Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004-03-22 MinutesMINUTES OF A MEETING OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION A regular meeting of the Planning Commission was held on Monday, March 22, 2004 at 5:30 p.m. in room 219 of the City Administration Building, 113 W. Mountain, Fayetteville, Arkansas. VAC 04-03.00: (Sohraby, pp 295) Consent ADM 04-10.00: (O'Charley's) Consent ADM 04-12.00: (Impact Fees) Page 4 R-PZD 04-04.00:(Stonewood Gardens, pp 60) Page 17 ADM 01-15.00: (Outdoor Lighting) Page 29 James Graves Alan Ostner Don Bunch Loren Shackelford Jill Anthes Sharon Hoover Christian Vaught Nancy Allen STAFF PRESENT Dawn Warrick Matt Casey Suzanne Morgan Renee Thomas Kit Williams ACTION TAKEN Forwarded to City Council Approved Approved Forwarded to City Council Forwarded to City Council MEMBERS ABSENT STAFF ABSENT Jeremy Pate Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 2 Hoover: Welcome to the March 22, 2004 meeting of the Fayetteville Planning Commission. Renee, would you call the roll please? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call all eight commissioners were present. Hoover: Mayor Coody, you are on the agenda. Coody: Thanks for letting me come share your time this evening. I want to say thanks. I know we have three folks retiring from the Planning Commission this evening and I don't think folks recognize what a challenge this body has to deal with all of the growth and all the issues that come before you. This is a really important deliberative body. We all appreciate your work very much. Last year we did 8,500 construction permits, 300 million dollars worth of building in one year in this city public and private. That broke all records for all previous years and it looks like that for 2004 we are on track to break the record of 2003 so the work load is going to intensify even more than it was last year. You guys are on the front burner on this growth so you are having to do a lot of work and we appreciate everything that you do. There are three of you that are retiring from the board tonight and we wanted to recognize you and thank you for your contributions and your willingness to spend so much of your time for the betterment of the community. Fayetteville couldn't operate without the spirit, cooperation and volunteerism that you have exhibited here. The first one, Mr. Donald Bunch, it reads in appreciation of your dedication and service to the City of Fayetteville. Planning Commissioner Don Bunch from June, 1999 to March, 2004. We have one for Alice Church that reads the same, Planning Commissioner from April, 2001 to March, 2004. Thank you very much Alice. Last, but certainly not least, my dear friend Sharon Hoover from April, 1998 to March, 2004. You are the longest live Planning Commissioner. I also want to say thanks to the hard working staff that generates all of this work for you. Thank you all for everything and we look forward to more years of new folks coming on board and working together for the betterment of the community. Thanks. Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 3 Consent Agenda: Approval of the March 8, 2004 minutes VAC 04-03.00: Vacation (Sohraby, pp 295) was submitted by Kazem Sohraby for property located at 2474 Fennchurch Way. The property is zoned RSF-4, Residential Single-family, 4 units per acre. The request is to vacate a portion of the utility easement to allow for an existing eave. ADM 04-10.00: Administrative Item (O'Charley's) to request an extension of the expiration date of the Large Scale Development approved by the Planning Commission. Hoover: The first item on our agenda tonight is consent agenda which consists of approval of the minutes from the March 8t" meeting, VAC 04-03.00 and ADM 04-10.00. Is there any member of the audience or the Commission that would like to remove any of these items from the consent agenda? Seeing none, is there a motion for approval? Bunch: So moved. Shackelford: Second. Hoover: There is a motion by Commissioner Bunch and a second by Commissioner Shackelford. Renee? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to approve the consent agenda was approved by a vote of 8-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries eight to zero. Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 4 ADM 04-12.00: Administrative Item (Impact Fees) was submitted by Joel Fruend for property located at 1408 Rockwood Trail. The request is to appeal the application of impact fees under §155.06 Appeals from Stafflnterpretations /Actions allowing a waiver of impact fees associated with a new swimming pool and pool -house development on the subject property. Hoover: New business item number three on the agenda is ADM 04-12.00 for impact fees for property located at 1408 Rockwood Trail. Warrick: This item is the first time we have brought to the Panning Commission a request from a citizen to appeal the impact fees which have been imposed on a project. This particular project was initiated with building and plumbing permits which were issued on August 28, 2003 for construction of a 288 sq.ft. pool house and storage building at 1408 Rockwood Trail, the subject property. Then on September 9, 2003 a permit was issued for the associated in ground swimming pool. Staff has had a couple of conversations with the applicant with regard to this project as to whether or not impact fees should apply to this development. New connections are proposed to the water and wastewater systems of the city to provide for this pool house and in ground swimming pool development. As your impact fee administrator I was asked for an interpretation. I provided one stating that I believed impact fees were appropriate and applicable and the applicant has chosen to appeal that. We respectfully disagree on this item. He is appealing under Code §155.06 which is Appeals from staff interpretations or actions. Stating that the impact fees are in excess of the rough proportionality of the impact of the development on the city's infrastructure. The proposed fees for this project should they be imposed would total $1,143. The basis of my interpretation is of course, the impact fee ordinance which states that any new connection to the water and/or wastewater system shall require an impact fee. Any new connection requires capacity. Capacity is provided through capital improvements and upgrades to those systems which are to be funded at least in part, with impact fees collected from new developments which cause the need for those improvements. Hoover: Would the applicant come forward? Freund: I'm Joel Freund and I appreciate being here. Thank you Dawn. I appreciate what she has done. She has been very respectful and helpful in all of this and I appreciate that. Two clarifications slightly. One s the pool is not connected to the system in any way. It doesn't go to the waste water or to the pool. You can fill it with a garden hose. It is not connected directly. The pool house, while it seems fairly large, has a total enclosed space of about 96 sq.ft., the storage room and the bathroom facility are 6'x8' each. The rest is an open porch. It is just an open building so there is very little enclosed space. I probably would not want Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 5 to live in something that small. The reason I requested the appeal is that we are not adding any impact in the sense of no more people. The bathroom is there for the convenience of our family to use the swimming pool and not use the yard for various purposes that one wouldn't like. Our house sits up on Rockwood Trail. Where the pool is more than 150' down below it and lower by 12' or so more. In order to get to the existing connection, which is certainly possible I guess, one would have to put a pump to connect it to the wastewater, obviously not the water, but the wastewater would have to have a pump to get the water back to the sewer connection. It might be possible but that would certainly not be a good idea mechanically. You have to have a pump and the pump breaks down and there is always a problem. Are there any questions that I can answer? Hoover: We'll have some questions for you in a minute. Right now I will open it up to public comment. Is there anyone that would like to address this ADM 04-12.00? I will bring it back to the Commission. I guess first I'd like to clarify, Matt, is the pool connected to the wastewater system? I understand it is being filled by a hose. Casey: He indicated it is currently not but Dawn did some research earlier today and found on the Department of Health website that it should be. Warrick: What he is talking about is I did go the Department of Health website and found rules and regulations pertaining to swimming pools and other related facilities. They have sections on water and sewer in that regulation and it does talk about the sanitary sewer servicing a pool and auxiliary facilities shall discharge to a public sewer system wherever possible and in accordance with applicable requirements. It does indicate that State Health expects that chemically treated pool water will go into a sewer system and therefore, be treated before it is discharged. Freund: Someone should notify the pool people of that because they do not know that. Hoover: Are they just running it to the storm sewer? Freund: There is nothing to run, you don't empty the pool. Hoover: You have to backwash and some water will come out. Matt, aren't there specific requirements? Freund: That comes out in the yard as I've been told by the pool people? Hoover: Do we have swimming pool requirements? Casey: We, as a city, do not. Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 6 Hoover: It all goes from the Health Department? Warrick: This is a regulation that I'm not overly familiar with. I happen to find it today and I thought that it was applicable so I thought that I would bring it forward for information. Apparently that is not necessarily the procedure that is currently followed through our plumbing permit and inspection process. Hoover: I just wanted to clarify. Really all you are talking about being connected to is sanitary sewer at the moment is the bathroom? Freund: Yes. Williams: I have a question for staff. I doubt I guess that a building permit has been issued yet because of this impact fee. Warrick: Building permits have been issued. Impact fees are collected at the time of a meter set. Williams: When we issued building permits we did not require the pool to be connected to the sewer to your knowledge? Warrick: To my knowledge, no. That is handled through the Building Safety Division. Bunch: How do you propose to supply the water to the pool house? Are you anticipating a new meter or are you going to run a line from your existing meter system? Freund: Because of the location a new meter at the bottom of the yard would be the easiest because it wouldn't have to dig through the whole yard to get to the top of the hill where the current connection is. I am anticipating a new meter and a new sewer connection simply for this pool house. Ostner: Just for clarity, could the project be done without a new water or sewer tap? Freund: Yes. It is not preferable. For many reasons it is not preferable. One particular is I would have to have a grinder pump to take the waste affluent back up the hill. That is something else that can break and does break and has to be maintained. It would have to go through the whole yard and that would be more destructive to the yard by far. Casey: Just some more information on that. I spoke with David Jurgens, our Water and Waste Water Superintendent this morning regarding the Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 7 connection and he pointed out to me a section in our ordinances that say that separate buildings require separate connections. The answer to that would be the grinder pump situation would not be applicable to this. It would have to have it's own sewer service. The water service could be provided through the existing water meter. The sewer will have to be separate. Ostner: Separate taps? Casey: Yes Sir. Ostner: Part of the way I tried to think about this to make it more clear in my mind is what if he wanted to do all of this as an extension of his building. I know it sounds crazy but just for the point of discussion, what if he wanted to build a massive roof structure and put this pool and everything he wants as an extension of his home. There wouldn't be impact fees because we clearly say enlargement of single family homes do not require an impact fee. That is where it just doesn't make sense to me to call this a development with impact. If it were rearranged physically in a way then there is no impact. It is an extension of a home. If you want to break it up architecturally or design wise or there is a long, steep lot or whatever suddenly the definition has changed to a development with an impact and that seems confusing. It doesn't seem like a development in that sense I guess. Shackelford: I concur with what Commissioner Ostner is saying and I struggle in a couple of areas also. If you look at the revised impact fee study that was handed out prior to the meeting prepared by Duncan & Associates two points that I keep coming back to. In the second paragraph it says that impact fees are designed to ensure that new development contributes a fair share of the costs of the capital improvements needed to serve this growth. I don't know that this project requires the same fee as a new single family residence to pay it's fair share on the cost of capital improvements needed to serve the growth. This project, as I understand, will add no new population to the house. It probably is going to take service that probably would've been used in other areas of the house to this location. The fourth paragraph also states that the impact fees are made to ensure that new development pays a fair share of the cost of infrastructure needed to serve it. Again, I struggle in the same area. I don't know that since this fee that we are asking for would be the same fee as a new single family residence that is going to bring new population base to the system, I don't know that it is a fair assessment that this improvement is going to force the cost of infrastructure needed so I am struggling with saying that it is on the same foundation and basis of a new single family residence and the same fee should be applicable. Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 8 Anthes: I too am struggling with the amount that we are talking about here. To me there is a difference in that this facility will require a new connection. The pool will probably be filled with water at the new pool house at the new connection so the pool does have some impact to the water service. I agree that you won't be adding population in terms of your home residence but there might be a considerably larger amount of people using the toilet facilities and the showers at the residence as a result of the pool because a lot of people invite a lot of friends over to use pools. It is an unfortunate situation in that you are down hill but the fact that the new tap is required indicates to me that there is something that we have to do when we look at how our ordinances are stated and it talks about when there is new service any new connection requires capacity and when Matt tells us that our ordinances say when there is a separate building that we do require a fee. To me the question is what fee is correct and to me the $1,143 is much too large to be roughly proportional. Freund: If we didn't add a bathroom facility down below whatever people we have would use the house. The problem is there are some children involved who might not. Vaught: I would agree with the Commissioners that stated they don't agree with the amount. We are talking about adding a new bathroom. I feel like it is a situation where the individual is being penalized for the location of their house. As Commissioner Ostner stated, if this had been a flat lot and they could've attached it to the house there would've been no new impact at all and that is what I keep coming back to. It is a new tap but it is not really development to me, especially in the terms of the ordinance that exempts additions to single family homes. I just look at this as an addition almost with an unfortunate lot. I don't see requiring, especially an $1,100 impact fee and I just don't know of a good way to try to back into what is fair. At setting a precedent for further appeals to come before us I don't feel right pulling something out of the air and saying here it is, pay this amount and that's fair. I think that would be unfair as well unless we can find a way to calculate what the impact would be. I lean toward the appeal that it is not a new development, it is simply an expansion of a single family residence. Bunch: Could we ask the City Attorney for some additional information on this? I know that we have gone through the rough proportionality deliberations previously with sidewalks and I think that is what caused it to be in the UDC. Can you shed some light on how rough proportionality is determined or not determined? I understand it is a specific term that has an intended vagueness by design. Can you give us some guidance on that please? Williams: When the Supreme Court came up with that term they obviously realized that it would be bodies like you and situations like this where you would Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 9 have to apply it. They specifically said that no mathematical calculations would be required of this. Some of these things are very difficult to quantify without doing a test that would be more expensive, or a study that would be more expensive than any fee the city may ever return from this. You have to use your common sense judgment on this to make an individualized determination that the required dedication is related to the extent of the impact on the proposed development. I think several Commissioners have been talking about that and making a lot of sense. Whether or not this is a development I think that it basically does fit our Unified Development Code definition of a development even though certainly the amount of development is very small in this regard when it comes to the impact on our water and wastewater system. Therefore, I think that you probably are correct that the single family house designation of $1,100 is probably far in excess of what this actual impact will be on our system. An argument can be made by Mr. Freund that there is no impact at all. He has made that argument. For the record I should note that I've known Mr. Freund for about 30 years now and used to go canoeing with him back in our youth. However, I think I can probably still give you advice without any concerns there. I should note that for the record that I've known Dr. Freund for many years now. Shackelford: A follow up question for the attorney if you don't mind. You know this ordinance better than we do. Are you saying that we, as a Planning Commission, would have the authority through rough proportionality to negotiate an impact fee less than what the ordinance states? Do you think we have the authority to make that negotiation? Williams: You can't negotiate it but you can determine it. If you look at the actual rough proportionality ordinance that was passed by the City Council and also approved by this Planning Commission before it went to the City Council, it says if the requirements are in excess of the rough proportionality the Planning Commission is empowered to modify or reduce such requirements to achieve rough proportionality. You don't negotiate with him, you can listen to him. You will determine and you certainly can determine less than the initial cost for a single family home. That is exactly why this ordinance was passed, the City Council gave you all that power. Allen: I agree with Commissioner Anthes that there is some impact. We will have a new water connection there. It is precedent setting so I hate for us to arbitrarily say this time it doesn't matter but another time it might. If we can set a figure I might suggest 1/8 of that might be an appropriate amount, which would be $130. Williams: You certainly are allowed. The Planning Commission as a whole should set a figure. Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 10 Anthes: I was trying to back into it a different way. What I was thinking is a single family residence is probably two bathrooms so if you take half of $1,143 it is $571 and then you think this one would probably be used half the time of a regular one and will offset some of the use of the other ones so half of that is $285 so I think somewhere probably between the $180 or the $285 is probably the impact of this facility. Warrick: One of the examples that I used as part of my conversations with Dr. Freund had to do with the example that many people bring forward. I would like to install an irrigation system. I already water my yard, there is no new impact. Our ordinance specifically addresses irrigation systems as new impact and charges water only. It does not charge the waste water fee. Part of the reason for that is that when you have two meters and you are established in that you have service in two different locations in your house and in your yard you can turn on your yard meter, run it at full blast and flush every toilet in your house and run your dishwasher and your washing machine if you wish and you are causing a demand on the system that relates to the fact that you have two connections because the system has to have enough capacity in it to provide for both meters to operate at the same time. That was part of my rational in the interpretation and determination that I came to and I feel like that is somewhat important in this case because there is some impact being drawn on the public water system and wastewater when you are looking at adding these types of facilities. Allen: I'd like to suggest that if we do come up with an arbitrary figure tonight that we perhaps as we move forward with new Commissioners also add this to a workshop agenda item along with my concerns about what is a box in terms of the Commercial Design Standards because I don't think that we should see person after person and say oh, $150 or $80 for you, $300 for you. I think that we need to have a policy. Williams: I would like to say that of course the figure you come up with is not going to be arbitrary but well reasoned. What the Supreme Court has asked is for an individualized determination. The fact of the matter is that many different situations are going to be confronted to this Planning Commission where you will have to use your individualized decision making powers to cover them. I am not saying that you can't look at these in a broader context like you did with sidewalks where the City Council made some presumptions about what the appropriate amount would be but I wouldn't be concerned about the fact that you are having to make an individualized decision tonight because that is exactly what the Supreme Court said was a due process requirement when an appeal like this would be held for you. I have great confidence in your common sense judgment and so does the Supreme Court to make a good decision. Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 11 Allen: Perhaps you have more confidence in us than you should have since it is really difficult to look at his swimming pool and know exactly the impact. Bunch: As we deliberate on the amount, let's make sure, are we talking about both a water and sewer tap or just a sewer tap? From the information that we received from our engineer he said that the sewer department requires a sewer tap and it has been rather vague as to whether or not there is going to be a water tap. The question we still need to resolve is how is the water supplied to the pool house? Freund: My preference would be a new tap to that simply because it is a straight shot from the pool house, less of a distance, it doesn't go down through the middle of a yard, which is what would have to happen to use the existing water tap. Bunch: It would go through the construction area that is already disturbed between the pool and the property? Freund: It would go from the street north to where the pool house is. From the existing one it would have to go from the street due east and then north through the middle of the yard. Bunch: It becomes a question of economics to you and cost as to whether you want to run the line from your existing meter or whether you want to put a new meter in. Those are decisions that you have to make. I think what we need to do here is set a price of what a new meter would be and then it is up to you whether or not you use a new water meter. We know from our engineer Matt Casey an additional sewer tap is required so I think we can deliberate on that to determine that fee and then also on the water and then it would be your choice as to whether to set that meter or to run a line from your existing meter. One thing we might look at in our deliberations is the multi -family dwelling fees that are less than single family. This is a figure that is arrived at to include such things as efficiency apartments which have a small kitchen and small bathroom. I think that obviously this is not an efficiency apartment but that starts a descending scale and I think to me that would be the upper end of our considerations would be the least cost in our fee schedule which is for a multi -family unit, one unit in a multi -family complex. Shackelford: I have a question of staff. I'm approaching it I guess from a little different direction. I hear what other Commissioners are saying in regards to trying to figure out what other houses have as far as bathrooms. We do have to remember, and Don hit on it just then, water and wastewater is provided and used by other places other than bathrooms in a house. Kitchens can be one of the main ones. I am trying to look at it more as a square footage Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 12 deal. Our background states that this is a 288 sq.ft. addition. The applicant has said that it is, in fact, a 96 sq.ft. addition. There is a pretty big discrepancy there. Can you clear that up for us? Warrick: The building permit application indicates 288 sq.ft. of work. Freund: The building permit must include all of the square footage that is poured. Shackelford: The same thing on a single residence application you would show whatever is in the garage and under the porch and that sort of thing as well? Warrick: Correct. Freund: There is actually one bathroom of about 48 sq.ft. Anthes: What we have here is an appeal and a denial of this appeal means that he must pay fees and an approval of the appeal means that he would not pay any fees. If we were going to alter those fees is that a second motion that would incur after the denial of the appeal? Williams: No, I think an approval of the appeal would need to be tied to a figure. I guess your figure could be zero if you feel like there is absolutely no impact to our system. Other than that, just reading the statute if you determine that the requirements are in excess of the rough proportionality the Planning Commission is empowered to modify or reduce, it doesn't say eliminate but if you want to reduce it to zero I think you could probably do that, such requirements to achieve rough proportionality. I would say that procedurally it would be better for someone to say that I believe the rough proportionality in this particular case is equal to such and such figure and make that as your motion. You would be granting the appeal if you reduce it by even one dollar. If you deny the appeal then you are saying that he must pay at the rate determined by the Impact Fee Administrator. Vaught: What I'm having a hard time with is, and I like the exemption for single family residences, but if I were to add three bedrooms and two baths to my house it would have a far greater impact than this development, yet be exempt, because it doesn't require a new tap. How was that arrived in the process of crafting the ordinance? Warrick: Through 18 months of research and many, many months of drafts being brought forward and deliberated by the City Council. They determined a single family equivalence and that is how $1,143 was determined for a single family home, $835 for wastewater and $308 for water. It is based on an average and equivalent amount. There was research done on Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 13 consumption rates and on current users of the system so it was averaged and again, it is not going to address every situation perfectly. Vaught: My question is on additions, say I was to build two more bathrooms onto my house, I would pay nothing. Warrick: The City Council chose to exempt single family additions. Vaught: In this situation I'm having a hard time differentiating between this and an addition to his house. It is just the unfortunate lye of the lot. I have a really hard time, I know I don't agree with the whole $1,100 fee for rough proportionality but I'm having trouble with any fee in rough proportionality. I look at it as the demand on the system being the use not just the number of taps. I don't know how other Commissioners feel on that or staff, if you want to address that, how that usually works out. That is the way I look at it. Yes it is another tap but will the true demand of the water running and the toilet being flushed increase that greatly? Williams: If I can respond a little Commissioner Vaught, the decision not to have any impact fee for an enlargement of a house was a policy decision by the City Council. For a commercial development if that was enlarged then there would be an impact fee. There were certain other things like the affordable housing exemption that were made by the City Council as a form of policy statement. Even though that's correct of course if you enlarge your house you are not going to get a second tap. The City Council expressly, as Dawn stated, placed a water impact fee on irrigation systems. I think that not everything a single family homeowner will do is going to be exempted from this impact fee statement. I think that was a policy decision they made even though there could be some impact if you enlarged your house substantially and put in new bathrooms or a new washer or something like that. Vaught: My question is does a new tap equate that much more use? Hoover: I think I would like staff to answer how much does it cost the city to do a tap. What is the actual cost? Are we going to find out we're losing money? Casey: You pay for the tap in addition to the impact fee. Ostner: I paid $600 for a water tap and another $600 for a street cut. Very few taps are out of the street. If you are lucky you don't have to do a street cut. That is from my memory of two years ago. That is what it cost me as a user as a contractor. Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 14 Conklin: I just wanted to clarify too that the tap fee is paying for the staff time to go out there to make that installation. That's what that fee is paying for. Hoover: You are saying the basic tap fee? Conklin: Yes, the basis for the tap. The impact fee is paying for what Dawn Warrick talked about earlier, the ability if you have one tap and you are adding onto your home and you turn your showers on in all three bathrooms or whatever, you only have a certain ability to get water through that one meter. When you add that second meter you are doubling your capacity so our impact fees were based on what does it take to provide that capacity for those meters and for the storage and distribution of our water. It is all based on the ability, what kind of capacity are you purchasing for that individual use, single family home or non-residential development. Hoover: What is the fee for a water tap and a sewer tap? Casey: I believe for the standard 3/4" water tap for a single family home would be $425, it is $525 for a sewer. Bunch: I would like direct my fellow commissioners to page 3.5 of our packet under paragraph three of mixed use where it speaks to residential and non- residential on the same land use area that it is a cumulative affect of all of the taps that are made if there are multiple taps made and also the principal of having an impact fee for irrigation meters. I think the City Council has given a very definite intent that we want to have charges and I think that the question before us is to accept that the City Council and through the requirement of additional sewer taps that impact fees are required. I think that the question that is really facing us is how much. I spend a considerable amount of time in the electrical industry and we were subject to demand charges where during the peak period of usage their demand was determined by the electric utilities and then after that peak usage was determined during a peak usage period primarily in the summer time and then there were demand charges that were charged year around regardless of what the actual usage was and that was to be able to have the connected capacity to supply to the user whatever they could potentially use. This is an accepted principal that is used in utility situations of having a demand charge or being able to charge for connected capacity. I think what we need to look at here is to make a determination of just what sort of demands are placed on the system and what would be a fair amount to charge. It is obvious, and it is an established principal, that demand charges are applicable and are reasonable. Ostner: I have been very much agreeing with you Commissioner Vaught of how much impact is this but something that I'm realizing with Commissioner Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 15 Bunch talking with a new water tap it is not about what he is proposing. He has the ability to do a lot of things. He has the ability to put a landscape meter and for some reason a washer and dryer. It is sort of like when we rezone a piece of property. There are rights given after that and I'm understanding more about why a landscape and irrigation meter would be clearly defined as development and impact and I'm seeing that. I'm inclined to just call the multi -family $812 a fair number because this is not an independent dwelling. No one is living there and this is the least on our fee scale that we have been offered. That is just my first idea on that. Hoover: I was just going to pose the question to staff have you thought about this and perhaps what would be the best way to look at it as far as determining a number if we decided to go this direction? Warrick: In short, no. I have not come with a recommendation for a reduced fee. I think that there is merit in all of the different discussions and evaluations that each of you have brought forward and I will impose whichever fee you think is appropriate should you choose to believe that one should be applied in this situation. Shackelford: I've got two numbers that I would like to pose. I agree, I think we should start with the basis of a multi -family unit. I think that is going to be the closest as far as trying to match actual usage and impact of anything but I think we've got to make adjustments to that number. I go at it two different ways. First of all, let's assume a one bedroom apartment would get the impact fee of $812. It is probably 600 sq.ft. roughly for a one bedroom apartment. This is roughly 100 sq.ft. of improvements so if you looked at it as having 1/6 of the impact of a single bedroom apartment that fee would be $135. The other way I went at it was that $112 fee for the single bedroom apartment probably generated water usage and waste water usage in three different areas, a kitchen, a utility room and a bathroom. This being just a single bathroom I could see the argument being made that it would have 1/3 the effect of an apartment which would be $270. Either one of those two calculations I think I could get comfortable with. Warrick: I really don't mean to make any of this anymore difficult but it is very important that whatever number is derived, I need to know how much of that number goes into the water account and how much goes into the wastewater account because they have to be discreetly separated. There are two different accounts that these monies have to be forwarded into. Vaught: If my math is correct on the multi -family at 1/3 it would be $197 for wastewater and $73 for water. Ostner: Is there a formula forever in the future to come back to? Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 16 Vaught: I think that as we talk about with other Conditional Uses each one is a finding of fact particularly for that Conditional Use so that we don't necessarily set a permanent precedent by our actions tonight. They can appeal no matter what we come up with so even if we were perfectly consistent they can still try to fight us on it. Ostner: It would seem helpful instead of seeing every single pool challenge Ms. Warrick that there are a lot of pools to be in the next year or five or ten years is just sharing our logic tonight is all I'm asking for. Shackelford: I'm going to float a motion and see what sort of approval we can get. I'm going to make a motion that we approve ADM 04-12.00 with the adjustment of the impact fee to the assessment of $270. I'm basing that $270 calculation on the fact that I would assume this project would have approximately 1/3 of the impact of a single family apartment so it is 1/3 of the multi -family impact. Of that $270 trying to keep the ratio the same between wastewater and water I'm going to say that $197 of that proposed impact fee go for wastewater and $73 go for water impact. Graves: Second. Hoover: I have a motion by Commissioner Shackelford and a second by Commissioner Graves, is there more discussion? Bunch: A question for staff. On a new development where a new house and a new pool are being built simultaneously how do you address it? Warrick: It depends on how many taps they need. Bunch: It would be an impact fee per tap? Warrick: A single family home would generate the standard $1,143 impact fee. If they were making a connection to the water system solely for the pool or for some other type of meter use then it would be a water only fee. If they had a water and a sewer connection it would be based on the size meter that was being installed to provide water. Hoover: Is there any other discussion? Renee? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to approve the appeal with a lesser amount of $270 was approved by a vote of 8-0-0. Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 17 R-PZD 04-04.00: Residential Planned Zoning District (Stonewood Gardens, pp 60) was submitted by David Gilbert of Jorgensen & Associates on behalf of Mark Foster for property located on Crossover Road, immediately north of the Stonewood subdivision. The property is zoned R -O, Residential Office, and contains approximately 3.36 acres. The request is to rezone the property to an R-PZD to allow the development of 14 lots with 12 single-family dwelling units proposed. Hoover: Item number four on the agenda is R-PZD 04-04.00 for Stonewood Gardens. Warrick: This is a request for a Residential Planned Zoning District. The project is called Stonewood Gardens and is located on 3.36 acres north of the Stonewood subdivision, which is on the east side of Crossover Road. The proposal is for a single family dwelling with 12 lots with single family homes. Additionally, two lots would contain common space and detention for the project. The total density being proposed on this 3.36 acre site is 3.4 dwelling units per acre. The project site is currently zoned R -O, Residential Office. The development is proposed to have one access to Crossover Road and they are proposing to have a private street with controlled access gates. Surrounding development, the site is currently vacant. Surrounding development includes single family homes to the north and south and east and Lake Fayetteville across Crossover Road to the west. Water and sewer will be extended from the area along Crossover Road to provide for this development. Current tree canopy on the site is 9.1%. 6.6% will be preserved with the difference being made up with sixteen mitigation trees to be installed with the development. Staff is recommending in favor of this Planned Zoning District. We have fifteen recommended conditions. Some of those primary conditions include the fact that this does have to go forward to the City Council because it is a land use decision as well as development combined. We are asking the Planning Commission to determine the policy of community character as defined in our General Plan and to discuss that with relation to this particular project. That guiding policy is stated as 9.19D to discourage perimeter walls and guardhouses around the perimeter of new residential developments and promote connectivity to increase acceptability and provide more livable neighborhoods. Staff has made a couple of findings with regard to this particular policy. The first is that the proposed perimeter wall we do find to be compatible with the existing walls that are being developed with the Stonewood subdivision which is to the south, along with numerous subdivisions along Crossover Road because of the character of this street as a state highway. Staff also finds vehicular connectivity to be unnecessary and unavailable really because of existing development to the south and to the east. There is a sidewalk that will be built along Crossover Road to provide pedestrian connectivity. Staff is recommending a sidewalk connection along the private street to connect with the required sidewalk along Crossover Road so that the internal Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 18 pedestrian circulation does extend to connect to the sidewalk along crossover. We are asking Planning Commission to make a determination of appropriateness of sidewalks within the development along this private street. Staff recommends that they be considered. Itis nota requirement f our Unified Development Code for private streets to have sidewalks. The allowed uses proposed for this R-PZD include single family residential only. There are findings within your packet with regard to the land use decision that you will be making along with this development proposal. Staff does find that a 14 lot, 12 single family home subdivision in this location is compatible. It is consistent with the city's General Plan which calls this area out to be residential and it is compatible, as I said, with the surrounding properties which consist of single family dwellings and to the south vacant R -O, Residential Office zoned property. With that I will be happy to answer any questions that you may have. I have spoken with the applicant's engineer. They are not opposed to the conditions of approval as they are stated. We do not, however, have signed conditions at this point in time. Hoover: Thank you. Would the applicant come forward please? Gilbert: Good evening, my name is David Gilbert. I'm with Jorgensen & Associates. Hoover: Do you have anything to add? Gilbert: I appreciate your time this evening and will try not to use up anymore of it than is necessary. Our client is hoping to gain your approval to do something rather unique on this piece of property to develop this gated community which lies at the north entry to Fayetteville on Hwy. 265. It is just a couple hundred yards from the city limits on the north end. His desire is to take what is actually a very nice piece of property. It is an open lawn with lots of very large trees and to maintain those trees but at the same time bring in some housing into this piece of property. His desire is to do something very nice. The intent here, the reason for the Planned Zoning development request as opposed to just straight forward subdivision, is so that he can build these homes in a clustered manner which will develop sort of a unique neighborhood feel to this and to build some homes that are rather closely spaced which preserves a lot of the property as common area, it is a common concept known as clustering of the homes. This is his intent here. You may see from looking at the layout of the property that we are proposing a private street along what would be the fronts of the lots. At the same time there is a private drive which circles 10 of the 12 buildable lots. The purpose of this drive is to take vehicular access off of the street and put it behind the home. Simply put, our client wishes to develop homes in this neighborhood that are close together but to have homes, the facades of which are not dominated by a Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 19 garage door. Those of you that have any planning experience or architectural background will understand that as a common element of architecture these days is that suburban architecture, all of the facades are dominated by garage doors. We are trying to get away from that here and get those doors on the back of homes so that the fronts present something more of a village character than of your typical suburban development. We have looked at the idea of placing sidewalks along Stonewood Court, the private street. We believe that the sidewalks, aside from being necessary, might be detrimental to the character that we are trying to develop here. Frankly, we've got 12 lots, if each home has two cars and everybody came home at the same time that's 24 cars on the street at once and then nobody is there for the rest of the day. We believe that the private street will serve adequately for pedestrian access. That is the people who live here it is going to be gated, not just anybody can come in here. Traffic will be extremely light and we believe that people will do, as they do in my neighborhood, we walk in the street anyway because the sidewalks are constructed in a rather unique fashion which makes them unusable. We don't want to put in sidewalks here that can't be used. We would rather not put in impervious hard surface that will not be used. That is one of the characteristics of development. The more that we develop the more that we pave. Here is an opportunity where we can pave a little bit less by not putting in the sidewalks and allow the grass to be in place there and to serve it's natural function. At the same time we don't believe that the pedestrian access will be compromised because there will be so little traffic on Stonewood. Basically, past lot 1 everybody is already off the street except for the visitors so we believe Stonewood will serve perfectly well for that and we appreciate your consideration there. We have made some interesting choices on the sidewalk along Crossover Road. That's just what the sidewalk needs to look like to miss all of the trees. We would prefer in this case there are several rather large, mature trees in the right of way. Standard sidewalk policy, which is a 6' sidewalk right at the property line at a given slope, would require removal of several of these trees. That is not something that we want to see, it is not something our client wants to see. We don't believe it is in the best interest of the City of Fayetteville to do that. The staff has been gracious to work with us on some alternate routing here and yes, it does look unusual but you'll notice it manages to miss just about every tree on the place. That is the reason for that configuration. We are still working through a couple of issues. One of the conditions has to do with the placement of the perimeter wall in the utility easement along the front. We are going to be making changes to, in all likelihood, the easement locations rather than the wall location. We feel that the aesthetic of the wall is very important and we would like to keep something very similar to what we have shown you here on the plan. To do that though and to be able to work with the needs of the utility departments we are going to have to make some modifications to the easements there on the front. We are Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 20 prepared to do that, we just have not had a chance at this point to get those completely ironed out. We believe that with the tree natured of this site that this is going to be a great access to the City of Fayetteville. Hopefully it will serve to enhance entry into the city and we appreciate your consideration on this project. Hoover: Thank you. Is there any member of the audience that would like to address this R-PZD 04-04.00 for Stonewood Gardens? Seeing none, I will bring it back to the Commission. Allen: At Subdivision Committee David we talked with you a little bit about our lack of knowledge about gated communities since that is new to us and we asked you a few things about safety and fire and ambulance. I wondered if you could tell us a bit about what you've learned since then? Gilbert: Yes Ma'am. I appreciate that. Gated communities are relatively new in our area and particularly to the City of Fayetteville. They are not a new concept in larger markets in other places. In fact, in Rogers particularly around the Pinnacle Golf Course area they are quite common. One of the features that you will find in a gated community is a pedestal at the entry with certain control functions. The one we went to you basically drove up, you pushed the button, it told you what number you needed to dial, you entered that code and it actually rang the code in the home of the person you are going to see. They can then press one button on their phone and open the gate for you. For guests probably something very similar to that would be what would be in operation here. That will handle the routine as far as the guests go. In more routine matters there are matters of delivery and I believe that would be appropriate for deliveries as well for the delivery person to ring the home and then gain access to the subdivision. If they are not able to, I know for example at my home, not that I'm behind a gate, but if I'm not home and they need me to sign for a package they just take it back and leave me a note saying we couldn't get in. I don't think that would be any drastic interruption should the homeowner be away at that point. Mail service is one thing we were looking at. We really have not quite decided. We are thinking that in all likelihood the Postal Service is going to want to see a community mailbox outside the gate. That is something we have also seen up in the Rogers area and probably will be the best solution for this development. Beyond that we really haven't given too much consideration to mail service. The postal service, anytime you do any type of subdivision anymore they tend to like the community mailbox better anyway rather than the individual route type boxes at each home. That is the direction we are leaning at this point as far as postal service. Trash collection is an issue. I spoke with Mr. Foster about this issue and the plan at the present time would be that on trash days the gate would be left open during the daylight hours so that they trash collection vehicle can get into Stonewood Court, make the Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 21 pickup at the individual homes. We do not want to have a central rubbish station outside the gate that would be unsightly and very nearly impossible to keep clean. We are aiming for individual, typical, residential trash collection. I believe that Mr. Foster's proposal to leave that gate open during daylight hours on whatever day that the waste collection company sets as the day to collect those cans would function in that regard. We spoke about this and Mr. Foster's opinion was that if the gate for some reason is not left open that he would understand and the residents would have to understand that they don't get trash pick up that day. It kind of leaves an incentive there to keep that gate open on that trash collection day. The final issue, and probably the most important one that we discussed to my recollection at Subdivision Committee, has to do with emergency access. There are some particular features that we can incorporate there. Typically what you would do when you had a gate, not an operational gate, but a fire control gate. That would be a gate that is chained and padlocked. On the post of the gate would be a knox box. That is a box to which the Fire Department has a key. They are master keys so they are there. They have the key when they arrive at the scene. The Fire Department key opens the knox box. Inside that box is a key to that particular gate. That is a standardized solution that is used all over the area and in larger, metropolitan areas as well, to gain access. Seeing as how this gate would not have a lock per say, a key operated lock, what we are proposing is to inscribe a metal tag with the code. We want to use a metal tag for durability and we want to inscribe it so that the ink doesn't wear out. Basically, an engraved metal tag in the knox box, so that the Fire Department can arrive at the scene, open the knox box, take out the tag and use that code to open the gate and gain access. That's the best solution we've come up with to this point. There may be some control features, I know if you go into any elevator there is a Fire Department key slot and they walk into the elevator put in their key and turn it and that key gives them command functions completely unlike anything of normal elevator operation. They can make it do whatever they want to make it do. It may be that we will need to do something like that to have a Fire Department key on the control panel and that key would reside in the knox box. Those are just some of the ideas that we have come up with to this point. That would facilitate access to Fire, Police and to EMS as well. We believe that will serve that function very well. Was there any other access we were talking about that I've forgotten? Allen: I don't think so. It does make one wonder why there would be a need for a gated community when one day a week the gates are open and the access is available. Gilbert: Gates largely are a psychological function. To be quite honest, they serve their best psychological benefit during the evening hours. When it is dark you don't have to worry about anybody cruising up and down the street Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 22 that doesn't belong there. That is the main function of the gate in instances like this. There are some other issues in other areas of exclusivity. A lot of it has to do with image and the fact that people want to feel safer. This is not an unsafe area, it never has been and it still is not. We've got a lot of people moving into this area from other places. They don't know this town like we do and they don't understand that so they still may have some concerns. The fact that these units are selling with very high demand from all I can tell in the Rogers area, shows that there is a market for this. People do want this. Allen: Thank you. Hoover: Are there other questions or comments? Bunch: Dave, on the subject of fence verses wall in your letter of March 15`h you mentioned that it would be masonry panels rather than a wall with individual columns supporting it. Is that still the thinking? Then I want to ask Matt if that would be considered a wall or a fence. The rest of it I believe is brick pilasters with wrought iron in between. How would this fit with the determination or in the definition of whether or not it is a structure verses a fence as far as easement issues are concerned? Casey: We determined that anything requiring a footing is considered a structure. The columns on the fence would be required to have a footing. It may be 2x2 or 18"x18" but it is still a footing and it is not something that could be removed without damaging by our water and sewer or any other utilities that are trying to do maintenance on their utilities in that area. Bunch: Then the resolution would be that if it maintained the same fence line to have the fun task of trying to describe a proper easement to follow that fence line. Gilbert: The easement that exists on Lot 14 is already going to be so much fun to describe that I don't know that it could be anymore fun by changing the easement along the front. The reason behind that irregular easement on Lot 14 is strictly for tree preservation. I know it is odd and it is hard to make out but it does manage to miss nearly all of the trees so that was one thing we were aiming for. To answer your question, the statements in the letter still hold and this is something that I was not entirely clear on at Subdivision Committee and I apologize for that. The wall would be the same type as was built around the Stonewood Subdivision to the south and east of this piece of property. The method of construction for that is that columns that do have footings are constructed. They are brick columns, brick pilasters if you will. The support is arranged for the masonry panel which is then laid one brick at a time to make a panel that basically fills the gap between the columns. When the mortar has set sufficiently that Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 23 support is removed and in some places these walls or fence panels do not even touch the ground. They do not bear on the ground through their length so there is not a continual footing but there is still a footing at each column and those columns are awfully hard to get any further apart than about 12' for reasons of strength in holding the wall up. It is not as bad as maybe it first seemed. I had envisioned earlier that this wall would have a continuous strip footing. That is not the case so it will not have the impact that I had first imagined but it still does fall within the definition of placing structures on an easement. We will revise accordingly. Bunch: Thank you. Hoover: One of the conditions of approval I guess that we should be discussing is staff is recommending a 4' sidewalk to be placed along the private street to connect to pedestrian access along Crossover Road. Can we discuss that on the need or not? Commissioner Allen, was there discussion at Subdivision about that? Allen: Yes there was. Personally I feel like that he has made a good argument against the need for the sidewalk. Bunch: I will concur. It is a 14' road through lot 14. Because of the minimal traffic and because it is a gated community, that in itself will probably wind up being a trail that is used for people to walk laps and that sort of thing. If you look at the distance from the lots down to the sidewalk on Hwy. 265 it is not that great of a distance. We are looking at minimal traffic except for maybe the days that the gates are open for the trash and recycling service to come in. We can all go look at it on those days. I think that there are enough paved structures in the subdivision to accommodate pedestrian traffic without having to add additional sidewalks because of the limitations that are placed on vehicular traffic. Hoover: Are there any other comments on sidewalks? Ostner: I would tend to agree with those rationales. My question with that is on page 4.8 of our packet. The paving width for the private streets for 1-20 dwelling units two ways lists as 22' wide streets. I am just wondering why you have a 24' street bed. Gilbert: We are working with a couple of issues here. To be honest with you, to get an exact answer I would have to check back and see why we selected that width. 24' is a standard width for a public street. Our intention here was not to necessarily skimp on the materials. We do want this Stonewood Court to be readily accessible for anyone who might visit. There are also some issues here with fire access and we have had some discussions with the Fire Department. As to whether a 22' drive would Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 24 meet their requirements or not I would have to go back to the file and look. I would say in all likelihood it was primarily the intention that we don't want it to look cheap. We don't want it to look like it was skimped on and have what people perceive as a very narrow street running down through here. We would like to have people feel comfortable when they drive through in that regard. I would say that was probably the overriding factor. Again, to be sure about fire access and such I know there are fire lane widths that are required and Captain Farrar has been kind enough to send those to my office but I don't have them right in front of me at the moment. I don't remember the width, I'm sorry. Ostner: It just sort of runs counter to the goal of less paving because we don't want a sidewalk yet the city is only requiring us to do a 22' road bed. Gilbert: That is understandable. We had originally a smaller cul-de-sac on the end of Stonewood Court. During the process we did have enlarge that in order to meet the Fire Department regulations. Those are some issues that we are dealing with. You now have some very large trucks in Fayetteville that they like to drive out once and a while and need to use on occasion. We are hoping they won't bring the 90' ladder truck down the street but you never know. We still have to be able to get it out if they do get it in there. Shackelford: I would probably be in support of a 24' street instead of a 22' street. My logic for that is as I look at this development it is a unique design with the rear entry of this there is not going to be a standardized driveway for these houses. I envision that the guests to these will be parking in the street right of way so I think that additional width might be helpful as people park in the street. I would be in support of the 24' private road. Hoover: I happen to agree. I have tried working in situations like this where we want the narrow street but there is nowhere for guests to park. Since there are no driveways coming off the street guests are going to have to park here. Shackelford: I also think the developer has done a very good job in saving greenspace by clustering this development. I think that it is going to be aesthetically pleasing. I don't think you're going to notice that the street is wider than necessary. Gilbert: I would like to point out, since you made mention of that, there are conditions in the covenants which are in your packets. I know they are long and I would understand if everyone has not had a chance to read all of them because they are somewhat tedious by the time you get through them. One of the provisions we have placed in the covenants is that all of these trees which remain are protected by the covenants. That is Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 25 something that you don't always get in a residential subdivision in the City of Fayetteville. These trees are magnificent and we want these trees to be protected so we have gone to the length of staring that before any tree can be removed before, during or after home construction whether it is in the pouring of the driveway or the pouring of the floor slab or five years from now when somebody decides they'd like to have that space for something else. That approval to remove that tree has to be granted by the P.O.A. and the city's Landscape Administrator must be consulted as a part of that process. Obviously, we have had to make exception for trees that are dead or dying. Those pose safety risks and we want to be able to get those out of there. If everything is done right these trees should be available for everybody for a long time. Bunch: I would like to speak with the applicant about one of the conditions in the covenants. It is number 24, where it says that brick mailboxes shall be required with each house. Since this becomes part of the ordinance I think that we need a little relief there in case a community mail facility is placed on the outside of the fence. Also, incase that doesn't work out we could leave the language in there and you would need to present it in such a way that you could maintain that flexibility. Should the mail be delivered to each house number 24 would stay in. Otherwise, it would be nullified by the community mailbox. Gilbert: Yes Sir, that is a good point. I would be happy to reword that. As you mentioned, I think that it is important that we keep it in incase the community mailbox is not constructed. We do need to maintain some architectural control over those features. I would be happy to reword that so that if the community mailbox does in fact, become a reality that that requirement goes away and there will not be individual mailboxes at the homes. Ostner: I have a similar question about your covenants. Since this subdivision is different these yards are going to be smaller. There could be zero lot lines. There probably will be it sounds like. The numbers 13 and 14 is basically regulating and creating a yard and grass situation. I think that it is very possible seeing as how small these are going to be without sidewalks that some of your homeowners might not want a yard. There could easily be a well developed landscaped area. Here again, we are creating a legislative act. I just wanted to ask you about that. If you wanted to, if that was a conscious act because this is not your standard subdivision. Gilbert: Our intention was that should there be a yard we want to see that front yard what area is not landscaped in any other method we want to see that covered in sod. That is a long standing discussion that no one will ever get to the bottom of. Just as a matter of personal preference I think we've all been through areas where they decided to seed the yards and wait for Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 26 the grass to grow as opposed to a yard that basically arrives on a truck and you install it. We would prefer in this development to see the latter so that we don't have to wait for grass to grow and fill in bald spots and those sorts of things. We would prefer a very manicured look to any turf in the front yard. It certainly was not my intention to impose turf upon anyone. I will look at that and make whatever changes to the wording that that would require to take that out. It is a very good point and you are correct, it does impose turf and that certainly was not the intent. There are provisions in the covenants that the landscaping plan must be reviewed by the developer to make sure that everything is coherent, that everything is appropriate and that everything works. We will be taking a look at those as they come through on the individual homes. Thank you. You have a good point and we will modify that to correct that mistake. Anthes: There are a lot of conflicting messages in this particular project. The applicant has stated New Urbanist and New Urbanism principals as the guiding force for how they laid out this subdivision. Yet if you refer to the Congress of New Urbanism and look at their principals the tenents include narrower streets, on street parking, sidewalks, connectivity, abilities to share with your neighbors. The fact that the sidewalk is being eliminated and the gate is in place kind of flies in the face of some of those principals as they are applied regularly throughout the country. The other thing is we have a conflicting message in our ordinance in that we have a policy of connectivity in the city and we have a policy to discourage perimeter walls and gates in our city and yet we do not have any specific ruling that says that gated communities are not part of our development palette. I find it hard to follow our general intent of our principals and yet there is nothing to disallow this particular type of development. I appreciate also what the applicant has done in trying to save the trees around the property line by causing the sidewalk to meander through them and yet as a matter of urban design and development on a major roadway a meandering sidewalk really doesn't make any sense from a development standpoint looking at how it would connect to other parcels as you would continue along the street. I just wanted to go on the record as saying those things because all of those little things are adding up to a lot of big questions. Gilbert: I appreciate your points. The phrase "New Urbanism" is probably one of those catch phrases that to different people has different meanings. I understand that there are standards in place for that. I'm happy to hear about the congress that is covering those issues. In common usage the phrase has been applied to the City of Fayetteville that we need to make the City of Fayetteville a New Urbanist community. One of the principals of New Urbanism is that no metropolitan jurisdiction should have a population of more than 30,000 so it is going to be kind of hard to take a city of 60,000 people and make it into one New Urbanist city. By strict definition we would have to divide the city into at least two. Given the Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 27 physical layout with the principals and the tenants of '/z mile spheres of influence would have to be divided a great deal. A look at the current land use map will show that it is just not a practical issue for Fayetteville to become a New Urbanist community in the next fifty years. The logistics of it don't work. Having said that, it certainly is a valid and I think noble effort, to apply some of the principals of New Urbanism to the city and that is what we have attempted to do here is to apply some of the principals. I know it does not meet in some regards the strict definitions but we have attempted to cluster the homes closer together and provide common space, which is one of the principals. We have tried to take the garage doors off of the fronts and put them on the back so that the front facades are not dominated by a large, blank feature which I think is one of the principals. Those are some of the things that we have tried to incorporate here in that. I'm sorry if I misused the reference but that was what we were trying to convey there. To the issue of connectivity, the area in which this project sits I think needs to be a part of discussion. This is an area which over the last 40 or 50 years has gone from strictly rural back when the first homes were built back there on 3 to 10 acre lots and it is now developing. Certainly when Crossover Road was constructed, that added to the way in which this area will build. It is becoming urban but it is not urban yet. In this particular case to the south we are constrained by the fact that Stonewood Subdivision does not provide a through street onto this property and in fact, there are lots that back up to this property so we don't have a connection point there. To the east is a single family residence. This basically was the home that was on this rather large parcel that has previously been subdivided to provide this property. We can't go east without going through the house. To the north, it is just a matter of a short distance, a couple of hundred feet until you get to Albright Road which is on the boundary between Fayetteville and Springdale. Albright Road does connect through. It goes to the east for a couple of miles and connects with a couple of other streets out in the Zion Church area way. We don't feel like we are compromising connectivity with this project. We are taking up a very small portion of the space that couldn't go through in any direction anyway. I hope that will speak to your concerns about connectivity. As far as the sidewalk goes, on the southern end of the project we have configured the sidewalk to where it is on the right of way in a standard placement. In other words, if we were to be able to build a straight sidewalk that would conform to the letter of all of the city's ordinances and standards that's where that sidewalk would be along that right of way line. As they build sidewalks to the south they connect very easily because the sidewalk in that location is exactly where it should be. On the north end we couldn't do that without taking out trees and we chose not to do that because we prefer to save the trees. We believe that the sidewalk can continue along it's path that we have shown and come back to the right of way near Albright Road so that as the sidewalk goes into the City of Springdale it is in a standard location Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 28 as well. Strictly speaking the frontage there just north of our project belongs to the single family home. I'm not aware of any plans to do anything with the single family home other than to use it as it exists. The likelihood that the sidewalk will be built there seems rather small. Crossover Road at some point is going to be widened, will the Highway Department save the trees? I don't know but we wanted to do what we could to leave them in place. Shackelford: As I look at this property I view it as an infill development. I think that the applicant has made a point. As I've grown up in this city I've seen this. This property is quickly evolving from a rural area to a not so rural area anymore. I appreciate the fact that this was an older estate type home with a very large tract of land that came with it. Those tracts of land are going to develop as we go forward. I think that the developer has done a great job in basically trying to keep the beauty and integrity of the property in place. Connectivity is very limited based on the development that has already occurred around this property and I think that basically what is proposed is about a best case scenario as this property develops. With that being said, I am going to recommend that we forward to the City Council with a recommendation for approval R-PZD 04-04.00 with all conditions of approval except number three regarding the sidewalk be stricken so that there will be 15 conditions of approval. Bunch: Second. Hoover: Is there more discussion? Renee? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to forward R-PZD 04-04.00 to the City Council was approved by a vote of 8-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries eight to zero. Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 29 ADM 01-15.00: Administrative Item (Outdoor Lighting) to adopt an ordinance that minimizes the impact of outdoor lighting on adjacent properties and improves nighttime visibility. Hoover: Item number five on the agenda is ADM 01-15.00 for our Outdoor Lighting Ordinance. Conklin: Good evening Madam Chair and Members of the Commission. I'm Tim Conklin, Director of Community Planning & Engineering Services. I would first like to thank Don, Sharon and Alice for all of their years of service. I have worked with you on many different projects and am pleased to be here this evening with the outdoor lighting. This is something that we started in 2001. It kind of got sidetrack a little but we are bringing it forward. We have made some changes and I'm going to let Leif Olson, our Associate Planner go through that with you this evening. What we are looking at is trying to develop an ordinance that will be easy to administer and easily understood by the development community. Those are some of the reasons for the changes. When we did take it to ordinance review committee there were some significant changes that were made. Since then staff has made some additional changes and that is the reason that we are back before you this evening to discuss this ordinance and hopefully forward this on to the City Council. I do appreciate all of your work on this Sharon and Don and I'm always amazed at how much time the Planning Commissioners volunteer, not just here at the Planning Commission twice a month but in the different sub committees and Subdivision Committee because all of you spend hours here at the city volunteering all of your time. This is not a paid position. This is something that you do for the city. Also, the rapid growth that we are experiencing in Fayetteville and record growth that we saw last year and over the past 10 years. I want to again, thank you for that. This is something that is not necessarily new to the City of Fayetteville. We discuss lighting through our Large Scale Development process. In 1994 we discussed lighting with our Overlay District regulations along I-540. We have lighting standards in different parts of different ordinances here at the City of Fayetteville through our parking lot ordinance and our sign ordinance. What we are attempting to do is to clarify those ordinances and to apply the standard uniformly throughout the city. With that, I will have Leif go through the ordinance. Olson: Good evening Madam Chair and Members of the Planning Commission. As Tim said, we have made some minor modifications to this. The handout that I left there earlier tonight has the strike through on all of the sections that have been removed and then anything that is in italics is things that have been added to it. Most of the amendments to this were things being removed. Page 2 of what is shown as Exhibit `B" really is where all of the changes begin. Most of these deal with lumens regulating Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 30 the output of lights, the different whether it be a metal halide light or an incandescent light. I think it was felt that when we get into that level of detail there is going to be a lot of staff time. We are going to have to have somebody out in the field with a light meter looking at these new installations to make sure that the lumens are at the right level. We have simplified this and brought it to the point to where all new outdoor lighting installation excluding single family and two family residences would have to have a full cut off light fixture directed downward. That simplifies it. That will be shown on a site plan when staff goes out to give the final Certificate of Occupancy. It can be visibly detected in the daytime that yes those fixtures are installed horizontally and they are all full cut off. In other words, all of the lighting mechanism is enclosed so you have no light omitted above the horizontal plain. With that, if you have any questions I would be happy to try to answer those for you. What we are asking for is that you forward this to the City Council. Bunch: At this time we will take public comment. Is there anyone in the audience who would like to address the issue of the proposed lighting ordinance? Please come forward, tell us who you are and share your comments with US. Thompson: My name is Kathy Thompson. I have lived in Fayetteville since 1976 and I have just recently moved to Mt. Sequoyah. Much to my chagrin I had an incredible view. Now I no longer have a view because of the field lights that are at the university. I have understood that in the new lighting ordinance, which I'm very much in favor of, I think it is wonderful and a long time coming, that the University is excluded. Is that correct and why is that? They are a part of our community. Williams: Unfortunately, they are a higher state government entity than the city is and therefore, just like virtually all of our planning ordinances, the University does not have to follow them. They have to follow our impact fee ordinance because they are our customer in that particular circumstance. In circumstances where we try to regulate them they are a higher government than us. It is just like Arkansas cannot regulate the federal government, we are too low. Thompson: Is there a way that in the ordinance it can be asked that the University be a better neighbor and a better partner with the community in this respect? I am getting ready to personally call Don Peterson and the Chancellor's office and speak to someone there about what is happening with the bright lights and how it is changing the feel of Fayetteville and what you see at night. Hopefully I will get some response from them but if I don't I'm going to start petitioning and get some sort of public input on how people in Fayetteville feel about this. I thought I would come here and start with you because I knew that it would come here first and then go to City Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 31 Council. I guess that even though the University is excluded is it possible to say in the ordinance that we expect as we see up here on the wall behind you, a strong partnership with the University of Arkansas as being one of our goals in Fayetteville? How can we even though we know that they are excluded legally, how can we ask them to be a part of our community and to respect the people that live in the community and think about the people that live here and what impact what they do has in the community? That is what I would ask of you in Planning when you review the lighting ordinance and send it on to City Council, if you could think about that in some way. I'm not sure if that is possible or not, maybe it is too late. Hoover: Thank you. Is there any other member of the audience that would like to address this outdoor lighting ordinance? Seeing none, I will bring it back to the Commission. Vaught: I have a question for staff. The standard variance procedures apply to this ordinance? What is the latitude for variances? Warrick: This is a development regulation in the Unified Development Code. A waiver or variance to the requirements of the lighting ordinance would come to the Planning Commission. Vaught: From the way that I read it, some of the lighting like we have on Dickson Street, if I'm reading this correctly would not be permitted anymore? Olson: That is correct. Under this ordinance if that lighting were to be installed currently it wouldn't comply. Vaught: Would something like that be allowed as a variance? Conklin: We did sit down with the utility companies and talk about street lighting. There are types of street lighting that would meet this code and that are decorative also. We are continuing to work with the utility companies, Ozark and SWEPCO, to make sure that the street lighting that we put in our new developments, the public street lighting, meets this code. From that meeting they did seem willing that they could find fixtures. With regard to Dickson Street we can find decorative fixtures that would meet this type of code. If they used gas or fossil fuels those are exempted? Olson: Those are exempted because they put out such a low night light. They are a fossil fuel. Conklin: They put out such a low amount of light that it doesn't make much difference. Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 32 Hoover: I thought in the original discussion with the lighting ordinance that we had some examples of pedestrian lighting. I thought we talked about that. Olson: That pedestrian lighting would be exempt, is that what you're saying? Hoover: Right. I remember Candlewood coming up and I really was thinking Dickson Street came up also. Vaught: I think when we had our public comment session one time we talked about street lighting or pedestrian lighting. Conklin: In the original discussion we had different types of lighting based on light output. Now we have gone to full cutoff and limited it to the uses like display areas and parking lots, recreational areas, storage yards and that type of use. We simplified the ordinance significantly. Once again, this was to make it easier to administer with the staffing levels that we have and easier to understand so we would not have to go out and measure foot candles or lumens on each individual situation. Hoover: I have a question also. When it went to ordinance review committee and then it went to City Council and that is when the item was tabled for additional review by the ordinance review committee. Are there any notes from those meetings as to what the discussion was? Conklin: They do not take minutes at ordinance review. The discussion as we developed the ordinance, by the time that we got to City Council there were significant issues or concerns with regard to the lighting levels with the different types of fixtures. From there it got put on hold and then when we came back to revisit this we were trying to develop something that I've personally seen the Planning Commission and our application over our Design Overlay district, something that is fairly simple to administer and that is the full cutoff lighting that we see at Target and the Olive Garden and other type of development that is easy to administer. We have kind of modeled the ordinance after that. Shackelford: We got into a lot of conversation about sodium verses metal halide and different types of lighting. Will that be addressed at all? Conklin: We have talked about that and we would like to eliminate the differences between that because the metal halide actually provides a truer white light and for security purposes it can be safer in many instances. Shackelford: Thank you. Ostner: It seems to me that this phrase "full cutoff fixture directed downwards" is really the heart of this lighting ordinance and we are relying on that to cure Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 33 many different ails. I am not sure about the definition of downwards. No offense but angling lights, whether they are cutoff or not, is a big deal. It is frequently used. What is downward? Olson: That's a good question. Typically when you talk about full cutoff lighting directed downwards it would be where you don't have light omitted above the horizontal plain. In other words, that light is all going to have to come down. It cannot come up vertically from a horizontal plain. An example would be a cobra head streetlight. It is directing the light downward but because the actual lens of the fixture is lower than the metal part of the fixture you are getting that light spraying out above the horizontal plain. A full cutoff fixture by definition, the lighting mechanism is up inside of it and it is shielded to where the light is not going to come above a horizontal plain unless it is situated on a pole at a degree greater than level. I don't know if that answers your question. They would have to be installed horizontally. Ostner: I think that's important and that needs to go in here. Olson: If you think we need some clarification on that I would be happy to clarify that. Conklin: There is some language that I've seen in other ordinances that talk about 90° and use the term `nadir'. We can look at that and further define that. Basically, the light fixture is going to be no light is going to be above the horizontal plain level. Ostner: I'm coming at this from, I'm playing like I'm an electrician and I've been hired to illuminate this lot. I can take that shoe box and I can angle it a good 10° and I'm still not going above the horizontal plain. The shoebox enables me to twist it quite a bit and I think that is not what we want. Conklin: That goes against the intent. Ostner: But it is downward, it is not upward. Conklin: There is language we can put in there to verify that. Ostner: Maybe 5° maximum away from level, I'm not sure or dead level. Conklin: I believe it is going to be dead level. The term full cutoff is you don't achieve that if your light is going above the horizontal plain so we will work on that definition. Ostner: I was only thinking about hills. We put a lot of light fixtures on hillsides. If you are on a hill and you are not allowed to twist it toward what you Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 34 want you can have to put a lot more fixtures than you should if you're twisting it the proper way. Of course you can twist it the downhill way and shine toward the only city and people can be upset at that but if you shine it up hill or toward the slope you're not dead level but you are minimizing your fixtures, which is part of what we want. Olson: The purpose of the ordinance is to reduce atmospheric light pollution. I'm not sure on a hillside by directing it, even though you may be using less fixtures in the overall development, you are getting a lot of light pollution by having it above a horizontal plain. I think that is a tradeoff. It is going to have to be one or the other. Ostner: If it is above the horizontal plain, it depends on which way you are pointing it. If you are pointing it downhill you are omitting tons of light pollution. If you point it uphill you are greatly reducing your area that you are illuminating. If you can picture a light hanging, if you swivel it this way it shines everywhere, you swivel it this way it gets very tight but if we write our ordinance dead level they've all got to go down. I just wanted to put that out there that I'm not sure how to resolve that. That's why I was thinking a 5° minimum angle to allow people to try to minimize their spread. Olson: In an earlier draft of this we did talk about 95% of the light must be directed downward. There again, you are getting into a situation of how do we enforce that regulation. How do we determine that 5%? The intent of amending this was to get away from some of those issues. Shackelford: I have a concern regarding security lighting, wall mounted lights and that sort of thing. I assume that there is an appeal process in which that would be handled. Obviously, I work for a bank so I have a little unique take on it. The location in which I work has to provide lighting for the exterior of the building where the employees leave. They have to go across the greenspace, across a creek, across a bridge into a parking lot. Obviously, we are going to have to have some facilities in commercial sites, ATMs and other situations where you want light more than just directing down on the parking lot. Will those situations and security purposes, I've seen commercial buildings where they want to light the back of the buildings for fire escape and that sort of thing, will those have to come before this Commission on a Conditional Use or an appeal process? How will that be handled? Conklin: Once again, the variance provisions in here could be applied. I do think that more often though through the lighting design professionals that will be able to use this ordinance and they will be able to accommodate their projects and light it efficiently and meet this ordinance. I would note that the new Lowe's that went in used full cutoff lighting on the back of their Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 35 building and it is possible to achieve some of that. As we saw earlier tonight, I don't think that we can ever write an ordinance that is going to cover 100% of every situation that we are going to have in Fayetteville. I have seen full cutoff lighting used in many instances and the biggest problems we have had are where we either turn up those shoe box lights and create floodlights out of them or where we just put floodlights up automatically. This is going to protect the city from having that happen. We could use that variance procedure if there is a case where it is impossible to design a lighting system to provide the level of security that a bank needs. Anthes: Leif, I believe you referred to the item that you added in the purpose part of this document as "reduce atmospheric light pollution". I would pose an alternate to that to read something more like "to permit all forms of necessary illumination at reasonable intensities but to prevent obtrusive aspects such as glare, trespass, energy waste and sky glow." Whether or not you use that exact wording, I believe that we need to say that the intent of this is to contribute to a dark sky in our city and use some language that is a little bit more clear and comprehensive. The other thing is that I too am concerned about recreational facility lighting. I believe you've got in here that you have an 11:00 p.m. cutoff time on recreational facilities which a lot of people go to bed long before that and cannot enjoy their view in their city. However, if the lighting on those fields was designed to meet the intent of the ordinances and there is lighting that can do that. There are soft lighting systems and other lighting systems that are full cutoff and that can illuminate a field. I question whether or not we need a cutoff time if the fixtures actually meet the ordinance or vice versa. I wasn't involved with the committee but it looks like the subcommittee that developed this ordinance met several times in 2001. Again, I reference the International Dark Sky Association and some other sources that have done a considerable amount of work on ordinances that we might want to take a look at and a lot of that work has happened in 2002 and beyond. I just wonder if this was great when we were looking at it three or four years ago but that there might have been a lot of language that was tested in communities since then that might be something that we should revisit before adopting the language in this ordinance. Olson: I have been to the dark sky website and they are actually in the process of working up a model ordinance that could be modified for virtually any community and adopted. The last time that I was on that website it wasn't up yet. They mentioned that they were working on it and it will be up. I think you are correct, between 2001 and now a lot of other communities have adopted lighting ordinances in the last couple of years. Yes, we can surely revisit what other cities have done and if there is some language or some things that staff might feel is applicable for Fayetteville we would certainly look into that. Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 36 Allen: No ordinance is perfect but I think this is certainly heading us the right direction and I would like to move for approval of ADM 01-15.00 forwarding it with our stamp of approval to the City Council. Ostner: I will second. Hoover: Is there more discussion? Anthes: I agree that this is a good start and I believe that this is something that our city really needs and I'm very glad everybody has put in work. In the form that it is in I don't believe that I would be able to vote for forwarding it to the Council. I think it needs more work. Vaught: I would agree. I would like to see the subject of street lighting, pedestrian type lighting addressed a little better for areas such as Dickson Street where we want character more than light pollution. Not necessarily light pollution, but there are compromises. I guess maybe I just need a better understanding of the options out there. Before I vote for this I would like to see some more variations or some more opportunities. Maybe a wattage limit on the watts in street lights or pedestrian type lamps instead of saying they have to do the shoebox lighting. I'm picturing the shoebox type lighting down Dickson. I'm an accountant so I don't have a great imagination, but that is what I'm picturing and it worries me. I know there are options. Olson: There are some good fixtures out there now that are decorative and they are full cutoff. It is just the bulb and everything is up in the inside of it. We can look at that. Anthes: I just wanted to add that I feel like if we forward it at this time we are putting a lot of the onus of working through these details on the City Council and that perhaps we need to go to them with something we can endorse more whole heartedly. Graves: I'm an attorney so I don't have a lot of imagination either, but I know that you can make an ordinance too specific to the point where it is inflexible. Some of the concerns that people have raised it seems like could be addressed through the variance process as has been suggested. If you try to micromanage it through the ordinance, that is some of the problems that they are trying to avoid by amending it the way that they are. Vaught: That is why I was asking about the variance process earlier. If those are things that we, through this ordinance, have control over at the Planning Commission can we, if a development comes through and they want to use certain types of lighting, what kind of things can we approve a variance Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 37 for on this. I know in some situations we are limited on variances on what we can approve and what we can't. Conklin: This is something that as the Planning Commission does once or twice a month, variances based on different circumstances and conditions of development. I want to make sure that I'm clear. This ordinance has been I would say significantly reduced in scope and what it covers and no longer are we going to go out and measure lumens and have different standards for different lights and it does not cover every situation. The only thing that I'd like to add when we say we're going to work on this, if you are talking about another subcommittee that is fine, just give staff some direction. This is not the highest priority for staff right now with implementation of our Transportation Plan and implementation of our Downtown Master Plan over the next few months or this year is going to be a high priority. I just want to share that with the Commission because we will work it in when we can but it is probably not going to come back to your next meeting. We can research and find out more when the model ordinance is being developed and maybe that will be an opportunity to see what that organization develops for municipalities. Bunch: This particular concept of having a lighting ordinance has bounced around for a considerable period of time and we have had record development in the last couple of years and we are approaching record development in the coming up year without the benefit of a lighting ordinance. We could micro manage this thing forever and I'm usually one of the ones that says I want to examine an ordinance more thoroughly and go through it. This has been to the City Council and back to the Planning Commission and back to the City Council any number of times. I think that even a minimalist approach to get people started thinking along these lines is very important. Particularly with the anticipated record growth as described by Mayor Coody for the year 2004. For those reasons, even though this has some severe limitations, I would recommend passing it and forwarding it to the City Council because we need to get started sometime and we've had record growth that has not been adequately addressed. I think that is something that we have studied too long and not taken care of business. Anthes: Thank you for bringing that up. I certainly would rather have this than nothing. If that is our choice I might reverse my prior comments. However, I do feel like this does need some more embellishing and another look. If this is it or nothing that's what I didn't understand. Hoover: I think this might be it for a particular amount of time. Williams: I would certainly say that just because you would recommend that this be passed by the City Council doesn't mean that the City Council or the Planning Commission quits looking at ordinances. Ordinances get Planning Commission March 22, 2004 Page 38 amended all the time. I would concur. I was there in the original dark days of 2001 when we first started struggling to get a lighting ordinance done and I think that it would be beneficial to the city to get something like this passed. Then if we see problems coming up that is a real good time when the ordinance starts getting applied to say we need to do this or we need to do that to fine tune the ordinance. I would recommend that you go forward for all the reasons that have been stated by the Planning Commissioners already. I think that it is time to get something in our Code of Ordinances. Hoover: Is there any other discussion? Renee? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to recommend approval of ADM 01-15.00 to the City Council was approved by a vote of 8-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries eight to zero. Announcements Hoover: We are adjourned.