to process Final Plats for three phases as the development is completed. The revised Preliminary Plat reflects proposed phase lines. No other modifications have been made to the previously approved Preliminary Plat with this request. Staff is recommending in favor of this proposal with nine conditions and I will read those. 1) All of the original conditions of the March 21, 2002 staff report shall remain in effect. 2) Staff would like to modify slightly by stating one temporary cul-de-sac shall be constructed prior to final plat approval of Phase I. The cul-de-sac shall be located at the end of Milliken Bend. This is recommended in order to accommodate emergency and service vehicles. 3) The right-of-way for Persimmon for all phases shall be dedicated with the final plat for Phase I. 4) The required street and drainage improvements for Double Springs Road shall be constructed with Phase I. 5) The detention pond shall be constructed with Phase I. Items six through nine are standard conditions of approval. I do have signed conditions on this item. Hoover: Thank you Dawn. Would the applicant come forward? Brackett: Hello, I am Chris Brackett, I am with Jorgensen & Associates. I am here representing the owner tonight. As Dawn said, back in March, 2002 we got approval for this subdivision, we began construction, and through the bidding process and as the numbers crunched out it was determined that really we needed to split this as far as the financial part of it, getting the money from the bank and that is what is before you now. Hoover: Thank you. I would like to ask if there are any members of the audience that would like to address this PPL 02-7.10? Seeing none, I will bring it back to the Commissioners for discussion. Can I have a Subdivision report? Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 27 Bunch: Hoover: Shackelford: Warrick: Casey: Shackelford: Estes: Casey: Estes: Casey: Hoover: MOTION: Shackelford: I think this one was pretty much as stated. It was straight forward and it was basically just phasing is the only difference from what we seen and then accommodating those cul-de-sacs for emergency vehicles. Thank you. Is there any discussion? Dawn, the conditions of approval originally read that a second cul-de-sac should be located at the end of Persimmon Street. I noticed that you struck that as you read them. What specific change has been made in that area? I am going to let Matt Casey address that. We originally recommended that a cul-de-sac be constructed at Persimmon also but the construction of that portion of Persimmon is already under way. We feel like by the time the houses are constructed that portion will already be complete and you will be seeing the Phase II Final Plat as well. Thank you very much. Matthew, I have a question. In conditions of approval number two the second sentence reads "and the second shall be located at the end of Persimmon Street." Do we need to strike that or does that need to stay as a condition of approval? The second cul-de-sac needs to be removed all together. We are just asking for the one temporary cul-de-sac. Take a look at that if you would. It is condition of approval number two, second sentence. "The first cul-de-sac shall be located at the end of Milliken Bend and the second shall be located at the end of Persimmon Street." Should that sentence just end with Milliken Bend? Yes Sir. We also need to strike the first. It should just read "The cul-de- sac shall be located at the end of Milliken Bend." Thank you. Is there any other discussion? I will make a motion that we approve PPL 02-7.10 with condition of approval number two to state as Dawn read in. "One cul-de-sac shall be constructed prior to Final Plat approval of Phase I. The cul-de-sac shall be located at the end of Milliken Bend." Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 28 Hoover: Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Shackelford. Estes: I will second. Hoover: There is a second by Commissioner Estes. Is there anymore discussion? Seeing none, would you call the roll Renee? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to approve PPL 02-7.10 was approved by a vote of 9-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries by a vote of nine to zero. Hoover: Thank you. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 29 LSD 03-25.00: Large Scale Development (O'Charley's, pp 212) was submitted by Edwards and Hotchkiss Architects on behalf of O'Charley's, Inc. for property located at the northeast corner of Steele Boulevard and Shiloh Drive. The property is zoned C-2, Thoroughfare Commercial and contains approximately 1.27 acres with a 6413 square foot restaurant with 76 total parking spaces proposed with 76 total parking spaces. Hoover: Item number five is a LSD 03-25.00 for O'Charley's. Dawn? Warrick: This is a proposal for a 6,413 square foot restaurant, 76 parking spaces. Surrounding land uses include the Target Store, other retail shops to the south Shiloh Drive and Hwy. 71. To the east retail and parking and to the west a vacant C-1, Neighborhood Commercial zoned area. Water and sewer are available to the site. There are no existing trees on the site. Staff is recommending in favor of the project with nine recommended conditions. 1) Applicant shall be required to provide a drainage report showing that the development is in compliance with all of the requirements of the approved storm water plan for CMN Business Park. 2) All utility equipment must be screened in accordance with §166.14. 3) Adherence to the Lighting Standards as noted in §161.21. That includes the parking lot lighting which is not to exceed 35 feet in height and shall utilize sodium lighting fixtures. 4) The applicant has proposed a green LED accent lighting band detail on the building. Staff recommends this detail be consistent on all four sides of the structure. 5) Planning Commission determination of compliance with Commercial Design Standards and Design Overlay Regulations. We had originally recommended that the freezer cooler units at the rear of the structure, which is the north elevation, be painted in order to be consistent with other development projects that have been approved in this area and to address some Planning Commissioner comments from the tour we have spoken with the applicant and we will recommend that the screening around the freezer cooler unit be masonry to be consistent with the materials on the structure and to continue the accents of the split face and brick that surround the building. Revised elevations pursuant to these requests shall be required. Other conditions are standard. Hoover: Thank you Dawn. Would the applicant come forward? Malloy: Good evening, my name is Steve Mallow, I am with Edwards and Hotchkiss Architects, I am here to represent O'Charley's. Just to add a little bit more. We are getting close to the 200th store for the O'Charley's chain. Their food is a variety, they tend to say it is American. Restaurant size is 6,273 square feet, 267 seats. I have read through the recommendations by the staff. O'Charley's agrees with them. I would like to point out for items four and five O'Charley's will add the LAD accent band all around all four sides and then in addition on item number five with freezer coolers they have also agreed to continue the same building Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 30 materials, which will be CMU along the bottom and then brick above that. That will be consistent. I am here for any questions. Hoover: Thank you very much. Is there any member of the audience that would like to address this LSD 03-25.00, O'Charley's? Seeing none, I will bring it back to the Commission for comments. Estes: The lighting band that you just described, can you show us where that is and is it static or is it animated? Malloy: It is static. We have got it shown on the elevations shown here running along the top of the parapet, it comes across there and runs along. It is not on the actual pilasters themselves but it appears between each one and consistently around the building. Hoover: Commissioner Ostner, a report from Subdivision before I forget. You can do that one. Ostner: I could, but did I miss part of this? I don't recall anything other than the LAD questions and the cooler really, which they talked about. I didn't take notes, I didn't know I was going to have a quiz. My question is for staff. Item number four says that the applicant proposed the green accent on the front and you all requested that it go all the way around. Why is that? What is the reasoning? Warrick: They had originally proposed it on the front and then voiced a desire to have it on three sides of the structure and staff's interpretation or recommendation with regard to that is that it go ahead and circle the entire structure so that we don't have one side that is treated differently. All four sides of the structure are quite visible and we felt that having the accent light all the way around the structure would be consistent. It is not a real distracting element I don't think. It is pretty subtle and it really does accent that portion of the structure. We didn't feel that three sides would be desirable. We wanted to go ahead and circle the entire structure. Hoover: Are there any other comments? Allen: Sir, I wondered if you could describe briefly for us your plans for landscaping. Malloy: Did we or did we not submit a landscaping drawing? Have you been able to see any of this? Allen: Yes, I have but I thought there would be interested parties that haven't and maybe you could just briefly describe that for us please. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 31 Malloy: Allen: Hoover: MOTION: Church: Hoover: Ostner: Hoover: Shackelford: Hoover: Church: Hoover: Ostner: Anthes: Warrick: I will do my best I think visually the plans are going to probably describe it as best we can. We have got trees along the sides with some smaller shrubs. I am not going to get into all of this. That is the actual plant schedule which will tell you what each one is. You can see we have got a lot of landscaping all around the building. We've got the building, pavement, sidewalk and any of the greenspaces have been landscaped with shrubbery and that sort of thing. Is that detailed enough? You did well. Thank you. Is there any other discussion or motions? I would like to move for approval of LSD 03-25.00. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Church. I will second it. And a second by Commissioner Ostner. Is there any other discussion about O'Charley's? Just a real quick question. Conditions of approval numbers four and five had staff recommendations. Should we approve those with the recommendation language in there or should we make that part of the condition of approval? Was the motion with it as written in the conditions? I would say yes. To the second was that agreeable with you? Yes. The way this is written it recommends the freezer cooler be better incorporated. I don't think that is very good language probably for the document and we should probably strike that and change it to the masonry to match the rest of the building. I might be able to help. If we change the word painting to materials I think that that might achieve the desire of staff and hopefully the Commission. That would read "Staff recommends the proposed freezer cooler structures on the north side of the building be better incorporated into the overall building structure with materials that coordinate with the Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 32 different materials and colors." Maybe we should say with masonry. How about that? I think that keeps it to be consistent with the structure and that is the whole point. That is staff's desire. Hoover: You see in item number four we are ok with the way that that is stated. Our motion, Commissioner Church, is that ok with you? Church: Yes. Hoover: Our second, Commissioner Ostner? Ostner: Yes. Hoover: Thank you, we are all clear now. Is there anymore discussion? Seeing none, I will call the roll. Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to approve LSD 03-25.00 was approved by a vote of 9-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries by a vote of nine to zero. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 33 R-PZD 03-3.00: Planned Zoning District (North College Development Company, pp 485) was submitted by Richard Alexander on behalf of North College Development Company for property located at 313 E. Lafayette, 321 E. Lafayette, 346 N. Willow, 354 N. Willow, and 310 Sutton. The property is zoned R-1, Low Density Residential and contains approximately 2.15 acres. The request is for a Residential Planned Zoning District for the conversion of the St. Joseph's Catholic Church buildings into 39 residential units (63 bedrooms) with 64 parking spaces. The uses of the existing duplex on Willow Street and the existing single family home on Sutton Street are proposed to remain unchanged. Hoover: Item number six is the Planned Zoning District for the St. Joseph's Catholic Church buildings, R-PZD 03-3.00. Dawn, are you presenting this? Warrick: The subject property is located on the south side of Lafayette Street between Willow and Walnut Avenue in the Washington Willow Historic District. A small portion of the overall property does adjoin Sutton Street to the south. The property contains a total of 2.15 acres and is currently owned by the Catholic Diesis of Little Rock. Until recently, and since 1872, the site was used as a school, church, administrative offices, and for residential living spaces. The subject property, and all adjoining lots, are zoned R-1, Low Density Residential. There are several existing structures and uses on the property. The most recent uses of the property included administrative and support services, an elementary school, a church, a duplex, and a single-family home. Accessory to the school is an overflow parking lot and playground area. This proposal is for an infill project designed to utilize the existing structures and infrastructure and to convert the school, church, and administrative uses on the site into multi -family dwellings. The existing single-family home and duplex are proposed to be renovated and to remain. There are currently several lots, or parts of lots combined, that make up the overall property. Those tracts are proposed to be reconfigured in this process to provide individual lots for each structure and to create a new lot containing approximately 0.18 acres to be dedicated to the city for parkland requirements. The existing 64 parking spaces on the site are proposed to be improved with additional landscaping approximately 24 trees are proposed to be added in this area. No changes are proposed to the structures beyond the existing walls of the buildings. However, some windows are likely to be incorporated to provide light and air for the proposed residential units. In your packet there is a detailed description of the project provided by the applicant. The request is for Planning Commission and City Council approval of a R-PZD, a Residential Planned Zoning District, for this project, which the applicant is calling the Lafayette Loft Apartments. As I mentioned previously, the surrounding land use and zoning is single-family residential in a R-1 district. With regard to infrastructure, access to the property is served by Lafayette Street and Willow with a one way drive between Willow and Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 34 Walnut. Sutton Street adjoins the property to the south and that is adjacent to the single-family home lot. Lafayette Street is designated as a historic collector on the city's adopted Master Street Plan. Water and sewer are both available and currently serve the site. The applicant proposes to utilize existing on site parking for the new multi -family dwellings. As I mentioned, that parking lot contains 64 parking spaces. There are proposed 63 bedrooms for this development. The city's ordinance requirement for parking for multi -family is one space per bedroom. Therefore, it does comply with that. With regard to tree preservation, no changes to the existing canopy on the site are proposed. As I mentioned before, additional trees will be added. With regard to density, under this proposal the total site density would be 19.27 units per acre. As the Planning Commission requested, a calculation with regard to the multi- family lots only taking out the park land area and the single-family and duplex structures, that density for multi -family lots only would be 23.64 units per acre. With regard specifically to the parkland dedication requirements, the project is subject to parkland dedication or fees in lieu of a land dedication pursuant to §166.03. The applicant has agreed to dedicate tract 6, which contains 0.18 acres. This dedication does not meet the required amount of dedication for the project. The Parks and Recreation Advisory Board has recommended that the balance of the amount be paid as a fee in lieu in the amount of $11,331.25. The developer did appeal this assessment to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board under the provision of the ordinance at a meeting of the Parks and Rec. Board on May 5th. The Board affirmed its recommendation for a combination of land dedication and fees in lieu. When there is a difference in opinion with regard to a recommendation coming from the Parks Board and a request coming from the applicant it is the Planning Commission's responsibility to determine the appropriate resolution to this. The Planning Commission is asked to decide whether or not the applicant's proposal is adequate to serve this development or whether the Parks and Rec. Advisory Board's recommendation for a combination of land and fees is desired. With regard to public comments, some additional information was distributed this evening and should be at your places. Staff has included with this report minutes from several public hearings at which the item was discussed. Also included is a petition in opposition to the project, which was circulated by a neighbor on Walnut Street. We have not, staff has requested but has not received, any comments from the neighborhood association with regard to this request. Our recommendation is to forward to the City Council with a recommendation for approval of the requested rezoning and for Planning Commission approval of the proposed development subject to the following conditions. Staff has recommended seventeen conditions. I will read those for you. 1) Planning Commission determination of waiver request regarding the PRAB recommendation for a combination of parkland dedication and money in lieu to satisfy the requirements of §166.03(K)(c). 2) Planning Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 35 Commission determination of waiver of required landscaping adjacent to existing parking lot adjacent to the Walnut Ave. right of way. The requirement is for a 15' landscaped setback for the parking lot. With a dedication to accommodate the master street plan and the existing configuration of this parking, provision of this landscaped area would require the removal of 3 existing parking spaces. 3) Planning Commission consideration of a lesser dedication of right of way along Sutton Ave. The property adjoins Sutton Ave. for a distance of 60.00 feet. The existing right of way is 21.99' from centerline. The requirement is for 25' from centerline for a residential street. The request is to reduce the amount of dedication by 3.01' to allow the existing right of way to remain. Staff is in support of this request — City Council must approve a lesser dedication of right of way. 4) Planning Commission recommendation to the City Council regarding the rezoning of the subject property to the unique district for R-PZD 03-3.00 with all conditions of approval as determined by the Planning Commission. 5) Bollards or a similar vehicular barricade shall be installed to prevent uncontrolled vehicular access to tract 6 (parkland dedication) through the existing curb cut and driveway from Willow Ave. 6) Any additional utility meters or equipment will be required to be screened from the street. 7) An ordinance creating this R- PZD shall be approved by City Council. 8) Covenants shall be filed which provide for maintenance of parking areas and greenspace. 9) A shared access and parking easement shall be shown on the concurrent plat document to be filed which allows for access and parking throughout the site for each building. 10) A masonry screen wall shall be installed along the south side of the property as indicated on the development plan. 11) All signage proposed on site shall comply with Chapter 174, Signs of the Unified Development Ordinance and shall be permitted accordingly. 12) The development plan shall be shown with the lot split survey, to be titled concurrent plat in order to have a final plat document reflecting the project as well as the lot configurations. This document shall contain the necessary legal descriptions and required signature blocks for filing. 13) Parks fees shall be paid and parks land dedicated (as determined by the Planning Commission) prior to building permit. 14) Required access and parking easements and covenants shall be filed with concurrent plat. 15) Plat Review and Subdivision comments (to include written staff comments provided to the applicant or his representative, and all comments from utility representatives. 16) 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 City's current requirements. 17) Sidewalk construction to include the repair or replacement of any broken or damaged sidewalks around the site. I think I will stop there and address Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 36 questions as you have them. There are several findings included in your staff report with regard to the Planned Zoning District as well as specifically the rezoning that would go along with this. Hoover: Thank you Dawn. Would the applicant come forward and share a presentation? Alexander: I am Rick Alexander with North College Development, we are the applicants. This is a difficult project. I live in the neighborhood, I am concerned about what happens in the neighborhood. We own several properties there. We have spent a lot of money and time developing those into what we believe are nice properties. I can understand that there is going to be some resistance to this kind of a project in that type of neighborhood. We started with that proposition when we first contemplated this development. We approached City staff to get their input and determine whether or not they would be in favor of this. I believe their staff reports indicate that they are for a variety of reasons. We support the staff report. We agree with it. We agree with the recommendations. Basically, this is 38,000 sq.ft. of abandoned institutional space in the heart of the historic district. When we originally approached this project we looked for alternative uses, mixed uses, commercial uses, performance, artistic, university, Walton Arts Center. We interviewed potential tenants from each of those institutions as well as schools, churches, and other organizations and commercial interests. We could find no support for an alternative use for this property. That being the case, and after several meetings with the neighborhood association and neighbors one on one in telephone calls and in meetings, came to the conclusion that the best use of this property was as residential. It is the most benign, in my opinion, it will have the most benign affect on terms of traffic and density. It is the most consistent with the neighborhood. This is an established neighborhood. While it is zoned R-1, it has traditionally been multi -family. There are many multi -family residences and structures in this neighborhood, and have been so as far as I can tell, since the University came into existence. The property in question is in fact, a block and a half from the IGA, from the commercial interests that are College Avenue. It is a little over two blocks from the public library and the courthouse. There are institutional uses in this neighborhood. There are commercial uses in this neighborhood. There are single-family uses in this neighborhood. Again, I live in this neighborhood and I have a single- family residence next to the library. It think it is problematic as a city in terms of what do we do when institutional space like this, located in these areas, is abandoned. It was our determination that this type of project would have the least impact on city services in that there are existing roads, parking, utilities, water, sewer, electric to this site that had supported far greater density in the past than we are proposing. I think this is an appropriate infill project. Again, I think it is problematic that if Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 37 that is not an appropriate use what do we do with these type of projects as they come up in the future? One that is going to come up is the public library that is located in this neighborhood. The same questions will be asked and answered by this Commission and the city then. What is an appropriate use of that space? An example of an inappropriate use would be the Mountain Inn. That is a dilapidated project located in the heart of our city. It is home to vagrants, a lot of criminal activity. The police reports are longer than my arm. I think that is one of the things that you have to be concerned with when these type of properties become vacant. It was a few years ago, I couldn't believe that the Campbell Bell building on the square would sit vacant for seven years. It did, it was boarded up. It can happen fast and again, as a neighbor in this particular neighborhood, as a resident, I am concerned as to what happens with these properties. The project that we are proposing is upscale. I know that there is a lot of concern that there will be a bunch of students and parties happening on this property. It has been my experience that the rents that we charge are not conducive to student occupation. We have several properties downtown. None of them are inappropriate in my opinion. We have not had complaints about the look of them or the use of them for the most part. I think that if we develop this property we will develop it into something that the neighborhood and the city can be proud of. We have done a lot of them in town. Again, we always try to do something that is mixed use. I would've preferred to do a mixed use project here but we simply couldn't come up with any potential users. This is our project, it is infill. We wouldn't be making this request but for the fact that the buildings are there. It is 38,000 sq.ft. The parking is there, the building is there. We are not proposing to exceed the envelop of the buildings, we are not proposing to cut any trees, we are proposing to maintain all of the greenspaces. We are proposing to dedicate parkland. We are proposing to enhance the parking that is there and to enhance the landscaping. We are proposing to put up masonry sound walls and otherwise be as good of a neighbor as we can be. That is our proposal. I think Dawn set it out in detail and frankly, we agree with it. I frankly agree with the recommendation. Thank you. Hoover: Thank you Richard. At this time I would like to take public comment. I would just like to remind everybody to sign in at the podium and also to let you know that with public comment you get to speak once only and if you would be sure to address the issues of compatibility with the neighborhood, which would include issues such as parking density, open space, traffic, and things such as that and only specifically address the project and not anything else. Thank you. Can we have the neighborhood association representative speak first, I think that would be a good idea. Thompson: Hello, my name is Kathy Thompson. I am president of the Washington - Willow Neighborhood Association. First of all I would like to apologize Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 38 Allen: to you for not having a resolution to you. I have been out of town or dealing with family illness for almost two weeks and our vice president has been out of town also. We were surprised with the amount of opposition. We are a little bit caught unaware. I can assure you that the neighborhood association is in favor of Richard and Rob and their project. One of the reasons that we started the neighborhood association four years ago was because we knew that St. Joseph's school and the library were going to be vacant and we were worried about it. We have been trying for I would say the last two years or three years, talking with Paul Warren at the church and trying to get something happening at St. Jo's. We have talked to numerous people. I have worked with Don Marr. We have worked with Richard, we have talked to the Walton Arts Center. We have had ideas. We have tried to get the Montessori in there. We have tried to get Suzuki school. We have gone here and there and everywhere and talked about this and tried to get something in there besides residential. I can tell you over the last two years of trying to get people interested in helping and trying to get people interested in buying or trying to get people interested in something different, something vital, something that the community can use as well as the neighborhood, nothing has happened. We feel, as a neighborhood association, that we, in some ways are very lucky to have Richard as a possible landlord because he has done such a great job in the past with other residences. We trust him, we feel like that we can come with him with problems that we have and we also are aware that there are people waiting in line behind Richard that might not be as good of landlord as we will have with Richard. I think that people need to really think about that before they become upset and they should know that the catholic church is going to sell this property so we better be very careful about how we approach this issue. We have been very aware of it for the last few years and we have been working on it and while we would have liked to have something else happen there, I can tell you that at least we feel like Richard and Rob will be the best that we can find in a residential landlord. We are approaching this in a positive way and not a negative way. We are very happy with the fact that we are going to have a small park in our neighborhood, which we have been sorely wanting for a long time. We are lacking greenspace in our neighborhood and we are very happy with what the Parks and Rec. people have agreed to do. While I would say once again, we are unhappy that something else could not have happened there, we are also very happy with Rob and Richard's proposals. Do you have any questions of me about the neighborhood association? I would like to ask, you said the neighborhood association was in favor of the project, if that was done by a vote at a meeting or emails or how you made the determination. Thompson: It has been done both ways. We have had meetings. We have met with Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 39 Richard. We have been sending out fliers, we have 600 people that are in the boundaries, excuse me, households inside the boundaries of our neighborhood association and for four years we have met until recently, the last few months, we have met every Thursday night of every month for the last four years, since 1999. This has been one of our hot topics. We have had fliers, we walk fliers three to four times a year. We announce our agendas. St. Joseph's has been on our agenda. We have had Paul Warren, who is with the church, come and speak to us. We have had Richard come and speak to us and the people that come are the people that come. The people that come are the people that are interested and they are the people that have voted. We have a membership, paying members, I would say of around 150 to 200 people. Then we consider the households in the neighborhood, part of the neighborhood association, whether they are members or not. We have got out information for three to four years on this issue and the people who have come are the people who have been interested and who have worked on committees and who have tried to make something else happen there. Does that answer your question? Allen: 1 wondered if there was actually a vote among the membership. Thompson: There was, I would imagine at one of our meetings. I am not sure that we have actually said, we have said that we were in agreement with Richard doing this. I don't know, we don't have a very strict neighborhood association. We are not very parliamentary so I am not sure. All of the people that have been there, I have had many people tell me that they are in favor of Richard. I have had only two calls opposing it and I have stopped and talked to many, many, many people on the street. I have talked to a lot of people by telephone and we could get a definite number for you and we can get a resolution for you. I am just sorry that we haven't done it before because I just didn't realize that we had all of the opposition and I have been gone frankly, my father has been sick. I have been kind of out of sink and out of touch. I can get that to you as quickly as possibly the next three or four days. Allen: Thank you. Hoover: Are there any other questions? Bunch: Has there been a meeting since the latest edition of this project has been submitted primarily when it was changed from a mixed use to totally residential, has the neighborhood association met on that? Thompson: No, we haven't. We are not meeting now every month. We have this year only decided, I think March was our first meeting for this year. We adopted in December to have only three meetings a year, annually now instead of meeting every single, we have met every single month for four Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 40 years and now we are not doing that. In that time this has changed. To address what I think that you are probably talking about, what our neighborhood association, if you can say there has been any opposition to what Richard is doing, I think it wouldn't be called opposition as much as it would be called disappointment that the new sanctuary, we thought that the new sanctuary was going to be used for community concerts, chamber concerts, jazz concerts, weddings, anything that you needed a rental space for and possibly some community space. When we discovered that that was not possible, that the numbers wouldn't crunch and they had to make apartments in the new sanctuary then people were disappointed. One of the things that we really wanted to have happen in that space was to have some community space for not just our neighborhood, but for everyone in the community to be able to use. I would say that that is the thing that people would be disappointed about. On the other side of the coin they are just as excited and just as happy about having some greenspace in our neighborhood, even though it is just a small area. In our neighborhood that represents a lot because we don't have any parks or anything like that in the neighborhood. Bunch: The bottom line here is that the neighborhood association has not reviewed it as an all residential facility. Therefore, any recommendation that you have does not reflect all residential? Thompson: No, I don't think that is true. I think people are going along with that. We haven't had a meeting, do you want me to call a special meeting and get the numbers for it? Bunch: This is one of the things that we have been requesting for quite some time in Subdivision Committee and it was tabled at one time because we wanted to know whether or not the neighborhood association had, in fact, seen the plan where it had shifted from mixed use to all residential. This is a question that has been paramount in our minds. That is the reason I am asking it now, just to nail it down and make sure that there has been a consensus saying this is the project as it stands now, is this acceptable. Thompson: We haven't had a meeting since then. We do have email and since I have been gone for almost a week and a half I have not checked my email so I don't know what kind of feedback we are getting on the email but I have not had any phone calls. My phone number has been on every single one of those fliers for four years. We have not had a meeting because our next meeting is in June. We will be glad to get that for you. I didn't know that was requested. Bunch: Did the applicant approach you from that specific standpoint because that is one of the requests that we made. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 41 Thompson. Yes. Richard has been very, Richard and I have been in discussion with this since January or December. Bunch: Specifically since the time that it was submitted as an all residential and at that time the request was made to get information from the neighborhood association. Thompson: Hoover: Hamilton: Hoover: Wright: We have not had a meeting since then. We just have not gathered as a neighborhood association, no. Are there any other questions? Thank you very much. Is there any other member of the public that would like to address this PZD? My name is Craig Hamilton and I live in the house on the corner of Sutton and Willow. My main concern is mostly with traffic and particularly parking. With the increasing amount of people there with 10 new apartments in the church, existing church building, it increases the amount of cars that would be in that area. With that, there is no longer two parking spots for basically every person that is there. It is more like one to one and a half. The kind of people that we will have living in these apartments will end up being mostly couples and non -children but they will have usually two vehicles. A lot of times they will have two large vehicles like SUV's and what have you so it causes significant parking issues. That is mostly what I am concerned with. I was actually quite for the project up until yesterday when I first found out about the addition of the ten apartments. What I would like to see is there could be a lot of traffic issues dealt with that haven't been resolved, like possibly looking at making some of these streets one way or making parking just on one side of the street that have not been addressed. I would like to see those addressed before this moves on. Thank you Mr. Hamilton. I am Wyatt Wright. I live at 346 N. Walnut Avenue, on the corner of Walnut and Sutton. Those three of you who were at the Subdivision Committee saw the first iteration of this particular document that is in front of you. I had heard that there wasn't much opposition to this project. At the Subdivision Committee meeting, just before it, I went and talked to my neighbors all the way from my house up to Lafayette and I was surprised to find that all of them were opposed to it. I came back and I wrote down the reasons that they were opposed to it and I went back to them and said would you sign this so I could turn it in and in addition to those there were a few other neighbors who heard about it and they signed it. I think I had seven signatures on that first go around in about the space of an hour and a half. Since that time we are all relatively busy, yesterday Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 42 myself and two volunteers tried a little bit more of the neighborhood. In front of you you have I believe 31 but I have 9 additional ones that came to me after I Xeroxed it this afternoon. We have exactly 40 signatures on this petition from our neighborhood. These are from all around. We concentrated primarily on the adjacent streets of the neighborhood but in some cases, people called from as far away as Washington and things like that. Most of these people that we talked to were primarily right around the church because we felt like they would be most affected and also we didn't have much man power to really get out and canvas everyone. The reasons we are opposed to this, they are itemized here pretty clearly. The inappropriateness for the area. I thought in Fayetteville traditionally we were opposed to spot zoning and that we try to sort of have a master plan and go with it. This seems to us to be just that, spot zoning. Something that is inappropriate happening in a neighborhood where something like this has never happened. It is true that there are some duplexes and things of that nature in our neighborhood but there are no apartment complexes anywhere near this size or in a location such as this. The traffic, none of us liked the St. Joseph's traffic, but the advantage to the St. Joseph's traffic to a degree at least, was that it ran counter to our patterns. They were all out of there by 3:30 in the afternoon, typically, the school at least. Whereas, we are coming and going around 5:00 or 5:30 or so when we are coming home. These people would be just like us. They would leave at the same time in the morning, they would come home at the same time at night. We would see them on the streets. My street, which is Walnut Street, is 20' wide. If there is a car parked on Walnut it becomes a one lane street. That is true for all of these streets. They are typically 20' to 24' wide streets. Generally there is not enough off street parking so that there are always cars on those streets. If you go by in the evening when people are home you will see that they are parked on both sides in many cases and it really does become one lane streets. That is just with what we have now. That is not with anyone living in the houses that are part of this deal, which we aren't opposing one way or the other. We already have a very fragile parking environment and this would just push it over the edge. There is no question that there aren't enough parking places here. These guys will fill them up and then when their guests show up they are going to park on our streets and it is just going to be gridlock. We have seen it, we have lived through it and we don't want to go there again. That is one of our strongest reasons for opposing this thing, that it is going to just lock up our neighborhood. The property values, no one, no one will argue I don't think, that this is going to enhance anyone's property values. Going from a R-1 neighborhood, living next to an apartment complex doesn't help ever. We have worked long and hard. Our neighborhood was once viewed as sort of the jewel of Fayetteville. People are proud of our neighborhood, we are very proud of our neighborhood. We have a lot of money invested in it. If you add up the value of the homes that are going to be impacted it far exceeds anything that this project would have Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 43 considered. Those values are going to be damaged and we are the ones that are going to take the hit for it. The parking lot waiver just strikes all of us as incredibly unfair. Not only do we have a 20' wide street but they don't even want to adhere to the normal rule of having some setback. If you look at it not only is Bob Savage's house right here and you have got a 20' street, they are going to park right there immediately next to the sidewalk, immediately next to the sidewalk, there is a little lump there and then they park and then the house south of that, it is the same situation. The people are essentially parking in their yard, there is no buffer zone at all. It is an insult that these people would get some kind of waiver. The parking, we have already talked about. The streets, it is just not an appropriate situation to go from a situation where if it were the normal neighborhood pattern, you have like six or seven houses there with that number of people to suddenly go to a situation in which you have that many more people, that greater much more people. It would just be totally out of keeping with the neighborhood. There has been some discussion here about appropriate uses for St. Joseph's. I for one, think that the free market is always the way to determine appropriate use. I don't think it is up to the neighborhood to go out and find someone to buy St. Joseph's. I think the value of St. Joseph's, it may be at this price level 1 2 million that it is too high for some little church to go in there, or some little school to go in there or those kinds of uses. It may be at that level that it is too high but that just means that it is too much. That doesn't mean that we should give up our property values to endorse a project that allows that to happen. It will find a use. It is not going to be the Mountain Inn. We have neighborhood associations, it is a major street, it is a residential neighborhood, it is not even analogous to the Mountain Inn. The idea that it is abandoned and is going to be filled with vagrants is highly unlikely. I don't see that happening. What will happen is the market will determine the best use and value and then that will come before you guys and that will seem a reasonable thing. The best use and value would probably be some kind of daytime use like it used to have so that we don't have this enormous traffic flux at the same time that we are trying to do our thing. Again, I don't think that this Commission's job or our neighborhood's job is to find a buyer for this place. I think that the free market will do that just fine for us. They haven't showed up and they probably haven't showed up because they were asking 1.5 million, I don't know the original asking price but I know 1.5 million was kicked around, I believe it is 1.2 million that this contract is written for. It is just too much maybe for some churches but that is not our fault. The neighborhood association, I think it was pretty well determined that a lot of what went on there went on before some of these developments I think in some ways it is that they are not particularly an indicator. I think it is a better indicator that people write down on a piece of paper that they support these proposals and they put their address on it and they stand behind it. I think those are the people who are really invested in this. I have a vote, it is right in front of you. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 44 Hoover: McKinney: Demuth: Forty people signed it and said we don't want this. That is what we are asking you to do, say no to this. Thank you very much. Do you have any questions for me? Thank you Mr. Wright. Do we have any other member of the public that would like to speak to this? My name is Rick McKinney, I had to take a moment to look at some of the faces that I perhaps don't recognize in this crowd. I live on Olive Street. I have been an active member of the neighborhood association since it's origin. As you know, neighborhood associations can be very different animals in very different neighborhoods. Some of them are very proactive, you have a lot of the neighborhood members that attend. Perhaps I have missed a couple of meetings but folks, I see a lot of faces out here I haven't seen at these meetings. If you are looking for something from the neighborhood association in the means of a proclamation perhaps, I would suggest that you give the neighborhood association and the people who live in that neighborhood that should attend, where have you guys been? Let them come to this meeting that can be set and set up a proclamation to bring to you. Obviously there is disagreement with developments no matter where they are and what is best put to a piece of property that is perhaps not abandoned, but having been left up for sale for sake of someone who could come in and do something really nice for the community with it. I think there have been a lot of alternatives discussed, not only with the neighborhood association but with a lot of individuals. I think this property could come upon a lot worse fate than what Richard Alexander is talking about. I would like a definite resolution to come from the neighborhood association, that is part of the reason it is in existence. I would ask these folks out here in the audience to come and attend that meeting like they should have been for many years now, to voice through the neighborhood association. That is part of the reason it is there guys, it really is. If you have objections then come to the meeting and object to this proposal. I ask that you would table this until that can be done. My name is Shannon Demuth and I live at the corner of Lafayette and Walnut at 322 E. Lafayette. I went to a meeting that Richard and Rob first put forth to the neighborhood explaining what they wanted to do, the initial meeting. I think I voiced a lot of opinions about the parking initially and probably was more vocal there than anyone else. One of the things that was specifically pointed out to me was that the parking zoning is already there for us. I am bordered by not one, but two streets. One of them is Lafayette, which is a main thoroughfare and one of them is Walnut, which is a little bitty street. When the church was there I got blocked into my house several times. I couldn't get out of my driveway. People were parking kind of up in my yard, that sort of thing. One of the Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 45 things that was pointed out at that meeting was that it would no longer be a church and the police would more than likely enforce it a little bit better. I am not sure whether they would or not but I would like to see that enforced. My understanding, and there was some discussion about it, is that because it was a church there was a tasked agreement with the police department that it would not be enforced with not only St. Joseph's but any church. Since it is no longer a church I would like that to be enforced. To feel like, if something else, I don't care what goes in there, I want it enforced. On Walnut Street, one of my neighbors has tow signs in front of her house, and they actually work pretty well, but I don't. I am not aware of anyone else that does. I think Richard and Rob and their previous projects have shown some real upscale potential. There was some discussion that I've heard people say about apartments verses condos and that may be a dialogue that needs to happen so that everyone is happy. The parking situation, on some level, whether it is enforcement or some of the other alternatives that have been discussed, probably needs to go on. Because I have attended at least one previous meeting I feel kind of like Mr. McKinney that suddenly everyone is upset when this dialogue should've been going on for a long time. Thank you very much. Hoover: Thank you. Mr. Butt, I know you have been trying to speak. Butt: I am Jack Butt, I live at 526 E. Lafayette Street, which is at the corner of Mission and Lafayette. I have lived in that neighborhood since 1981. First of all, if somebody is going to develop that property I am pleased it is Rick Alexander. He and his various partners have done a great job of redeveloping and infilling throughout the town. I think they have brought a lot of architectural significance and good neighborhoods and high quality to what they have done so I am pleased to see that Rick is doing it. I was invited to come to a neighborhood association meeting two or three years ago to discuss this and I very much wanted to. I couldn't make it, I told the person to call me to make sure I was on the list. I was invited again two or three weeks later, again, I had a conflict and said keep me on the list. That was the last I heard of it. I have been in those things and it is like pushing rope to make them happen. Everybody has got something better to do than to come to the neighborhood so thank you to those people who have organized it and held the meetings and come but frankly, for the last two or three years I didn't know we had a neighborhood association meeting and I am easy enough to find in the phone book and I see people around. I am not faulting anybody but myself except for not finding out better but I would suggest that whatever mandate the neighborhood association purports to bring, I agree perhaps with Rick McKinney, there wasn't a very good due process notice to let everybody in the neighborhood know there was a meeting, you could vote, this is the final plan. I think it has kind of been an ad hoc thing and it might not be a bad Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 46 idea if you really wanted the neighborhood to know what they think to make sure that there is a meeting with proper notice and everybody that really has a dog in the fight shows up to cast their vote. As far as my dog in the fight, this first showed up on my screen two or three weeks ago, and I don't remember where I read it, it was somewhere that may have been credible like the newspaper or TV that said there were going to be about 19 units. I am sitting looking across my street at two ragged rent houses that are going to be prohibitive to replace. The owners are stuck with them. They are in horrible condition, they look ugly, they are devaluing my house and I just wish Rick would come by those and redevelop them. I have proper concern that that can happen to St. Joseph's. When I read or heard that I think it was 19 units in St. Jo's with a little bit of public access. I thought that is a good deal. That is a good deal for the neighborhood, it is infill, we can handle that kind of parking. We are used to it with the church, that will be an improvement for everybody. Then two or three days ago I got a call from a concerned neighbor and they were saying do you know we are going to have 38 units, what do you think about that. I am indefinite. I think 38 is just a little too much. It is presumptuous I guess for me to tell Rick who is going to borrow the money and put his risk and his money on the line to do it. I sure wish you could go back down to 20 and raise the prices, the condos over Campbell Bell, I don't know what they sold for, $10,000 or $20,000 a square foot or something. If that could be turned into a little bit higher class bigger unit, fewer units, I personally would very much like to see Rick do that there. At 39 units, I don't know where you cross the line, but that is too many for me. I think it changes the nature of the neighborhood. I am just hopeful that either the church will come down on its price or Rick will find a way to price it or something where we can get fewer units. I would go along with Rick that if you are waiting to get a vote from the neighborhood, I don't think the neighborhood is represented necessarily by these people here. I don't think they are represented by the neighborhood because I am not sure that everybody knows exactly what the plan is or if they have got a chance to make a vote. I would ask that perhaps you table this so you can get a neighborhood vote and at the same time, I would be very eager for Rick to go back to the drawing board and see if he could reduce this to something consistent with like an R-1.5, which is 12 families per acre and when you adjust all of that come back in with 18 or 20 units in that area instead of 39, which I think really will change the character of the area right there and around it. Thanks very much. Hoover: Thank you Mr. Butt. Are there any other members of the audience? Wilson: I am Carrie Wilson, I live on Lafayette Street and I have lived there for 17 years. I am a consultant for cultural resources dealing with the national historic preservation act with Osage Tribes. I do have an idea. It was Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 47 originally Osage tree land, we could give it back to the tribe. I don't think that will happen. The Washington Willow Historic District was given that designation because of its cultural significance under the national historic preservation act. Many homes in this district were at one time apartments, my house included. However, over the years people have invested their time and monies in restoring and returning these homes into single-family dwellings. The Washington Willow Historic District is a cohesive rooted community. I cannot support the effort to insert transient apartment dwellers in this neighborhood. It whittles away at the integrity and the character of the historic district. Many of the buildings that the developers are going to convert to apartments are less than 50 years old and are not eligible as historic properties. I would rather see homes built in their stead keeping with the integrity of the historic district. Also, I have never spoken to Kathy Thompson with regards to this project. I do hand out the fliers for the neighborhood project. However, I have not had the times appropriate for me to attend these meetings. As far as the greenspace is concerned, that currently is a concrete lot. I don't see it to be very green. The equipment that is there now for children and things is going to be removed is my understanding because of the liabilities. As far as apartments are concerned, and as a parent, I would be concerned about my child playing in an area where there are transient dwellings. Thank you. There again, let me put this for the record, I ask the Planning Commission not to approve the request and to keep the property consistent with single- family residential zoning. Thank you. Hoover: Thank you. Nichols: My name is Amanda Ann Hilton Nichols. I am a member of the Stone family. Our family home was the first building in the Masonic Addition, at 306 E. Lafayette. My great grandfather, Steven Robert Stone, built the home. His son, my grandfather, Steven Kiplinger Stone, lived there. My mother, Amanda Stone Hilton, lived there. Now my sister and I are custodians of this historic home. We had no phone calls, no meeting notices, etc. I would like for you to know that I am very opposed to this. I cannot see in any way how this will add to the historic neighborhood in Fayetteville. As a youngster I watched College Avenue, a beautiful historic neighborhood, disappear. I am afraid this would be the beginning of the end for us. I ask you please, do not do this. I am not for it. I called Kathy and left a message, I told her I was not for this. I asked for a call back and I got none. I would like for you to know that too. Think about it, would you like to have 36 apartments go up across from your home? Thank you. Hoover: Thank you Amanda. Are there any other members of the public? Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 48 Woods: I am Elizabeth Woods, I live at 419 N. Walnut Street, around the corner from the church. Shannon already mentioned me. When the church met on Sunday mornings I was a physician working at Washington Regional. I had to have the city come out and put up tow signs over my driveway because they consistently parked right across the driveway. My neighbor and my driveways are almost adjacent to each other. Even with the tow sign there people still park in the driveway. I went out frequently to write please do not park across my driveway. We still have that because the driveways are close together. The street is very narrow. They have put a only park on one side. This morning on the way to work two cars had to pull over so I could drive down the street. I watched the garbage truck come this afternoon as I was coming back from my lunch. It could barely get between the parked cars there. All of the houses there have really parking for one car. I have two children, they have cars. I cannot imagine what apartments with extra cars will do to our area. It will make it very difficult for people who live there. I also think it will decrease my property value I think it will decrease the neighborhood value and I am very much opposed to it. I belong to the neighborhood association. I work, often times, in the evening. I could not go. I mentioned to Kathy this Saturday that I was against the project. I would like to tell you how much I am also against the project. Hoover: Thank you. Is there any other member of the public? Gessler: Hello, I am Susan Gessler, I live at 318 E. Lafayette, right in front of St. Joseph's Catholic Church. I would like to say after listening to all of the comments tonight, I wish St. Joseph's was a tree because if it was a tree it would not be made into apartment complexes like it is getting ready to be. I have a major problem with this. I agree with Elizabeth, my neighbor on Walnut Street, about all of the traffic. I have been very patient. I have lived across the street from St. Joseph's, I have rarely complained. I have put little signs on people's cars saying please let me out of my driveway. At that time I had a child who was prone to grandma seizures and it was necessary at times to get an ambulance in and out of my residence. A lot of times on Sunday morning I could not get out to go to church or I could not get out at different times during the day. I am definitely opposed to this project. My husband and I purchased our home in 1989. We have sunk a lot of money into that old house. A lot of people have come to the neighborhood and followed the example. I am against 39 apartments going across the street from 318 E. Lafayette. I am against it. My husband is against it, and I will fight it as long as I can. I want you to think about 63 bedrooms of people living across the street. I would like to propose to Richard if he would like to build an apartment complex, why doesn't he purchase the Fayetteville Library and then it would be right next door to his home and he could put 39 apartments there. Thank you. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 49 Jones: My name is David Jones. I live at 341 N. Willow. I have for about 8 years now. My wife has lived there longer than I have. We were patient with St. Jo's because when my wife bought that house it was there. The neighborhood is great and we love it. I don't go to neighborhood meetings because I just don't like meetings. I don't like having to stand up here and ask you to do your job. It was pointed out to me that this Commission's job is not to make exceptions to building ordinances and such. What I would like to say is please leave the neighborhood as it is. It was mentioned earlier that the Campbell Bell building sat for seven years. That is true, it did and it looked kind of dirty. The windows were dirty and nobody took care of it, but look what happened to it. The market took care of it. The right tenant came in and turned it into a wonderful place. It has rejuvenated the downtown area. Maybe this isn't going to happen in a year. Maybe somebody from the church should be here to explain why they didn't plan on doing something with it. For the ten years that I have been here they had this plan on building their church for years and years and years. They had no contingency plan on what to do with it, there isn't another church that could use this space? As a matter of fact, I think I heard something about a church needing some more parking spaces for their children already. There has got to be somebody in the market out there when the price gets right that can take it. I would like to address also the issue of traffic. It is a mess. At 3:30 it turned into a one way street. Policemen weren't around there, never giving tickets to anybody. They parked on a street that said no parking on Sutton. If you did come down the wrong street, even though you lived there, you were treated like an alien. I had my car banged into, no notes left. We try to be good neighbors and a church is a great neighbor to have and everybody is for educating children. Nobody would want to live across the street from an apartment complex. Our home is 105 years old. You guys are more concerned about trees, like it was already said, than the nature of a neighborhood or the human beings that actually live there. Please consider those human beings, and some of them are children that like to cross streets at inappropriate times and places. Please consider that. That is all I have to say. Hoover: Thank you Mr. Jones. Are there any other members? Warren: My name is Paul Warren, I am the representative from the church. Sorry I didn't get up here earlier. It seems to me that most of the comments seem to be against the things that people don't want. The things that people don't want is a church, a school, and at this point in time, 39 apartments. I think what I would like to do is just give kind of a question about the traffic issues Wyatt mentioned. There are traffic issues. They have been there for a while and I don't think they are going to go away with the sell Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 50 or the non sell of this property. The question becomes what use could you put on that property at 313 E. Lafayette, 321 E. Lafayette, 346 N. Willow, 354 N. Willow, and 310 Sutton, that's not going to impact the traffic. Property values, I wonder what use would enhance property values. We have talked about apartments tend to decrease property values and I would say I would like to see the evidence. I am sure that there are some apartments that would decrease property values. I understand Mr. Alexander is considering putting 3 5 million dollars of investment into this property. I can't believe he is going to waste that kind of money to decrease everyone else's property values. As far as the parking lot, 64 parking spaces for 63 bedrooms. One of the reason St. Jo's chose to move, and I think it was a very well thought out decision, is because we looked around and said if we expand, and we know that the City of Fayetteville has specific ordinances about parking per pew, I think it is one to four, parking per square foot. We asked ourselves what block on this historic district will we buy out to level to create a parking space. We chose not to renovate our sanctuary, expand it to seat the number of people that we currently have who have moved into Fayetteville, and we relocated. It has been a good thing. We have been applauded for that decision rather than the decision that you see going on across College, which is to buy up the houses, historic in nature, and remove them for good blacktop. As far as the free market value of the property goes, we have had three offers, all of them over a million dollars. I would say that is the market value for the property. The question becomes what more will the market bear as far as renovations to this property. One of the questions was let's just let it decrease to the point where a church could buy us out. I would love that opportunity. I would like to see another church go in there if they could get a parking space big enough. Just for raw numbers, there was a church here earlier today, I think they were number one on the agenda, they have 2,300 square feet. in their church, I think they had 154 parking spaces. We have 7,700 square feet. in our sanctuary and 64 parking spaces. They were requesting a variance for additional parking spaces to cover the kind of sanctuary we have, if we used their numbers we would be a little over 300 parking spaces on Lafayette Street. I don't think a church would buy us out to be able to do that. Furthermore, if the property value went down to the point where a church could buy us out, your other city codes would kick in. It is an amazing thing in 1967 when we built our new sanctuary, and in the 1950's when we built the school, that you didn't have the current codes you have now. It might amaze some of the people sitting here to know that we have one commode for males and one commode for females in that structure. That wouldn't suffice, we would have to renovate. Furthermore, we don't meet code in the school with bathrooms, with fire, with exits, with any of the codes that you currently have. Whoever buys us out would have to have the funds to renovate. Probably in the neighborhood of where Mr. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 51 Alexander is, at least a million, maybe two, maybe three just to bring it up to current city code. The question becomes who can do it. Finally, I would like to say that St. Jo's has had the property up for sale since the middle of 2000. We knew we were going to relocate. We bought the land that we bought in May of 1997 and we had plans to relocate. At that point in time we began soliciting buyers for sale by owner because most of the real estate agents who came to us, we had four different ones, said you will be lucky to find a buyer for this property. It is very unique, it is very isolated, it is very land locked, it has problems and it has 38,000 square feet. of space that somebody has to do something with or leave it vacant. They all recommended that instead of listing the property we do a for sale by owner. We did that for 12 months. We solicited churches, which, unfortunately, at this point in time I am afraid if one of them would've come forward and we would've really encouraged them they probably would've been shot down based on the parking requirements by the City of Fayetteville. We solicited the Montessori School, the University of Arkansas, the Arts Culture in Fayetteville, which we thought would be a wonderful opportunity for a museum or an art studio or some other kind of use in that realm. Unfortunately, there is no money out there at this point in time with this economy for that kind of a venture. There is money out there for the use as an apartment complex. Albeit, I think right now we are talking the difference between the number of units. That may be an amenable kind of thing, to the point where the only real use for this is residential. Furthermore, it meets some of the city recommendations for infill for urban sprawl, not sending everybody out to the outskirts and trying to keep people closer to the center of Fayetteville so that there can be viable businesses, especially down on our square, which has been a wonderful thing to have renovated. I think in closing I just want to say, it is your responsibility I understand as the Planning Commission to make a recommendation, staff has recommended that this be moved forward to the City Council. I understand at City Council we are going to have an ordinance written, that if I'm not mistaken, gets three readings before it can get passed into law? Whitaker: State law usually for ordinances is that an ordinance has to be read on three occasions unless by a 2/3 vote or better the Council suspends the rules and goes to another reading. Warren: So there is going to be, at least I'm assuming every two weeks if we have one reading at the maximum, we would be six weeks out on that project. That will give ample opportunity for us to have a meeting with the neighborhood association, to have the vote that many of you have requested. I recommend presenting this to move forward to the City Council while at the same time having the neighborhood association, the neighbors who are currently here, and by the way, I might mention, St. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 52 Joseph's, I've attended almost everyone of the neighborhood association meetings and actually the last meeting that the neighborhood association had at the library was very poorly attended even though they had stated that they had sent out a flier asking people to come to talk about the library and St. Joseph's project specifically. Ms. Schaeffer, the librarian for the Fayetteville Public Library, was there and did a good job presenting what the possibilities are for the Fayetteville Public Library. I think you guys have something really hot on your hands since I understand you own part of that building. I think there are going to be even more issues with it than there are with us. We presented, I think there were three or four people at that meeting. After that meeting we got word that maybe some people were concerned about what we were doing. St. Joseph's the church, took the opportunity to invite by using the U.S. Postal Service, which I assume does get most people's mail to their houses, to come to a meeting we called on Tuesday, March 25th at 6:30 and we had a meeting in the sanctuary of St. Jo's. There are some people here that did attend that and I think there were approximately 40 or 45 people that attended that meeting. It was from that meeting where it was presented 31 apartments on that complex, and the use of the sanctuary, 7,700 square feet. for community use. Mr. Alexander was going to donate or allow to be used this space for issues such as concerts or art exhibits perhaps a wedding so he could lease it out to cover at least the cost of keeping this building available and then for the neighborhood association meetings assuming that the public library might sell they would not be able to use that facility, they could go back and use St. Joseph's. At that meeting, that is when we found out in a pretty strong way that people didn't like the parking caused by 400 people showing up for an event on Lafayette Street. At that point in time Mr. Alexander amended his proposal to include all residential. It is true, as Mr. Bunch indicated, that the proposal has not been presented in front of the whole neighborhood association as totally residential but it was presented on March 25th as 31 units residential and then a large 400 seat auditorium to be used as needed by the community. I think that there is at least the venue that residential is a proponent for this property and again, I would like to just once more state that I think it would be important to move this property forward. The longer it sits there the more problems that are happening with it. Currently people are beginning to drop trash in the back parking lot to include such things as refrigerant air conditioners, bricks, construction debris. You probably drove through and saw that. We did have one vagrant living in the church. Apparently he jimmied the lock but did not cause any problems so god bless him for having a good night's sleep. I would say once more that we would like to sell this property. We have a buyer, we have a buyer who is well respected in the community who is willing to put another 3 million dollars into this project and who I would say would do a dad gum good Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 53 job of making it a viable project to the neighborhood. Short of selling to Richard Alexander I would like to talk to the lady from the Osage Tribe. Hoover: Thank you Mr. Warren. I would like to just emphasize that we need to really be talking about the compatibility between this proposed development and surrounding areas so as to preserve and enhance the neighborhood. That is our charge with the PZD. As time is wearing on if you would be sure to address those issues. Porter: My name is Susan Porter, I live on the edge of the historic district. I do not have the same issues with traffic that most of the people here do. However, I have an issue with the development as a whole. I see the city looking at College Avenue and at 6th Street saying let's put some money in and beautify it. If we put a high density apartment building into this property I fear that the people in the Victorian houses who have sunk a lot of money into them will leave and they will also become apartments and our whole historic neighborhood will be lost. If you look at other cities I think you will see this. Kansas City, Little Rock, even around the governor's mansion, they are having a real hard time reclaiming those old neighborhoods. I am against this and I am against spot zoning in the historic district basically. Hoover: Thank you Ms. Porter. Are there any other members of the audience? Buxten: My name is Christina Buxten, I live at 312 N. Willow. That is four houses south of the church. I am opposed to this project as it is right now. I think we all understand that infill is a good thing. It does help with urban sprawl and everything but in order for infill to be successful it has to fit the neighborhood. This is the Washington Willow Historic District, it is predominantly single-family homes and I don't feel that dropping in 39 apartments fits the neighborhood. When we went to the public meeting it was 29 units, that included the duplex. I was kind of ok with that but 39 is just too many. That is just too many cars. Traffic can only go three ways from this complex, Lafayette, Walnut, or Willow. My block of Willow, I went out and measured the street before I came here. It is 20' wide. Cars park down one side, that leaves 12 1/2' to drive in. Cars can only go one lane of cars. I think that if you approve something like this it has to include the traffic pattern. As two way streets Willow and Walnut it is not going to work. I think it has to be part of the plan before it happens. The other thing that I am really concerned about is the bungalow, which is referred to as the single-family structure that is on Sutton Street right now. It is a historically important structure. From what I am hearing and reading, what I'm hearing is the single-family structure will remain. What I am not hearing is the single-family structure will remain a single-family structure. I would really hate to see this beautiful house chopped into a Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 54 four plex. I just want to make sure that everyone is on the same page about that particular building. It is a single-family structure now. It is a beautiful house. Maybe you could leave it out of this Planned Zoning and leave it the zoning that it is right now so that it will remain as it is. I am not a member of the neighborhood association but I still think I have a valid opinion, I am just not a joiner. I thank you for your time. Hoover: Thank you. Is there any other member? Bell: My name is Dianne Bell, my family home is at 306 E. Lafayette. I am opposed to this. I have spoken against it once and I would like to let everybody know that I am still opposed to this. There is too much traffic, no parking places, there will be more crime and why destroy our historical district? Many, many cities like Savanna and Charleston all try to save their historical district. Why can't we try to save ours? Thank you. Hoover: Thank you very much. Are there any other members of the public? Lloyd: My name is Richard Lloyd, I live at 315 N. Willow, which is approximately one block south of the church property. I too am opposed to this project. I don't want to repeat a lot of the arguments against it that you have already heard. I concur with what many of these people have already said. I would like to underline one point about the parking. Most of the houses in this area, especially on the street where we live, were built before cars as numerous as they are now and as large as they are now. The houses were not built to accommodate parking for the number of cars that are there. For example, our house shares a driveway with the house next door and we share a garage with the house next door. The driveway is very narrow and it is a real challenge to get a modern size car up that driveway and the garage spaces are very possible. It would be possible to get a car into the garage but it is not really practical to park cars in that garage. We really depend on the on street parking. We need those spaces in front of the house. At times when things get crowded in that neighborhood and people are parked on the streets, sometimes we can't park in front of our own house or even close to the house along that block. For example, during masses at St. Jo's when the crowds were heavy in that area and cars were parked on that street sometimes we had to park a long way away. I appreciated having the church there. I am a parishioner at St. Jo's and I was happy to have the church in the neighborhood but it seems to me that an apartment building with 39 units and the parking that would be required and the people visiting if there was overflow of parking from that area that is going to congest our street even further. As you have heard, it is a two way street but when cars are parked on the street traffic can really only go in one direction at a time. If that parking gets further congested it is going to be even more difficult for us to have the adequate Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 55 parking we need just for the houses that are there. I would urge you to reject this proposal. If you are considering passing the proposal I think it is very clear that there has not been adequate input to the neighborhood association from the neighborhood and I would at least ask you to defer a decision until there has been an opportunity for a meeting that neighbors can attend and at least you can get a good idea of what the overall neighborhood is feeling about the project. Hoover: Thank you Mr. Lloyd. Lloyd: Thank you. Hoover: Is there any other member of the public that would like to address this Planned Zoning Development? Seeing none, I will bring it back to the Commission and to the applicant, you can come forward. I would first like to get a summary from Subdivision Committee, a recap, a short recap of what was discussed at Subdivision and where the project is now. Bunch: Basically we had two Subdivision Committee meetings on this and primarily we took public comment and tried to revise the submission package to get it in shape to reflect the various changes that have been made so that it would be a clear and concise package so that people could understand it. Particularly to outline the densities and to determine if the revised project had been presented as such to the neighborhoods and to the neighborhood association and to the neighbors so that they could comment and respond since the densities had been increased. Hoover: Are there any other comments from Alan, I know you were on Subdivision that day. Ostner: Not really. Mr. Wright was there and what he said tonight he shared with us at Subdivision, his list. Hoover: Thank you. Nancy, were you at Subdivision during this? Allen: Yes I was. I can't think of anything else. I wasn't clear about how definite we were about trying to get a meeting and a consensus from the neighborhood but I thought we were relatively clear. Hoover: Thank you. Richard, would you mind responding to that? If you would start with responding to that issue about the neighborhood in general. Alexander: I think that is problematic. I have been to three neighborhood association meetings, one of them which took place with the Parks Board. Some of those meetings were attended quite well, some of them quite sparsely. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 56 Part of going to the neighborhood meetings is listening to what the neighbors said. The main complaint that I got from the meetings was that the traffic involved in using the facility as a performance space would've been problematic and no better than the church parking. I don't think there is anybody in the room that liked the church parking situation. Our proposal was amended both in response to the information we got from the neighborhood association that parking was problematic with any other use, any use, and that taken together with the fact that I couldn't generate any support for the proposition that we would donate the building on a part time basis to 501C corporations or neighborhood associations to the extent that we could lease the buildings at other times sufficient enough to pay maintenance, insurance, taxes, utilities, landscaping, and management, which are significant. The minute this building gets bought it is my understanding it needs a new roof. That is $20,000 or $30,000. Any proposed use of the sanctuary would have to take into consideration immediate maintenance needs as well as long term maintenance needs. Our original proposal as we said was to figure a mixed use with some residential and some on going use that took advantage of the structure that was there, the sanctuary as a performance area. I could not interest the university, I could not interest the Fayetteville Public Schools, I could not interest the Walton Arts Center, I could not interest the City of Fayetteville, I could not interest various schools and churches or other potential users. In looking at the project, and I appreciate Jack's comments with the numbers. We in fact did work the numbers. We started with what will it take to buy this property and spend the appropriate amount of money to put in a development that the neighborhood and the city will be pleased with and what kind of use can you rent that for sufficient to pay taxes, insurance, principal, interest, maintenance, and management. We start backwards, start with the total sum. 39 units, we didn't pull that out of the air. That was derived from the fact that number one, we are talking about 38,000 to 40,000 square feet of existing space. What is the right mix of unit, in other words can you lease a 2,000 square foot unit at $100 a foot for $2,000 or $3,000 in that neighborhood, I personally tend to think you could. I thought the appropriate mix was approximately a thousand square feet, on the average, per apai linent at $1.00 a foot or $12.00 a foot a year, which by the way, is high rent. This isn't the low end of the market. This would not be a low end market product. One of the neighbors, and by the way, these are all good people. I don't have any particular beef with these, I like them. I know most of them. They have legitimate concerns, I don't blame them. It is still problematic. What do you do with the property? No is easy. No is easy. Let's not do it. This is the Planning Commission, then we got to start planning. What will you do with it? What are you going to do with the library? I am going to come back and propose at the appropriate time that they do residential at the library. Why? Because there are no other Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 57 takers. There are no other takers. If somebody comes along and they want to propose something appropriate there, great. I live next to it. I agree with the gentleman that said he wished the school would stay, the church. I loved St. Jo's in my neighborhood. I like the library in my neighborhood. They are not staying, they are not staying. Campbell Bell didn't stay on the square. The hardware store didn't stay. All of the businesses didn't stay. What do we do with these properties? Gessler: Don't put 63 different bedrooms up in them. Alexander: Well then maybe you can come up with a proposal where you spend 3.5 million and you figure out what you do with them. That is great, I wish somebody else would step forward. Hoover: Let's speak to the Commission and not get out of order here if you don't mind. Alexander: I apologize. Again, one of the neighbors was concerned about the historic quality of the development. This is a historic development. Our proposal is to place the church on the corner of Lafayette and Willow on the national register of historic places and to renovate it consistent with the Department of Interior guidelines for historic renovation and rehabilitation. Our proposal is to leave the existing structures as you see them. A Warren C. Graves building built in the 1960's doesn't quite qualify for national historical renovation status but it is a significant structure by virtue of the architect's legacy in the neighborhood. Our proposal is to leave the existing structure as you see it from the street and to reconvert and to readapt the interior use of the structure consistent with its present condition, only enhanced in terms of maintenance and landscaping. Part of the school is historic. It has been there since 1947 as I understand it and many people have graduated from this school. It is not the prettiest structure on the planet I will admit. Again, people that moved into that neighborhood moved into that neighborhood knowing that those structures were there. That is what they look like. Our proposal is that is what they will look like when we're done with it. It will look like what you see. Parking and traffic is problematic. It is, in my opinion, not debatable that 39 residential units will be less traffic than Paul can give you the numbers on how many people went to parish services and the school and several hundred students. Traffic will be less with residential. I guess I've got to also ask the question, why is residential so odious? This is a college town. We don't propose to rent to college students because I don't frankly think they can afford our rent, but this is a college town. Professors rent from us. Administrative support people rent from us. Wal-Mart professionals rent from us, JB Hunt. If there is any place in town that is appropriate for multi -family it is the center of the city. Again, Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 58 this particular property is a block and a half from the IGA. It is two blocks from College Avenue. To me the question isn't do we renovate these properties, do we renovate them and add value. Do you renovate them into something that is going to be an attractive addition to the center of the city. Again, no is easy. It would be easy to say no but if you say no then you have to determine what is yes. A church is problematic as Paul pointed out. Frankly, as a member of the neighborhood I thank god that St. Jo's chose not to solve its parking problems by buying up all of the little neighborhood houses and bulldozing them for parking. If that's what they would've done as other churches have, you wouldn't have a historic neighborhood. You would have St. Jo's church and parking. Instead they chose to relocate. Which brings us back to what do we do with the buildings now that they have done that. They should be applauded for not having tore down the houses and made for parking. Again, it is problematic as to what you do with the existing structures. We tried to find other alternatives. I couldn't, I am in the business. I would love some. If anybody has got any ideas my phone number is published. With respect to neighborhood meetings, I have been to three of them but I would also suggest to the Commission that the Subdivision Committee meetings are neighborhood meetings. This committee meeting is a neighborhood meeting. The neighbors have had ample opportunity to meet. I don't mind meeting again but you can, as Jack said, that is like pushing rope up hill. You can do that at infinitum and on the day that some people can't come then they didn't get represented. This is the neighborhood meeting with all due respect and so will the City Council be. We have had neighborhood meetings, this is the neighborhood meeting. That is the best proposal I can come up with. It is in your hands, thank you. Hoover: Thank you Richard. We need to bring the discussion back to the Commission. Staff, I have a couple of questions you might address. On trip generations the church verses the 39 units, would you just explain that a little bit? I know you have a finding in here. Would you elaborate a little bit on that? Warrick: In your packet on pages 6.35, 6.36, and 6.37 we have provided some trip generation reports. This information, staff used a software package that is designed by the Institute of Transportation Engineers called Trip Generation. With that software package you are given the ability to enter various uses and criteria to determine the average weekday volume generated by a particular type of use. Using that program we entered 8,000 gross square feet of church space. The average weekday volume of two way traffic was 73 vehicles per day. Saturday was 78 and Sunday 293. With regard to the use of the property for an elementary school with 289 students, the average weekday volume generated 295 vehicle trips. We Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 59 also entered the proposed development with 39 dwelling units of apartments on the same property with an average weekday volume of 259 trips per day, average Saturday volume of 249 and Sunday of 229. The comparison on an average weekday with the school generating approximately 44 more trips per day than the proposed units and on a Sunday with the church generating approximately 40 more trips per day than the proposed, actually about 60 trips more per day, than the proposed apartment development. Hoover: Thank you. I guess I would like to open the discussion about should we talk about traffic first while we are on this subject? Estes: That is just a good place to start as any because I think that is one of the issues that we need to discuss although it is not one of the findings of fact that we need to make. One of the findings of fact that we need to make is that this proposal achieves compatibility between the proposed development and surrounding areas so as to preserve and enhance the neighborhood. That is what I am struggling with. The microtrans trip generation for 39 units, as we just heard Dawn explain, is less than the school but I think we need to talk about the parking. There are 16 on street parking spaces adjacent, is that correct? Warrick: Approximately, yes. That is on Lafayette Street. Estes: I am struggling with how those 16 on street parking spaces are going to accommodate guests and intermittent overflow. Can you help me out? It seems to me it is just not going to be possible. Warrick: The 16 spaces are not calculated into those provided by the applicant for the requirements. City ordinances requires one space per bedroom and beyond that there is a provision for the applicant to provide up to 30% in addition to that number or 30% less. In this particular case the applicant is providing 64 parking spaces for 63 bedrooms. The note with regard to the provision of on street parking as a means of providing guest parking or overflow parking is really not part of the requirement. It is a note so there is information about available additional parking that may provide that. Like I said, it is not an ordinance requirement that those provisions be made. Estes: I understand and appreciate that trying to find the highest and best use for this property is difficult Richard and personally, I don't find particularly obnoxious or edacious about residential. With regard to density, we have other projects in the city that have higher density but they are not infill. I guess that is what I am struggling with. I just sort of did the numbers with a pencil and I can see that with 19 units I came up with a debt service of Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 60 about $1,842 per unit and that doesn't include maintenance, management, landscaping, utilities or taxes so I can see the issue there. I don't know what the market is out there. I wish that we could bring this density down. I wish that we could do something such as what Mr. Butt suggested and go with an R-1.5. There is a finding that we have to make that this project is compatible between the proposed development's surrounding areas so as to preserve and enhance the neighborhood. My issue on traffic Madam Chair is the parking. If you have got one tenant per bedroom you are going to be maxxed out. You can't put in your lease, I suppose you could put in your lease that folks can't have guests, but you might not find too many takers on that one. Alexander: Can I say something? Estes: That is up to Madam Chair. Hoover: Let's let the Commissioner finish. Alexander: Ok, I was going to address his concerns. Estes: I don't know where your guest and your overflow parking is going except for on the street and then I don't know how your emergency vehicles are going to get in and out, I don't know how your neighborhood residents are going to be able to function and I don't see that that enhances the neighborhood. That is all that I have to say on parking. Hoover: Thank you Commissioner Estes. I would like to ask staff in new developments, I know we have been asking for guest parking on site. Usually in the past how many have we been asking for? Warrick: I can recall that being an issue on two developments and I don't know the numbers for you on that. Hoover: I am wondering if any of the Commissioners remember. I know we have had this discussion on new apartment complexes too. Bunch: I think we were running at a ration somewhere around 1.3 or 1.4 parking spaces per bedroom. I think that was what was proposed on some of the other multi -family developments, in fact, some not too far from this. It averaged around 1.4 I believe. Hoover: Thank you. Is there some other discussion about parking while we are on that topic? Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 61 Ostner: Parking downtown is a big problem. I live downtown. There is no room to park on my street and I live in front of the new library, the construction project library. There never will be in my neighborhood. To me infill downtown development is when things get messy. We get lots of developments in here that are in CMN out in hay fields and we can demand that they park every single possible person that would ever come visit their establishment. Downtown is different. There has got to be shared parking, there has got to be street parking. I would bet most people here in the room if they have a party the whole block is filled with their friends on the street. There is no room for their friends to park either of course because their driveway might hold one or two cars. I think residential is a good use for this project. In a perfect world I would love a community center, just like everyone has tried to get this thing to do, partly community center, a few apartments. If that doesn't work my second would be residential. I don't think commercial is a good use. I don't think other possible uses are. My druthers are a few lesser units to minimize the density and to free the parking problems in essence. Instead of 39 units if it were 32 units and the parking stayed almost the same, as a side bar, I personally am not in favor of the waiver. I think that little part of Walnut should be pushed back instead of parking right up to the street. That would for me solve my density issue. I think this is a little bit too dense for this neighborhood and it would solve the parking issue for me. I am only one of this entire Commission. I started out talking about parking but it is all bound up together. I don't know how to separate them. Those are my points. Hoover: Thank you Commissioner Ostner. Anthes: I have a question for staff. Page 6.19 a letter from the applicant indicates that the proposed density is greater than would be allowed in a new project in an R-1 zone and is less than would be allowed in an R-2 zone. I only have the new code but I requested somebody look that up for me and it appears that actually the units per acre figure and the mid range of an R-2 and in fact are inclusive in R-3, is that correct? Warrick: The R-2 zoning district permits 24 units per acre maximum. The R-3 district permits 40 units maximum. This proposal if you consider the entire lot area, the entire 2.18 acres the density calculates at 19.27. If you take out the park land dedication site, the single-family home and the duplex the density calculates at 23.64 units per acre. Anthes: Am I correct then in stating that the R-3 density starts at 16 units per acre? Warrick: Yes it does. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 62 Anthes: It appears to me that a lot of the commentary tonight deals more with density problems than it does with whether or not this is a residential use. I struggle along with Commissioner Estes to figure out what that means. I know when you tie things to rental rates it is very difficult to rent properties that are over a certain number of square footage I think if you try to rent an 1,800 square foot unit in order to get smaller units on this site you probably will have very few takers in this community because it is too easy to own your home. To that end I believe that some people have suggested that it might be a good compromise to mix condominium units that would be owned with the rental or have it an entire ownership situation, which might make a lot of the neighbors really happy that there would be people living in that site that were committed to staying there and maintaining the quality of that site. I know that is not what is before us tonight. I am new to this so I don't know if that is appropriate for Inc to ask if the applicants have even questioned that. Hoover: I guess let's keep on the topic of density and compatibility with the neighborhood. Anthes: Well itis compatibility. I believe that the issue of renter verses ownership does tie very strictly to the compatibility of the neighborhood. Alexander: I would be glad to respond to that. Hoover: Let's finish with the Commissioners first and then we will let Richard respond to everything. Anthes: I guess what I would like to stay is it is a struggle because I also agree that we have a good applicant that wants to do quality development, we have got a building in the neighborhood that we would like to see used and used well. It is obvious that the density is creating a lot of problems for a lot of the people around and we know it has to cash flow. I would just say that I am concerned that the units per acre do land us within an R-3 zoning in an R-1 district. Shackelford: I would like to start my comments first of all, this is a unique situation. We are talking a lot about protecting the integrity and the nature of the neighborhood and not changing the integrity and nature of the neighborhood. In my opinion the integrity and nature of the neighborhood has changed simply by the fact that the church has relocated. You have a 38,000 square foot special use building that is either going to be redeveloped or sit vacant in the middle of your neighborhood. I understand the concerns and would like to try to see that we work towards an area in which this property is redeveloped to the least detriment to the remaining neighborhood as possible. With that being said, we are Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 63 speaking towards density at this point. I looked at this project, as Commissioner Estes did. Earlier today I kind of put pen to paper, approached it as a bank would as far as cash flow, what sort of rent would have to be required for this project to work. That is something I have some experience in doing. One thing that Mr. Alexander mentioned, the number of $12.00 per square foot is where I came down with what it is going to take to make this property economically viable as far as redevelopment in a residential space. Basically what that means is 1,000 square foot apartment is going to rent for $1,000 a month. That is on the upper end but that is what it is going to take to make a project of this size cash flow to the standards that a bank is going to be willing to make a loan on the property. Sure the density numbers would be better for everybody involved if we had 29 units instead of 39 units but to do that all of the sudden you are talking about 1,800 to 2,300 square foot apartments at $1,800 to $2,300 per month. There is no market, trust me, for that size of apartment as far as rent in this town. We are kind of at a catch 22 in this situation. The density is obviously what some of the concerns are but without the density the project is not economically viable. I know we have heard a lot of developers say that fees that we put on them would kill a project and that sort of thing, in this situation I am in concurrence with it. We need to consider the other alternatives of this property. There is very few other uses that I see this property being used for if we don't look at it as residential. As residential unfortunately it is going to take some degree of density to make the numbers work in a situation where it can be redeveloped as residential. With that being said, that is basically my thoughts on the density. Sure it would be a greater project if you limited it to 32 or even a smaller number. However, from a cash flow analysis, I am not sure that that is going to be an economically viable project for this developer or any other developer that is going to look at this property. Thank you. Hoover: Thank you Commissioner Shackelford. Commissioner Bunch? Bunch: One thing we need to reiterate is there has been some question about residential. This is already zoned residential. It is R-1 right now and by right he could put maybe 8 buildings, 8 occupants on it. What we are looking at is a rezoning request basically done through a Planned Zoning District from an R-1 density to somewhere in an R-2 to R-3 density. We have had other projects in this neighborhood that were already zoned R-2 for which there was considerable resistance and they were at a much lesser density. What we are looking at is changing a density to a greater density than has already been told to us in no uncertain terms was not compatible with the neighborhood. What we are looking at here is a compatibility issue, not just on Lafayette with Willow and Walnut Street and Sutton, but we are also looking at other parts of Olive, other parts of Fletcher in Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 64 Hoover: Church: Alexander: Hoover: Church: Hoover: Allen: general in the downtown area people are saying infill is acceptable but they are concerned about the densities and also traffic and parking. What I am not seeing in the comments that we have had from the public and from the neighborhood associations, is that we are not seeing consistency. We are seeing people opposed to some projects and in favor of others and vice versa. It is quite a decision on our part to separate out and see just what the neighborhoods actually want. One project is oh no, that is too dense. Another project oh this is wonderful. At this point in time I would like to see less density on this particular location but at the same time how does that less density equate in being able to be paid for. That is a tough question. We are looking at something greater here. We have already the aforementioned developments in this same area and we are looking at the library. My concern here is that we are setting some considerable precedence. Each of these developments is unique, it has its own set of circumstances. They will be different, it will come down to something more than just densities. Densities aren't everything, you have to look at traffic and all of that but still, in order to keep peace in the family so to speak, and to be able to provide good infill projects in Fayetteville so that we can avoid core decay we need to look at some consistencies and also to find what is different and what is similar in these various projects. Thank you Commissioner Bunch. I think you are exactly on the mark, what is different and what is similar with these other projects to be consistent. Commissioner Church, would you like to weigh in? I just had a comment. I really like the idea of the community center and I understand that you looked at a facility that would seat approximately 400. I am just wondering and I know that the developer isn't talking or addressing the issues at this point but I guess I would like to know if any consideration was given to a smaller facility and maybe cutting back on the number of residential units. I would be happy to answer that. Let's get, I would like to get everybody's weigh in on density and then we will have Richard come and address density specifically so we can stay on topic. Is there anything else? That's it. Commissioner Allen? I guess I agree a good bit with what Commissioner Ostner said. It is just such a unique situation if we could just come up with a few smaller units I think everybody could feel better about this situation. I also wondered Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 65 about whether or not anyone had looked into the possibility of making one way streets with Sutton and Willow, were those the two streets? Also, I wanted to know more about what was proposed for the single-family residence. I am really struggling with this one. Hoover: Ok. Commissioner Vaught on density please? Vaught: I think that a lot of the problems with the traffic, the nature of a church and a residential are so different that a number of the comments made about parking had to do with the peak hours of a church. That is when they were lined up. I live in the neighborhood so I know what it is like driving down those streets at those times. With this residential you are never going to have all 400 trips of the day there at the same time. I think that that is a big difference between the uses. Like so many people have said, I think the idea of infill is tough because we are looking at taking something right now that generates no trips and talking about converting that use in the middle of an R-1 neighborhood so there are lots of concerns with that. Especially I think that to say that if building an apartment complex here would bring down property values is a bit of a blanket statement. I think that the quality of the development could tie into that. As we head toward where that was multi -family and single- family residential next to each other and the property values were increasing in fact because of the development. I think if the residents wait until the market value of this property comes down to a point where a church can afford it that would affect the property values more than anything the longer this sits vacant. The idea of residential I think is the best use. The idea of a commercial business in the middle of a neighborhood, I don't know if that is the best use for it. The community center, like was stated, I think would cause the same kind of parking problems we have now that everyone has spoken against. The idea of density and making a project work, I don't even know if we would have to come down as low as Commissioner Ostner had said to make it more compatible. What are our other options with this property? I think its proximity in the community would facilitate creating more walking trips necessarily than driving trips given its close to the grocery store and a number of other businesses. Even school students who live there could very easily commute by bike or by walking to the University. It is a tough call but I guess my question would be to the developer if you cut back even to 35 or 34 units would it be possible to eliminate some of the smaller one bedroom units and create maybe possibly a little bit bigger two bedroom units to get rid of just a few, could that possibly be a viable solution or the idea of possibly creating condominiums in one of the buildings and selling them off to help mitigate the cost. I don't know. I am sure those options have been looked at and I would just like to hear what kind of ideas were generated from that. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 66 Hoover: Thank you Commissioner. Commissioner Estes, did you have anything to add on density or did you already complete your density expose? Estes: Madam Chair, you of course know I have something to say after sitting here listening to my fellow Commissioners. Commissioner Bunch correctly stated that this is zoned R-1 and what we are being asked to do is increase the density. Richard challenged us as a Commission that if we vote no to at least offer some alternatives. It is not our business Richard, as you know, to micro -manage your project but there are many alternatives. You, as a developer, do not necessarily have to own this in fee simple. In other parts of the country 99 year leases are done on infill projects and then you build out eight units with a shared common area and you sell those units in fee simple subject to the ground lease. That is common in other parts of the country. You said if you vote no give me something. I just gave you something Richard. Alexander: May I speak to that? Estes: That is up to the chair. Hoover: Are you finished Commissioner Estes? Estes: I am finished on the density issue. Hoover: Ok. Yes Richard, please come speak to density. Alexander: We have contemplated doing condominiums. In fact, if we do this project we will offer some of them for condominiums. I have to say, having done two recent condominium projects downtown, there is a limited market for it. To think that we can do the whole project as a condominium development I don't think is feasible. We intend to offer some of them as condominiums. They will frankly be quite nice and will exceed $100 to $120 to $140 a foot in terms of what we will have invested in them. They will be fairly expensive homes by the time that we get done with them. It was my understanding that that wasn't part of this application process that we had to spell out how we were going to do that. Commissioner Shackelford did the same math that I did. We didn't share our math but it is the same. I started from the gross proposition of what we would have to spend to do a quality project. I can spend less and have less units and have less quality. That is exactly the type of apartment building that my neighbors will not like. That is always the dilemma. All I can say in defense of that is drive around town and look at what I have done. We haven't done cheap stuff anywhere. With respect to parking, I wanted to address that. You had a good point Commissioner Estes. The most I Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 67 could add additional without a variance is 30%, that is 19 spaces. The least I could have without a variance is 30% less. As a practical matter for instance, we developed the triplex across the street from my home in this neighborhood, a three bedroom unit, a two bedroom unit and a one bedroom unit. They are all occupied by single professional women with one car each. The truth is the parking density, while you have two bedrooms, is not going to be one for one. In practical speaking, it will be about 1.5. There will be overflow parking I think if 30% is the maximum or the minimum we are well within that. I have to stress when you are talking about density on other projects this is not a new project. I started this proposition from day one with Planning staff. I would not be standing here before you asking for this project but for the fact that 38,000 square feet is existing in that neighborhood, it looks like it looks, all of the parking is in place, I am not proposing to add parking, take away parking. I am trying to make this fit. In terms of redeveloping this, in terms of the money spent, somebody made the point anybody that does this project is going to have to bring it up to code. That will limit your uses because you will have to spend a certain amount of money to sprinkle the buildings, bring the electric up, bring the plumbing up, all of that kind of stuff. To do less, you could have lesser density but again, a lesser project. The Sutton Street house, I just want to address one lady's comment, we are proposing to leave the Sutton Street house single-family. We are not asking to rezone that property. The Willow Street house is an existing duplex, we are proposing to leave that as a duplex and are not asking to rezone that. Just so that there is no confusion. We are not asking to rezone the Sutton Street property or to do anything other than to keep that as a single-family dwelling. I hope that answered some of your questions. Hoover: Can you address if you proposed with the city if it would be possible to make any of these streets one way to accommodate better traffic circulation and parking? Alexander: I didn't raise that. I kind of felt that would be more, somebody asked me what we were going to do with the park, I am not going to do anything with the park. Parks is going to tell me what they are going to do with it. We are proposing one way in and one way out. We are proposing one way in off of Willow and one way out off of Walnut. It would be appropriate to do the streets one way but we didn't make that part of our proposal. We would certainly be glad to listen. With respect to density, 39 is the number we came up with trying to do the math. I want to make it absolutely clear, this isn't a homerun. Nobody's kids are going to college on this project. This will cash flow itself probably. 39, 38, 37 sure, 20, it won't be my proposal before you. It will have to be somebody else. We start with the number of dollars it takes to do it and then work backwards. Thank you. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 68 Hoover: Thank you Richard. Anthes: Richard, before you sit down. I know this is off of exactly what we are doing but I am doing it for a neighborhood feeling here. I just see a lot of people here that are more comfortable with knowing there would be ownership on that property and you stated in your statements a minute ago that you intend to offer some. How does that work in your formula and how you arrived at your density levels? Alexander: What we did with the UARK Bowl is we offered them all for sale or lease and sold the ones that people wanted to buy and leased the ones that people wanted to lease. From my perspective there is really no magic to it. We will offer them for sale or lease. If somebody wants to by one great! To me the problem will take care of itself because you will sell a certain amount of them and that will create a POA and association. I am personally in favor of it. We have only done a few of them. I mean a few years ago condominium sales, you were ahead of your time. There were guys that went broke doing that. That is a new thing that is becoming accepted. We are struggling with that. I personally like it. It is more who comes. There is no way to really predict that. I could tell you that if we had 39 units and we offered some of them for sale some of them will sale. Anthes: So the answer is that you have to run your performa based on the fact that 100% of this could be rental and that the unit sizes have to be based on whether or not it is rental property whether or not it sold. Alexander: That is the only way I know how to do it. Mr. Shackelford's point was that if you are coming to the bank, and he is with a bank, you have got to make that work in order to get the 3.5 million. Otherwise they won't loan you the money. It is very little wiggle room. I do it for a living and this is the best I could come up with. Can you reconfigure 39 or 37, a couple of units, sure. 20%, 30%, 40%, I don't think so. That is the way I did it. Hoover: Would everyone be ok if I moved onto another topic that we haven't discussed? The parkland dedication and the fee in lieu of The Parks and Rec. Advisory Board has recommended that the balance of the amount be paid as a fee in lieu in the amount of $11,331.25. They are donating park land and I believe the applicant would like not to have to pay this fee, is that correct Richard? Alexander: That is correct. Hoover: I would like to have some discussion about that. Commissioner Estes? Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 69 Estes: The Parks and Recreation Advisory Board is just that, it is an advisory board to this Commission. They have met, they have studied, they have done their job and they have made their recommendation and I am inclined to follow their recommendation. Hoover: Thank you Commissioner Estes. Commissioner Ostner? Ostner: I tend to agree with Commissioner Estes. I understand the hardship that this land is much more valuable and the irony that if you all were not to give it away you would be required to pay less than the appraised value. It is quite odd but I am in agreement with the Parks Board. Hoover: Commissioner Shackelford? Shackelford: It is ironic, as Commissioner Ostner said, exactly how the math works out and that sort of thing. You know, there is a cost of doing business and quite honestly in my projections I just work that into the cost whether it is right or wrong. That is what our city staff, our chosen people have recommended and I don't feel that I am in a position without hearing justifiable argument from the developer beyond what is in the packet to go any other direction with it. Hoover: Thank you. Are there any other Commissioners that would like to weigh in on this issue? Richard, would you like to address us on this issue? Alexander: To me it was real simple. The price of the land, we had an appraisal done by St. Jo's church, it is $225 an acre and that is what they are basically asking us to pay for it. We didn't mind making the dedication of park land if it made the neighborhood happy. It is a chunk right out of the middle of the project, a significant chunk. The value of that land according to the appraisal not done for me but done for the church by Tom Reed is anywhere from $225 a foot to $425 a foot. If we were to pay parks fees in lieu of land dedication we would be required to pay $15,000. What I understand that the Parks Board has voted is for us to pay $17,000 to $32,000 for the land, give it to the Parks Board and then pay another $10,000 in fees. Just at the price we will have to buy it is $17,000 I think. $17,000 plus another $11,000 roughly is $30,000 so almost double the amount of money I would have to pay if I just paid the fees. It just doesn't seem fair. The city's formula for figuring this is .66 acres anywhere in the city. I have done projects downtown that the whole project was .66 acres. If I was required to donate the whole .66 acres there would be no project. In addition, land down on Dickson Street is anywhere from $13 to $20 a foot. To equate a dedication of land on Dickson Street that you would have to buy for parks land to do a project and then to require the developer to pay additional fees because you could only give, the land is smaller and Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 70 by definition worth more, then to have to pay more on top of that just seems unfair. We don't mind giving the park. We don't mind at all. If that makes the neighborhood happy that is fine. We were proposing to keep the land as greenspace anyway. Our proposal is not to develop any of the space not occupied by buildings anyway. It will cost us $17,000, in addition to that Parks wants us to pay roughly another $11,000, that is roughly $30,000 or $29,000 when the fees are $15,000. Anthes: I have a question for Mr. Whitaker. Will you define what is allowed under hardship? Will you also speak to how the formula, if what land costs actually can be applied to our formula. Whitaker: This has come up many number of times. I find myself, at least at the rate it is going, we are averaging about three times a year that one or another committee or commission will ask for a definition of hardship or as the Arkansas Code says, an undue hardship. I will continue to repeat that there is no precise definition. It is a fact based inquiry which you have to make each time. I guess that I ran across, when I was doing this the first time a year or so ago, there was a whole lot of work done and effort expended looking at the possibility of an outdoor lighting ordinance and the whole question arose about what constitutes a hardship and I dug and I dug and I dug. I have to tell you that I discovered that almost anyone that has ever looked at it ran into the same problem. There was never a precise definition. However, I did run across one treatise where the commentator said that probably the best way to understand what it is is to understand what it is not. I will read that briefly to you. It is not mere hardship, inconvenience, interference with convenience or economic advantage. Disappointment in learning that land is not available for business uses, financial or pecuniary hardship or disadvantage, loss of perspective profits, prevention of an increase of profits or prohibition of the most profitable use of the property. I think that is probably the best definition that you are going to get in the land use setting. It kind of says things that are not a problem. What I have heard, what I have read in the packet and what I have heard from Mr. Alexander, sound like very strong arguments for legislative change. At the time this parkland was adopted or perhaps a suggested amendment to the underlying ordinance that perhaps this formula isn't fair but the fact is, and I believe the record will bear my memory out on this, this discussion of having one fee for the entire town from the folks that congregated it and the Council when it was brought forward had some heartburn. On the other side of the coin when we are dealing with property owners in the outlying areas where property values are low one could argue saying we are not getting our due. It was decided, and we believe reasonably so, that an average and a formula be put together for the whole city. Yes, sometimes it is going to be unfair but again, I hesitate to tell you one way or the other whether it is a hardship or Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 71 not because that is a fact based judgment you have to make. I can only tell you what some of the findings are leading you and you are left with the facts and you have to wrestle with them. Anthes: Thank you Mr. Whitaker. On the basis of your definition, I have to say that I would be in favor of letting the Parks Department ruling stand. Thank you. Hoover: I would like to move onto the next waiver we are being asked to address, which is a determination for the waiver of required landscaping adjacent to existing parking lot adjacent to existing Walnut Avenue right of way. The requirement is for a 15' landscaped setback for the parking lot with the dedication to accommodate the Master Street Plan the existing configuration of this parking provision and this landscaped area would require the removal of three existing parking spaces. Commissioner Ostner, did you have a comment about that one? I think you already did comment about it at one point. Ostner: I did. I think that we should not grant the waiver. I think he does need to bring the parking lot into compliance at least, which means moving the landscape buffer inward and it will remove three parking spaces. I think the neighborhood is going through enough, I think there are enough issues on the table that this does not need to be one. Vaught: I have a question for staff. It is my understanding that if we don't allow this waiver and require them to remove three parking spaces, he will still comply with the code and not have to seek a waiver for his parking is that correct? Warrick: That is correct. Vaught: It is hard for me because most of the complaints we have heard deal with parking and here we are removing parking spaces when no matter which way we go to keep these existing parking spaces on site requires a waiver which would help very little with the parking on the streets, but would help some I would think. It is three spaces. It is just hard for me to decide either way but really I guess if we approve the overall project this point is not the most important. Either way we go he is in compliance with the parking ordinance. Do we want these three spaces on site or off site, I don't know. Hoover: Thank you Commissioner. Shackelford: I would agree with the last comments. As I looked at this and listened to the comments from the public I see that we are very much concerned with Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 72 the on street parking and the affect that it has on the neighborhood. Based on that, my initial reading I was in support of the waiver to allow the three existing parking places to stay on location simply because it will reduce the affect or the need for some offsite location as well. I do have a question for staff. Dawn, the requirement is for a 15' landscaped setback, do you know approximately what the existing setback is in this area? Are we looking at 5' or 10', how much are we looking at giving up in that area? I couldn't tell from the drawing. Warrick: It is different on the north side of the drive than the south. The existing landscaped area on the north is probably 3' or 4' and on the south maybe 10'. Shackelford: I could visually think of the south side of it where it was larger but I couldn't remember how much smaller it got on the other end of it. With that being said, I would speak in favor of the waiver simply because I would rather have the parking on location rather than off location and as Commissioner Vaught has pointed out, even if we reduce these three parking spaces, the developer still would be within our perimeters for parking for this development. Thank you. Hoover: Thanks. Are there any other Commissioners that would like to address this waiver? I am going to move onto the next item that we need to address, which is on Sutton Avenue reducing the amount of right of way dedication by 3' to allow the existing right of way to remain. Does anyone have any problem with this? Apparently we have an existing condition with the building. There are no problems with this. I guess I would like to ask staff on the covenants. I read further in here, do they need to be submitted to Council when this goes to Council? I am confused on when the covenants are actually included wit this PZD ordinance. Warrick: The requirement for covenants is typically that they include any information that is required by the Planning Commission and that they be submitted and filed with the final document at the time that it is filed creating the project. That would be in this case, the concurrent plat document would be filed of record with the Circuit Clerk of Washington County making this Planned Zoning District, creating this Planned Zoning District and the lots that are designated. Hoover: Thank you. Does anybody have any questions on the covenants, on that issue? Then let me throw it out for any other discussion on any issue we have not discussed. Whitaker: Madam Chair, I don't want to be out of order. I would ask your permission if I may inquire of Planning staff. Condition number four Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 73 refers to regarding the rezoning of the subject property to the unique district for R-PZD, etc., etc. I believe that I heard the applicant say that he wasn't seeking rezoning for the entire subject property. It seems a little imprecise to rezone the whole thing. Warrick: I will be happy to address that. The reason that we encouraged the applicant to maintain the duplex lot and the single-family lot in this R- PZD Planned Zoning District is because both of those lots are non- conforming lots within the R-1 zoning district. They do not meet the minimum lot size or frontage requirements and therefore, providing them the special zoning designation of R-PZD they can become compliant lots. Another issue is that the current lot lines that define all of the various lots within this parcel of land are being shifted. Therefore, this does become a subdivision realigning the existing lots to provide one lot for each of the structures and one lot for the park land dedication. Because we are shifting lot lines and because we are trying to accommodate existing conditions for the single-family home and the duplex staff has recommended that they remain part of the R-PZD. I think it would be appropriate based on the comments and based on the uses proposed for the single-family home and the duplex that conditions be stated that they retain their current usage and that they not be increased in density for those two structures. Whitaker: Thank you. That cleared it up. Hoover: Is there any other discussion? Ostner: I don't want to belabor a point but I shall. Very quickly, on the density issue I wanted to make it clear to myself how I was justifying an R-2 or R- 3 in an R-1 zone besides the buildings are already there. I thought about R-1 and the density in R-2 as an adjoining acceptable zone because we have often adjoined R-2 and R-1 or R -O with R-1 as a buffer, as we talked about hours ago. The density, what we have done is we have basically doubled the density every time we hopscotch. R-1 is roughly four units per acre. We currently have RSF-6, RSF-7, which are more compact single-family zones. Then R -O and R-2 are more of the zoning names we have. We have multi -family. If Washington Willow is in fact, not R-1, it is R-1 on paper. We know it is not actually R-1, the lots are smaller, there are some multi -family uses there. I would guess, and I would love to really know if someone were to take the maps and drive around and figure what the density really is. I think that would help a lot for us to look at what we are really adjoining, not what a fictitious map says Washington Willow is. If Washington Willow is six units per acre or seven, which I think it could be, maybe I'm wrong. Doubling that for this project seems feasible. It seems like something we have always done. We double the Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 74 density as we hopscotch towards commercial or away from it. 7x2 is 14 units per acre. That is not what they are proposing. 18 units per acre is 32 units. That is how I justified it. I know that is confusing but since we are dealing with Mt. Sequoyah, we are dealing with all of these PZDs where we are having to pull these densities out of the air without our usual sequence of R-1, R -O, Commercial, that seemed feasible to me. That is why in a perfect world, without the money problems I understand, that is why I can justify what I call RMF -18, which is 32 units. RMF -18 is our third most dense zone. R -O and all of those things don't exist technically anymore. I wanted to go on record and explain that just to make things very clear. Hoover: Thank you Commissioner Ostner. Are there any other comments? Are there any motions? Shackelford: I would like to start by I think Commissioner Ostner did a very good job of defining his position and kind of reiterating his position. It kind of lead me to feel compelled to do the same. Obviously I have spoke in favor of this and the reason that I have gotten to that point is first of all let me say that I would not support 38 or 39 units to be built if this was a two acre vacant lot in the middle of this neighborhood. This is a very unique situation in we had 38,000 square feet of abandoned building that is going to be redeveloped, redesigned into something. Basically what I have had to do as a Planning Commissioner is look at this project, see if it is something that could feasibly survive in this neighborhood and what impact it is going to have on the neighborhood. It is going to have some impact on the neighborhood, there is no question about that but the neighborhood was impacted the day that this property was abandoned and the church moved out. With that being said, I can get to the point. I understand we have some concerns about density. I understand we have some other concerns but I would like to encourage this Commission to make a recommendation. Again, I know we have had conversations about neighborhood associations, we have heard from the officers of the neighborhood association. We have heard from several members of the neighborhood who have disagreements with that association. We have had several public meetings in this issue and please remember this is a recommendation to City Council. This is not final action so there will be even more opportunity in the future for further conversation in that area. Based on that, I do not want to see this at this point die for lack of a motion. I think that we owe the developer due process. I think that this is a situation in which you know, it is feasible that this can go in this neighborhood and survive in this neighborhood. I think it is better than a lot of the alternatives that we are going to see in this. I quite frankly think it is better than seeing this building sit vacant with boards on the windows and that sort of thing. With that being said, with all of the comments that Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 75 we have made regarding the different waivers, I am going to make a motion that we approve R-PZD 03-3.00 subject to all staff comments and all conditions of approval. Hoover: Commissioner Shackelford, on condition of approval number one, I think that we have to explain our determination. Shackelford: My determination there was based on the definition I asked Mr. Whitaker basically the same question that Ms. Anthes did last meeting when we talked about the underground cables and exactly what is the definition of undue hardship. While I'm in agreement with this applicant that this is not fair in this situation, I agree with our City Attorney that this is more of a grounds for legislative change instead of a hardship at this point. While I do have sympathy with the developer I feel that based on our definition of undue hardship we have to find in favor of what the Parks and Recreation Committee is advising, which is the land plus the fee. Hoover: Thank you. I have a motion by Commissioner Shackelford, do I have a second? Vaught: I will second. Hoover: There is a second by Commissioner Vaught. Is there any other discussion? Estes: Because one of the findings of fact that we must make is that the proposal preserves and enhances the neighborhood and I cannot make that finding I will vote against the motion. Hoover: Thank you Commissioner Estes. I would like to say that this has been one of the most unique projects we have had come forward in a long time to have this much discussion about it. It has just about every difficult situation you could have that we need to look at. One is that the Planned Zoning District is a new device here that we are all excited about because it produces a lot of opportunities for different types of developments but we are still learning how to deal with it and cope. We also have a situation where we have existing buildings. We are not starting from scratch with a new development so we have the issues of whether we weigh this, what would we suggest in a new development what would be our recommendation. Here we have existing buildings and yet we're not technically supposed to be looking at the financial burden. We can't not look at it because it is right there sitting in our face and we don't want a building just to be vacant all the time. Then on top of those issues we are in a historic district, which has very small lots, spaces, a particular neighborhood characteristic that we are trying to maintain and enhance Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 76 and our charge is to decide if this type of development is compatible with the existing neighborhood. Shackelford: If I could make one more point. Commissioner Estes made a point about findings of fact. I also struggled with the findings of fact of how this development would preserve and enhance the integrity of this neighborhood. The way that I got to a positive finding of that fact quite simply is I am thinking of where the project is now, where it is going forward. Obviously, it is not an enhancement to the neighborhood if it was still operating as a church, if it was operating as a museum, if it was a property of the University of Arkansas. In my mind it is an abandoned building that will only deteriorate over time. Based on that finding I do feel that a redevelopment and infill in this area will preserve and enhance the overall neighborhood over the basis of where the property will be if it sits vacant. I think if we rule out multi -family development I think this property will sit vacant for a long time. Thank you. Anthes: Condition of approval number two, don't we have to state a determination there as well? Shackelford: I would like to state in favor of the waiver requiring landscaping adjacent to the existing parking lot adjacent to Walnut Avenue. Hoover: Commissioner Vaught, is that ok with the second? Vaught: Yes. Anthes: Item three is the same question? Shackelford: Yes, I am in favor with staff findings on that as well. Anthes: One other question. Since the PZD is a new thing to us and we have to then send this up to City Council there has been talk about the fact that this number of units is a little mushy at this time, not to any great degree perhaps but slightly mushy. A question to staff is, when this is approved as a PZD you can't vary from it correct? Warrick: That is correct. The zoning approval would be tied to the development proposal. Anthes: If this passes at this number of units there is no room for moving? Warrick: The City Council does have latitude and this is a policy decision that they will make the final determination on. You are making a recommendation to the City Council with regard to the development and zoning Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 77 combination for this particular site. They will be able to review that and they do have the authority to modify that if they see that as their choice. Anthes: Is there a way to send this to Council with a reservation attached? Hoover: Three hours of minutes. Warrick: I think that is probably true. We have got on the record many different discussions, conversations, reservations, and other. It will all go forward. The minutes of this will certainly accompany the item if you choose to send it forward. Anthes: Thank you. Ostner: On this issue of neighborhood integrity, I should've mentioned this earlier. Architectural historic integrity in downtown urban areas is I know a little bit about it, I'm not a professional. Usually the first goal, believe it or not, is preserve the look. If the building has to be torn down and replaced preserve the look, we will talk about the other things second. If the building has to change uses, preserve the look. That is tantamount in historic preservation. It could be a shell, it could be a 1' wall and air behind it and preserve the look. Beal Street, Savanna, Georgia, very successful historic areas have followed this rule. This is just the first of it. Use is of course very important that follows into that but this preserves the look. The use does change but as we have all talked about and hashed out thoroughly I think the use is moving towards something semi -acceptable. Since the look is staying the same I think it is very important and I think the neighborhood is getting the best of a somewhat dire situation. I do think this is going to work good for the neighborhood though it doesn't seem it now. Hoover: Thank you. Is there any other discussion? Bunch: Looking at the numbers, this equates basically to an RMF -24. At the level of an RMF -18 the 1.65 acres that are dedicated to the three structures to be turned into multi -family would come out to RMF -18 would be 30, right at a fraction, and RMF -12 would be 19.8 or more or less 20 units just to get the numbers out front. Generally I am in favor of infill developments and definitely reusing existing structures and preserving historical looks. On this particular one I am torn. I understand the economics of the situation but at the same time for consistency with other developments in the area I cannot support it at this time at this density level. Other than that, I think it is a good project, I think it has a lot going for it. The applicant has done some very wonderful infill projects that I support but I cannot support the density on this particular project at this point in time. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 78 Hoover: Ostner: Warrick: Ostner: Hoover: Warrick: Hoover: Ostner: Anthes: Warrick: Vaught: Warrick: Hoover: Vaught: Hoover: Thank you Commissioner Bunch. Is there anymore discussion? A question for staff on procedure. If this fails in this form how long before he could resubmit in a different form? The same request could not come back for one calendar year. A different request, a materially different request, could be resubmitted. Ok. Does density count as materially different? I believe so. The applicant would have the opportunity should the Planning Commission vote to deny the request, the applicant does have the opportunity to appeal through due process to the City Council. Is that clear? Yes. Is the appeal to the City Council in the same schedule as if we send it to the City Council? It depends on the applicant's time frame with regard to how quickly they submit information to the City Clerk's office. There is typically a three week delay in items being forwarded from this level to the City Council through a staff review form and I believe that the applicant would be on the same processing schedule. This coming Friday is a deadline to start processing for I believe the June 3`a City Council meeting. Could we change this R-PZD to say a maximum of 39 units instead of 39 units to give the developer some lead way in reconfiguring on his own? You have the ability to do that. Right now we have a motion that we need to vote on. Can we amend the motion? Yes. Shackelford: I would be willing to amend the motion to word a maximum of 39 units. Vaught: I would concur. Planning Commission May 12, 2003 Page 79 Hoover: Would you reiterate your motion because it has been a little while. MOTION: Shackelford: I make a motion that we approve R-PZD 03-3.00 with the changes that it says that we are recommending for approval to the City Council a maximum of 39 residential units with 64 parking spaces. I am finding on condition number one regarding in favor of the Parks Board that land plus fee be dedicated. I am finding in favor of waiver number two that there be a lesser amount of landscape setback to allow the three parking spaces to remain on site. I am finding in favor of the waiver in condition number three that would reduce the setback from centerline by 3.01'. I believe that is all the specific findings that I have to make. Hoover: Commissioner Vaught, do you still second? Vaught: Yes, I still second. Hoover: Thank you. I appreciate the clarification. I appreciate the public involvement tonight and everyone staying late and the Planning Commission's good discussion. Now can we vote? Shackelford: Let's vote. Hoover: Renee, please call the roll. Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to forward R-PZD 03-3.00 to the City Council was approved by a vote of 5-4-0 with Commissioners Ostner, Estes, Bunch and Hoover voting no. Thomas: The motion passes five to four. Hoover: Thank you Richard. We are adjourned.