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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004-04-26 MinutesMINUTES OF A MEETING OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION A regular meeting of the Planning Commission was held on Monday, April 26, 2004 at 5:30 p.m. in room 219 of the City Administration Building, 113 W. Mountain, Fayetteville, Arkansas. ACTION TAKEN ADM 04-1054: (Lot 6 Warwick Drive, pp 215) Approved Page 3 ADM 04-1062: (Appeal Owen Lot Splits, pp 254) Conditions Upheld Page 4 VAC 04-09.00: Vacation (Paul Dunn, pp 447) Forwarded to City Council Page 16 PPL 04-06.00: Preliminary Plat (Amber Jane Estates, pp 359) Approved Page 18 CUP 04-11.00: Conditional Use (Bridgeport POA Pool, pp 360) Approved Page 26 CUP 04-13.00: Conditional Use (McFerron/Childcare, pp 367) Approved Page 30 RZN 04-07.00: Rezoning (Parnell/Hanshew, pp 595) Page 33 ANX 04-03.00: Annexation (Nooncaster, pp 61) Page 46 RZN 04-08.00: Rezoning (Nooncaster, pp 61) Page 46 Denied Forwarded to City Council Forwarded to City Council ANX 04-06.00: Annexation (Leigh Taylor Properties, pp 169) Forwarded to City Council Page 50 RZN 04-12.00: Rezoning (Leigh Taylor Properties, pp 169) Tabled by Applicant Page 50 ANX 04-04.00: Annexation (Tipton/Sloan, pp 475) Tabled by Applicant RZN 04-10.00: Rezoning (Tipton/Sloan, pp 475) Tabled by Applicant ANX 04-01.00: Annexation (Greenwood/Sloan, pp 477) Tabled by Applicant RZN 04-11.00: Rezoning (Greenwood/Sloan, pp 477) Tabled by Applicant Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 2 ANX 04-02.00: Annexation (McBryde/Sloan, pp 477) Tabled by Applicant RZN 04-09.00: Rezoning (McBryde/Sloan, pp 477) Tabled by Applicant MEMBERS PRESENT MEMBERS ABSENT Alan Osmer James Graves Sean Trumbo Loren Shackelford Jill Anthes Christine Myres Candy Clark Christian Vaught Nancy Allen STAFF PRESENT STAFF ABSENT Jeremy Pate Dawn Warrick Matt Casey Kit Williams Suzanne Morgan Renee Thomas Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 3 Ostner: Good evening. Welcome to the April 26h meeting of the Fayetteville Planning Commission. The first thing we have is the roll call. Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call there were six Commissioners present with Commissioners Myres, Shackelford and Graves being absent. ADM 04-1054: Administrative Item (Lot 6 Warwick Drive, pp 215) was submitted by Wes Burgess for property located at 3150 Warwick Drive, Lot 6, Block 5 of Huntingdon Subdivision. The request is for a waiver of PUD setback requirements in Huntingdon Subdivision. Ostner: The consent agenda has one item on it. I believe it is ADM 04-1054. Also on the consent agenda is the approval of minutes from the April 12`h meeting. Do I have a motion for approval? Clark: So moved. Trumbo: Second. Ostner: Is there anyone who would like to discuss this Administrative item from the audience before we approve the consent agenda? Renee, would you call the roll please? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to approve the consent agenda was approved by a vote of 6-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries six to zero. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 4 ADM 04-1062: Administrative Item (Appeal Owen Lot Splits, pp 254) was submitted by Tanya & Ben Owen, owners, for property located at 2625 N. Warwick Drive. The property is zoned RSF-4, Residential Single-family, 4 units per acre and contains approximately 3.39 acres. The request is for a Planning Commission hearing in order to appeal the conditions of approval for a lot split of the subject property which was approved by the Subdivision Committee on 2/12/04. Ostner: The next item on the agenda is ADM 04-1062 an appeal of Owen Lot Splits. Can we have the staff report please? Morgan: This item was submitted by Mr. and Mrs. Owen, owners for property located at 2625 Warwick Drive. The property is zoned RSF-4, Residential Single -Family, four units per acre and contains approximately 3.39 acres. The request is for a Planning Commission hearing in order to appeal the conditions of approval for a Lot Split of the subject property which was approved by the Subdivision Committee on February 12, 2004. Mr. and Mrs. Owens requested a Lot Split on this property on or about January 15, 2004. The request for the Lot Split was heard by the Technical Plat Review Committee and the Subdivision Committee. Engineering staff informed the applicant and the applicant's representative that water would need to be extended to serve these lots. The Subdivision Committee heard these items on February 12, 2004 with the applicant and his representative. It was approved with four conditions including a condition that a 6" water main would need to be extended along Warwick Drive to serve both lots. The action requested on the property is defined in the Unified Development Code as a subdivision of land to create a lot with a need for access and utilities. A subdivision creating only one new parcel may be processed as a Lot Split. This is a waiver of plat requirements only and not a waiver of any subdivision regulations. The development of any new lot within the city must meet the standard requirements for the Unified Development Code. A building permit was issued on March 22°d for construction of the single family home at 2427 Warwick Drive. Staff had the ability to approve this permit without the Lot Split being filed due to the lot area and configuration of the subject property. Waterline extension is not a requirement for a building permit for a single family home, however, it is required for a subdivision of land and is necessary to create a separate lot suitable for independent development of a single family home to supply public water to each lot as well as safety with the installation of fire hydrants in accordance with our ordinance as well as the International Fire Code. The applicant requests to appeal the conditions of the Lot Split approval. Staff does not have the ability to change requirements placed on developments by the Planning Commission or the Subdivision Committee functioning as an agent of the full Commission. Therefore, staff recommends that the Planning Commission affirms the conditions of approval for LSP 04-10.00 as approved by the Subdivision Committee on February 12, 2004. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 5 Ostner: Thank you Suzanne. Can we hear from the applicant next? If you have any kind of a presentation or if you would like to just be available for questions. Owen: I'm Tonya Owen. Ok. I don't know what you have in front of you. I've written numerous letters to everyone from Mayor Coody to Greg Boettcher to David Jurgens. I don't know what all you have. When we met with Matt and Suzanne early in December we wanted to split our land into three plots, sale one of them, build a home on one of them and then sale the house that we are living in now eventually, which is 2625. We were told if we did that then that would be creating a subdivision and that threw us into a different set of rules and regulations. So we decided to keep one lot and just create the one new lot. We had everything processed as a Lot Split but all the rules and regulations that govern the water main extension to me apply to a subdivision and we have deliberately not created a subdivision, we've only created one new plot of land. I've been unable to come up with anything and I went to Bob Davis who is our alderman, and asked him for any sort of governing documents that would address the water needs for just one lot and my understanding is it doesn't exist. That is why we are here. Ostner: Thank you. At this point I will open it up to the public. Is there anyone here who would like to comment on this issue? Seeing none, I will close it to the public and bring it back to the Commission for questions of the applicant or discussion. Vaught: I would like Mr. Casey to go over, I believe a lot of this has to do with the fire regulations and the possible need for a hydrant if they are located so far away from existing hydrants. Can you address that? We talked about it at the Planning Tour. Casey: That is one of the reasons for the requirement of a 6" water main to be extended. In your packets you will see a memo from Mr. Greg Boettcher, it is on page 2.31. He does a very good job of listing each of the reasons and also the documentation for this requirement. One of them is the requirement in the fire code that a fire hydrant must be within 200' of the property. Also, if you can refer to the section above that, Section C, the Standard Water Line Specifications for the City of Fayetteville a minimum size line installed with the connection of a subdivision, and a Lot Split is considered a subdivision, and also for a fire hydrant, is a 6" line. Those are a couple of reasons for the sizing requirements for that line. Ostner: I have a question for staff. I've got a drawing here but no measurements. How long is this little street dead-end that we are talking about? Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 6 Morgan: I believe the most eastern edge of the subject property is approximately 400' from the nearest hydrant, which I believe is on Oak Bailey. Ostner: I have a question for the applicant. This street is stubbed out. It is not being built to a cul-de-sac but it could go on in the future. Do you know or have you had conversations with Mr. Keenan about does he have plans to develop? Owen, T.: I don't know him and haven't been able to get into touch with him. I do know that he has built a house on one end of that property. He has a house that is currently under construction on one end of that acreage that he has behind us. Can I talk about the fire hydrant for a second? Ostner: Of course. Owen, T.: When that was brought to me as a reason for the need for the water main extension I called the Fire Department and had Kyle Curry come out and he did a measurement. I don't know what documentation he provided to the city but he left information in my mailbox saying that although he would like to see a fire hydrant at that location where we are building, it is not necessary and it is not required under any Fire Code. I think that is actually what is also mentioned in Mr. Pate's report. The way that we have split our lot we are within 200' of a fire hydrant, which is the fire hydrant that exists right now on the corner of Oak Bailey. That is what services the 2625 house that we are currently living in. Our new lot would actually be closer to the fire hydrant that we are on now. I don't know if you have a copy of the Lot Split, does that make sense? Ostner: This is what I have and I drew that house on this one. Owen, T.: The corner of the new lot that is being created, we actually have an arm of that land is closer to the fire hydrant than the house is now and it is closer than 200'. Ostner: I think this corner is the problem. They are saying that the lot wraps around the other house. Owen, T.: The house that is there now would have the same coverage that it has now and then the lot that we are creating would be even closer to the fire hydrant than we are now if that makes sense. This is the new lot that is being created. This is the house that currently exists and the lot that currently exists. The fire hydrant is right there. This new lot actually is closer to the fire hydrant than the house is now. Ostner: I think the rules are for houses, not for lot corners. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 7 Owen, T.: This is why I had him come out is because he said that we were within 600', whatever the requirements were. He said that there is a new fire code that you have to be within 200' of the fire hydrant and he said that one may get you and I said no, this one up here is still ours. So he said in that case you are within 200'. Even though he would like to see a fire hydrant down here it is not required. That was back in February. Clark: I'm new to this. Talk to me like I'm a five year old and explain to me the city's position. It shouldn't be hard to talk to me like I'm a five year old. Boettcher: Good evening. My name is Greg Boettcher, I'm the Water and Wastewater Director for the City of Fayetteville. I have not had the pleasure of being at very many Planning Commission meetings. The challenge of speaking at a fifth grade level I might be able to handle. Essentially, what we have is we are proposing, the Owens are faced with a challenge. They are proposing to create a new lot in the City of Fayetteville in 2004. That new lot needs to have a full compliment of city services. It needs to have water in front of the lot has been the position that we are taking that is in the Development Standards, that is in the Code, it is a requirement. We also normally require for a dead-end main an 8" waterline be extended down the street to the front of the property being served. It is our policy that service lines come out perpendicular and connect onto the water main, that they do not chase the street down to the end of the water main. That has been a long standing criteria. What the Owens are doing are creating two lots with a Lot Split. We have to remember that the existing house is now a new lot in the City of Fayetteville. It must have the same level of service as the other sliver of the lot that is closer to the end of the street. The new lot that their existing home would be on is about 380' from a fire hydrant. The code requirements state that it needs to be about 200' or 250', but it doesn't meet the criteria. It is necessary to have fire protection for the new lot. It is necessary to have an adequate water main down the street, which is why the 6" size is being required. It is a development. It is a new lot that can be sold or built on and it needs to have city services at it's location. Particularly, it needs an adequate water supply and reasonable access to a fire hydrant. Are there any other questions while I'm here? Ostner: Everything you said makes perfect sense except that this house is existing and why hasn't it already been required to do all of this? Boettcher: The action that is precipitating this requirement is their desire to create a new lot. We would grandfather in the requirement if they were not creating a new lot. When they split the lot, I don't know when their home was built, it might have been in the 1970's when that lot was platted. The standards then were different. The new lot that is being created by the proposed action must conform to 2004 criteria. That's the driver. I know Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 8 it is a financial hardship for them when they look at this but ultimately, in 2004 a lot in the City of Fayetteville should have direct frontage to an adequately sized water main and it should have a reasonable access to a fire hydrant. Thank you. Anthes: Staff, I had not seen the plat until this evening, I just had a sketch. I had no idea that they were planning to sort of cut this donut shaped lot out of the center of this piece of property. What do we have that regulates configuration of lots because to me that is a very awkward split. Also, it seems to be done in order to get us some proximity to frontage that perhaps doesn't make sense from a division of land standpoint. Pate: This plat came before the Subdivision Committee for review earlier this year. The Subdivision Committee did review this for the adequacy of this lot to have both water, which we are discussing tonight, as a condition of approval and adequate frontage onto a public street. That was also a concern prior to the ultimate configuration that was approved by the Subdivision Committee acting as a body of the Planning Commission. There was not adequate frontage to serve the lot to the west. With this configuration, which does meet our zoning codes however oddly shaped it is, does meet that criteria. However, the condition of approval for the water was still required at that time to extend the waterline to serve the lots. Anthes: I'm not asking you about the waterline or anything to serve anything. I'm talking about the basic configuration of the lot. Pate: It meets our zoning criteria. It has got adequate frontage onto a public right of way. Right of way is required to be dedicated with this Lot Split and was approved by the Subdivision Committee with this configuration. Anthes: We have nothing that talks about this kind of a subdivision that has a donut cut out of the center of a piece of property? Pate: Not necessarily. Our development regulations do talk about creating flag lots and oddly shaped lots that do not have adequate access. Our zoning criteria is basically set upon the findings that we make with regard to meeting the setbacks and not creating non -conforming lots or structures. Meeting those requirements set forth by our zoning codes for adequate services and adequate frontage. Those are the base criteria for establishing a lot size, shape or configuration in the City of Fayetteville. Anthes: Thank you Jeremy. I have one other question. Unfortunately, it is on the City Attorney's letter and we have no representation tonight. I'm referring to the item on page 2.25, last paragraph. The house that is being constructed by the Owens is not on a cul-de-sac from a waterline point of Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 9 view. Instead, this appears to be a future water main access point for a very large undeveloped area beyond the Owen's house. Can you identify for us how large the parcel of undeveloped land is to the west and how many structures might be built there if it were conforming to RSF-4 zoning, which it is currently zoned? Pate: It looks like based on your maps on the last page of this report, it is approximately 40 acres of undeveloped land at this time with another area to the west of that 40. These squares are basically broken into 40s. At four units per acre you are looking at 160 units at a maximum density of RSF-4. I believe there is an area zoned P-1 in that location. That is institutional use that at this time would not be suitable for Residential Single Family use unless it were rezoned at some point in time. Anthes: I have a follow up question for Mr. Boettcher. I don't have a map that shows the configuration of potential water sources for this additional 40 acres of land so all I have to go on is the report from Kit Williams indicating that this would be the water main access point for that 40 acres. Is that true or are there additional points that would curb that additional acreage to the west? Boettcher: I think the question would be, if I understand correctly, is this the correct route for a future water line construction. Yes, this is consistent with our policy of trying to loop water mains and avoid dead end water mains with flow and stagnant water issues and THM issues. The other issue that I think is important and supports this, is in the approval of the Lot Split I believe that we are requiring them to dedicate Warwick Drive to their property line. With our connectivity issue and these types of things all that we have asked for I believe is consistent for those policies. Normally for a dead end water main, I'm probably going on too long, but normally a dead end water main size would be 8". In reviewing this with the Owens and realizing that is a substantial amount of capacity and realizing that the street is platted to go further through the property, we agreed to go to a 6" size, which brings the costs down and supports future looping. It will go down and essentially connect up to a street right of way where we currently have Raven Trail and there is a street platted through there. There are some corridors in the long range that can provide the looping. Anthes: Thank you. Jurgens: I'm David Jurgens, Water and Sewer Maintenance Superintendent. Just to caveat on that, if you look to the north with a larger scale map, it is over 1/4 mile to the north where we would have an east/west line that would tie in. Otherwise, lines would have to go through side yards and backyards, which is very, very undesirable both for the resident when there is a problem with the water line and for the city when we have to work on said Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 10 waterline. Nobody likes to have their fences and trees and everything else taken down for maintenance on something that could've been done differently. This is an absolutely essential loop for any future water construction. My standpoint is I've got pipes that are in the ground that are 115 years old now. Current objectives of the owner to the west, quite honestly, don't matter to me because in the next 115 years the design of this pipe will be extended to the west so we have to plan on that. My objection to a 2" line as an example, is that if a 2" line goes in here when this needs to be extended all of that will have to be replaced, the street will have to be dug up and a great deal of work will have to be done at the city's expense that should be done as part of when new lots are created. We spend a lot of our time correcting the sins of the past and so I'm doing my absolute best to not create sins of the future while watching out for public health and safety. It was my recommendation to take this down from an 8" line to a 6" line to ensure adequate water turn over so we didn't have any customers with stale water. The long term this needs to be a 6" main and it will need to be looped to the west because both north and south of there are irregularly shaped subdivisions. They are not your rectangular shaped grid so that makes a big challenge on the water system to create that grid that is recommended worldwide in the water system business. Ostner: Thank you. Do we have any other discussion? Vaught: I guess this is a question for staff. How far are they having to extend this water main? Casey: It would have to be a minimum of 380' to the existing house. Vaught: Right now the 8" water main, all I have is this little plat that says proposed 8" water with a line next to it. I didn't know how many feet they were extending it and I'm a dollars and cents guy. What kind of impact is this to the individual? Casey: I think the Owens might be able to answer that a little better. They actually received bids and estimates. Owen, T.: It is 540' that the main has to be extended. That is anywhere from $20,000 to $28,000 for a 8" main. Although Mr. Boettcher did say the 6" main helps on cost. It basically helped on $1,800 of the cost. The difference of a 2" water main, which is about $5,500 and the 6" water main which is about $20,000 is why we are here. Our position has been all along that we don't need a 6" water main to one home. If the city needs that for future use there are ways of cost sharing. They did it with Walgreens. It is on the books that you can cost share if the nature of the development is such that there aren't a large number of people involved in Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page I1 the development. There are ways of doing it so if they need it for future use then certainly we could pay what we need for our home and they could cost share the difference for what they need for future use. Clark: Staff, from what I'm hearing this proposal is being driven by staff based on future needs. In other words, where their property is located is just bad luck. Pate: Not necessarily. Any subdivision of land has the same requirements. Any Lot Split that we process in the City of Fayetteville that does not have adequate services must extend those services to that lot to create the tract. Clark: Adequate services currently or for future needs or both? Pate: Both essentially. It meets the needs of this development and the future. Clark: A 2" would meet their need and a 6" or 8" would meet future need. Casey: A 2" would not meet the needs as described earlier for the fire flow. Clark: A fire hydrant has to have an 8" correct? Casey: Right. Clark: What's the city's position on cost share? Casey: A cost share mechanism is in place when the city feels that what is going to be needed in the future exceeds the minimum requirements. In this case the minimum requirement is a 6" line. If we wanted to make a recommendation to the City Council to upgrade that to a 12" line to further establish a grid in the area that would be a time when the mechanism for the cost share would be appropriate. Trumbo: At the Subdivision Committee level I was reading the report and specifically, Mr. Bunch asked Suzanne if there were any additional staff comments. The reply was we need to add a condition of approval that a 6" water main be extended to serve each of these two lots. It was stated at that time that they were going to need a 6" water main. Apparently, Mr. Dave Jorgensen knew that and concurred with all of the conditions of the approval representing the Owens. To me at that level that says that we agree to do that and under those conditions. Obviously, that's not the case now. What has transpired since then to bring you all here? Owen, B.: At that point we were still pursuing it with Bob Davis. It was our understanding that it would go before City Council. At some point we were told that if we wanted to take it to the City Council there was a good Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 12 chance that some of the other conditions that were agreed to would then be revoked like septic and paving the street so we decided not to go that route. At that point Jorgensen advised us not to bring it up there but to pursue it with Bob Davis and the City Council. All along, reading this letter and hearing people tonight, it is presented like it is very clear and laid out and I'm hearing reference to International Code and we are not trying to buck any of that. From the beginning we knew that we would have to bring water there. We could not get documentation immediately from local so we went to state and that was where the 2" first came in. They said that would be adequate for the house and all along, we have asked to see the code. People say we need a 6" and we would say ok, we need to see where it says that. More times than not it comes down to some sort of professional judgment and wording like it may be required but there is nowhere codified that says you have to have a 6". Trumbo: Thank you. Ostner: The comment I'd like to make, maybe it's obvious, but the scientific or the plumbing needs separate from the hydrant aren't really the issue. When they diligently called around and tried to find out what these two homes would need is really a separate issue from our ordinances it seems like to me. Their information from our meetings and from Mr. Davis, etc., etc., I think that lined up on their behalf hasn't worked out right, the information. The fact that the ordinances and the water requirement don't have much to do with each other. Our ordinances seem to require more than the water needs of a house it would seem to me. The distance from the closest plug. That's my only comment. Jurgens: If I may make a comment to that. That is not entirely accurate. The needs of the house identified as it is right now. However, we are creating two fairly large lots. We know that on a lot of large lots people are putting in irrigation systems that they did not originally intend to put in. We cannot allow water mains to go in that cannot provide the full needs of the lot, not just the fixture count in the given structures on the lot at the current time. A rule of thumb is that we do not allow irrigation systems to go in on a 2" main because they take pressure away that is required for domestic uses. 2" mains are not allowed where irrigation may go in. Irrigation is not allowed on 2" mains because it does, in fact, degrade the primary purpose of the water system and the secondary purpose of the water system. Those being domestic use, fire flow, in that order and then the third is irrigation. The current owners may not wish to have irrigation but the next owners may. In the life of a waterline none of us have the ability to look into that crystal ball and predict what future owners may want to do on those lots. They may want to put in a garden and have a lot of water. Irrigation systems require a certain amount of pressure, they require backflow prevention assemblies. All of those degrade the amount of pressure and Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 13 the amount of flow that pass through a system. Dead-end 2" mains I do not allow irrigation systems. Current owners may not want them but if they sale one of those houses in two years or five years or ten years that owner may want one. Again, that is another reason from the water supply standpoint that a 2" main in my opinion is not adequate. Vaught: I guess I just have a comment. Actually, I have a question for staff first. If they don't like our decision they still have a right to appeal to the City Council on these decisions, is that correct? Pate: I don't know that at this time. I will try to find out. Vaught: I'm of the opinion that as a Planning Commission we are told to uphold our ordinances on the books. To me it appears our ordinances require us to need at least a 6" line. We are not planning just for this development but also for future development. I think the appropriate place is at the City Council level to ask for a cost share. We can't approve cost shares. That has to go to the City Council to seek a cost share or some kind of amendment at that level on a policy level. To me it seems like our job would be to uphold the ordinances. In my interpretation of the ordinances it would be something that we can't neglect. It would be like giving away a right of way when possibly we would need it for a future road and we would have to bear the cost to buy that land in the future. That is why I would probably vote to affirm this condition. After I hear the appeals process I may motion. Pate: I believe this decision is made at this level based on reading the appeals from the Planning Commission decisions, which the Subdivision Committee is an acting body of the Planning Commission. Any required dedication and improvements it reads that the appeal must be presented to the Planning Division in writing, stating the grounds or reasons for the appeal and that decision must be made after a public hearing. Vaught: Can they appeal that up to the City Council? I know that we have had dedications of right of ways appealed to the City Council. Pate: It does not talk about it in this area that it would go to the City Council. I would assume at this time that it would actually go to the Circuit Court or some court level to settle that matter. Allen: I wanted to make certain that nothing has changed in this process since the Subdivision Committee meeting. Pate: That is correct. MOTION: Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 14 Allen: I feel badly about this but I think the right thing to do is to approve this Administrative Item and so I will move that we approve ADM 04-1063 affirming the conditions that were placed on this by the Subdivision Committee. Vaught: I will second and encourage the applicants to if they still want to fight this appeal to take it before the City Council. Ostner: Is there any further discussion? Anthes: As Commissioner Vaught stated, we are under the direction to interpret anything that comes before us based on the ordinances as they stand in the books. I know that you guys have stated that they couldn't find where our ordinances have required these things. In our packets, which I'm assuming have been shared with you, we have a progression of events here that talk about that the subdividing of land into lots and blocks, the parceling of land resulting in the need for access or utilities or the dividing of an existing lot or parcel into two or more lots is considered a subdivision of property. A Lot Split, under our ordinances, is indeed a subdivision. We look from there and it talks about the minimum size line that may be installed in connection with the subdivision is 6". We also have an ordinance on the books that says that the city shall not participate in the cost of an 8" or smaller line unless it is in a non -development situation. If you are building a house on that we have a development situation. I've read through this over and over and I just do not see anything but a clear directive from our ordinances and therefore, I will be voting for it. Ostner: Thank you Ms. Anthes, is there any other discussion? Renee? Thomas: I just have a clarification. Is the motion to deny ADM 04-1052 which is an Appeal by the Owens? Vaught: A vote for is affirming the conditions placed by the Subdivision Committee. Allen: Did you want me to restate my motion? I move for approval of LSP 04- 10.00. Vaught: It reads staff recommends that the Planning Commission affirm the conditions of approval of LSP 04-10.00. Ostner: ADM 04-1063 and I believe a vote for is upholding the conditions of approval from the Subdivision Committee. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 15 Allen: That is the way I intended the motion. Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to uphold the conditions of LSP 04-10.00 was approved by a vote of 6-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries six to zero. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 16 VAC 04-10.00: Vacation (Paul Dunn, pp 447) was submitted by Cal Canfield on behalf of Paul Dunn for property located at Lot 8 Block 4 of the Vinson Subdivision on Rebecca Street. The property is zoned RSF-4, Residential Single-family, 4 units per acre, and contains approximately 0.08 acres. The request is to vacate a portion of the dedicated R.O.W. for Rebecca St., east of Vinson Avenue. Ostner: The next item on our agenda is VAC 04-10.00 for Paul Dunn. Can we have the staff report please? Pate: This Vacation is submitted by Paul Dunn for property located at Lot 8 Block 4 of the t. View Addition. The property is currently zoned RSF-4. Currently a 50' right of way for Rebecca Street was dedicated with the platting of Mt. View Addition. This portion of Rebecca Street has never been constructed. There are portions to the east and west I believe that have been constructed. However, the topography in this area is prohibitive for the construction of a roadway. A large portion of this area has slopes greater than 25% which do not meet our city ordinances or codes with regard to constructing streets. Additionally, a majority of this area has been developed into a single family type neighborhood and is a cohesive neighborhood. The applicant at this time, owns Lot 8 or is looking to buy Lot 8, and the request to vacate a portion of the existing Rebecca Street right of way which is directly adjacent to this property. If you will look on page 3.8, the property that is shaded there is the subject legal description for the Vacation of right of way. The applicant's property is directly to the south of that. The Vacation request covers approximately 25' north of Lot 8 to the centerline of that existing right of way and then along the length of the northern property boundary to the east from Vincent Avenue. The right of way north of the centerline will remain as public right of way at this time. There have been no objections from adjacent property owners though we have heard a lot from property owners with curiosity to this action. The applicant has submitted required notification forms and staff is recommending approval of the proposed right of way vacation with one condition of approval that that right of way remain as a utility easement. Ostner: Thank you. Is the applicant present? Would you come forward and introduce yourself and if you have a presentation. Dunn: I am Paul Dunn. Actually, everything looks fine to me as long as I can build right up to the easement I am fine. Ostner: We will take public comment and then get back to you. Is there anyone from the public who would like to comment on this issue? This is VAC 04-10.00. Ok, I'm going to close it to the public and bring it back to the Commission for comments and motions. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 17 MOTION: Allen: I move for approval of VAC 04-10.00. Ostner: We have a motion by Ms. Allen and a second by Ms. Clark. Is there any further discussion? I would just like to say that this is a completely developed area and with this Vacation it would enable a lot that is probably un -buildable to be built upon. It is infill and it seems to be a good project to add a building in an area that is already filled with city services, roads, sewers and everything is already in place. Allen: I forgot to add subject to the one condition of approval with this remaining a utility easement in my motion. Ostner: Thank you. I have a question for staff. The condition of approval reads that the 50' right of way shall be dedicated as a 50' utility easement. I thought we were giving away half of that and making it a 25' utility easement? Pate: Essentially the right of way Vacation request and the legal description that is attached thereto and that goes forward from here to the City Council is just the 25'. The remainder 25' north is actually right of way with utilities in it. We could modify the condition if necessary before it gets to City Council. Ostner: We are changing the name of this 25' chunk from right of way to utility easement? Pate: That is correct. Ostner: Thank you. Is there any further discussion? Renee? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to forward VAC 04-10.00 to the City Council was approved by a vote of 6-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries six to zero. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 18 PPL 04-06.00: Preliminary Plat (Amber Jane Estates, pp 359) was submitted by Jorgensen & Associates on behalf of PBS of Fayetteville for property located at the SW comer of Sunshine Road and Jess Anderson Road. The property is in the Planning Area and contains approximately 27.78 acres. The request is to allow for the development of a residential subdivision with 28 single family lots. Ostner: The next item on our agenda is PPL 04-06.00 for Amber Jane Estates. Can we have the staff report please? Pate: Yes Sir. This is a Preliminary Plat for a residential subdivision on 27.7 acres. It is in the City of Fayetteville Planning Area outside of the city limits. There are 28 single family lots ranging in size from .57 acres to 2.58 acres. The western portion of the property does include area within the Hamstring Creek floodway and the 100 year floodplain, as well as steep slopes to the south and west creating the need for those larger tracts of land. This property is located directly west of the Fairfield subdivision on Sunshine Road and adjacent to the City of Fayetteville municipal limits. The developer plans to develop the subdivision in two phases. The second phase is to incorporate lots 23 through 27 which are along Jess Anderson Road to the north. Surrounding area is primarily in the county with the exception of the Fairfield Subdivision directly to the east. The applicant is proposing to stub out a street connection to the south. There is a large, vacant tract of land that will most likely be developed in the future. With the policy of connectivity staff is recommending that there be a stub out to that property to develop in the future. Hamestring Creek is a significant stream associated with the floodway and floodplain and the steep terrain, really prohibits a lot of connectivity to the west. There are several drainage ways that also traverse the property. If you look on your plat they are identified. I believe that there is a note stating that the 100 - year floodplain exists in both the area running east and west and running from the south toward Hamestring Creek in a couple of different areas. Hopefully those floodplains will be identified by the time of Final Plat and the elevations determined for the actual building elevations. The proposed subdivision was reviewed at the Subdivision Committee on April 15" h. Items of discussion included connectivity to the north to Jess Anderson Road, the addition of sidewalks along Jess Anderson, Sunshine Road and all of the interior streets. A Lot Split has been submitted to create the subject tract though the County Assessor's office had assigned separate parcel numbers, they had never gained city approval so that is in the process at this time. Staff is recommending approval of this Preliminary Plat with 13 conditions of approval. I will go over a couple. The Lot Split shall be approved to create the subject tract prior to the release of construction plans. Item two, Planning Commission determination of street improvements. Staff is recommending that Sunshine Road and Jess Anderson Road be improved a minimum of 14' in width from centerline with curb, gutter and 6' sidewalks located at the right of way line. Jess Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 19 Anderson Road shall also be improved to meet Washington County standards on the north side of that road. Jess Anderson Road improvements are to occur with the development of Phase IL All street improvements do need to meet the City of Fayetteville minimum standards including 6' sidewalks located at the right of way line along Jess Anderson Road and Sunshine Road. The reason I mention this is that they were not submitted with the revisions for this meeting and so I just wanted to let you be aware of that that the same conditions were made at the Subdivision Committee. Item number six states that access to lots 23 through 25 shall be by common drive within a permanent access easement between lots 24 and 25. Other access along Jess Anderson Road will be prohibited with the filing of the Final Plat for this subdivision thereby lessening the number of curb cuts onto Jess Anderson Road. Ostner: Thank you. Is the applicant here? Could you come forward and introduce yourself and give us your presentation. Jorgensen: Good evening. My name is Justin Jorgensen. I'm with Jorgensen & Associates representing Amber Jane Estates. I believe Jeremy covered all the ground that really needs to be covered. We reviewed all of the conditions of approval and agree to all of them and have made the necessary changes that were stated. I will answer any questions that I can. Ostner: Thank you. At this point I will open it to the public. Is there anyone here who would like to comment on this issue? Frederick: I'm Terry Frederick, the adjacent land owner to the west. I have a couple of comments or objections. We have a poultry operation directly within 100' to 150' of lots 16, 17 and 18. This area is all east of our poultry houses. People move out into the country without realizing that there are things out in the country that they are not used to and objectionable, especially poultry houses. The smell with the southwesterly winds, the smell and dust from our poultry houses, this subdivision is directly in line with those. I can't stop it. This is what they should be aware of. They object to it after the fact but we've been there 15 years and it is just something that I think they should be aware of. We have another objection, access to our property. Hamestring Creek cuts our property with a bluff line there. Lots 15 and 14, especially 15 abuts up to the property line there on the west. We have no access because of the bluff along the creek there. I don't know what the planning is for the future but if there is a possible access or way to get an easement to that land that is something that we would like to put in at this time. That's basically the two areas of concerns that we have. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 20 Ostner: Thank you. We will try to respond to some of those. Is there anyone else from the public who would like to speak on this issue? Seeing none, I will close it to the public and bring it back to the Commission for comments. Anthes: The comment that I had at Subdivision level has not been addressed by the applicant. It is under connectivity on the first page of our Planning report and that is that this street, although it is stubbed out to the south, is 1,730' long to the next outlet. I believe that is excessive. It is certainly in excess of the normal block length that has outlets in several directions. It is definitely longer than the 500' that we allow for a cul-de-sac and I wanted to ask the applicant, again. We had asked at Subdivision whether there would be a way, you are improving Jess Anderson Road on the northern end of this property, it seems to me that there would be a way to extend your new road out on either side of lots 19 and 26 to Jess Anderson Road to allow a second means of egress out of this Subdivision. It doesn't cut the entire length of it down but it does make it much more readily accessible and connected, would you be willing to do that? Jorgensen, J.: You guys have the ultimate say on this in the end but of course, our view on this and our client's view on this is that we are trying to get the ball rolling on this as quick as we can. Anything at this point would just make it further along. The fact that the reason we did that temporary cul-de-sac on the south is for connection in the future. We felt like that was sufficient enough. Anthes: As we spoke about at Subdivision if you recall that that could be quite sometime before that develops. There is no plan for that now. That still leaves a 1,730' street with no other outlet for the duration of that time period and I feel like that is an excessive length, particularly when there is an opportunity to make a second outlet. Jorgensen, J.: Yes Ma'am. Like I said, you guys ultimately have the decision. Of course, we wouldn't like to see it and you guys would. Jorgensen, D.: I'm Dave Jorgensen. I might add that our clients requested this layout. We concurred with it. The extension to the south was made with the intention of future development. We have talked to other people who may be interested in development to the south but it could be five years or ten years, or it could be one year. We don't really know. We place this problem from time to time where we are the first developer in there. In this particular situation it is in our term a temporary cul-de-sac. We realize that it exceeds the length prescribed by the City of Fayetteville being 600'. Anthes: It is 500' so this is more than three times the length. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 21 Jorgensen, D.: Your request was not totally ignored. We thought about that idea and to make that connection to Jess Anderson would reduce the length of the cul- de-sac down to 1,100 feet long where that intersects down to the south so it is still quite a distance plus the fact that we have to cross another 100 - year floodplain to the north, that stream that crosses and goes east/west which would be a very expensive crossing. When we weighed the advantage that we have with going to the north with the cost of it the owner decided that we would prefer to keep this layout. To reiterate, we are really not ignoring your request, it is just that this is what the owner's wish is. We hope that the Planning Commission sees favorably upon it. Anthes: I believe our cul-de-sac length we allow for 500' except for up to 1,000 in hilly terrain. Pate: With a dead end street that has no future access planned within the City of Fayetteville there is a 500' length and in hilly terrain there is 1,000' length. Based on those same minutes, it looks like it was measured at Subdivision Committee at about 1,330'. That is basically the same conversation that was had at the Subdivision Committee level. With stub outs, there is a temporary turn around shown on your plat. It is obviously a dead-end at this time until future development extends beyond that but it is not one of those cases where typically there is a waiver request for the 500' in length that they stub out. That is providing connectivity for the future. Anthes: I wrote down 1,730' at Subdivision. Pate: Are you measuring from the cul-de-sac to the outlet? Anthes: Yes. Pate: That's probably the difference in those numbers. Anthes: Do we have a report from fire on that? Pate: It is outside the city limits. Vaught: Commissioner Anthes, is your concern the traffic volume generated or what is your main concern over the temporary? Anthes: I'm concerned about safety for the residents who live at the end of this very long street if their home catches on fire, if they need access to emergency services and there is one way in. I believe that this goes against our policy of connectivity in the short run. We don't know how long that run will be. It is a very lengthy street and is outside what we would normally consider for acceptable lengths in the city. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 22 Jorgensen, D.: Concerning the county regulations, we also discussed this with the County Planning Department, not that it really matters, but their length is 1,200'. Under this circumstance right here they don't enforce the 1,200' because they realize that it is a future connection that will go to the south. If this weren't extended all the way to the property line with the intention of continuing to the south then they would enforce their 1,200' rule which exceeds Fayetteville's rule by quite a bit. We did check with them to make sure it was acceptable to them should it pass the Planning Commission at this stage. Anthes: Commissioner Vaught, to further sort of answer that question, I'm also looking at what would happen if we did connect to this southern piece of property over time. It is hard to speculate but it wouldn't be like there would be a quick way out once you got to that southern property line. There would be another considerable travel distance to be able to get out and that sort of added to my concern. Vaught: I have another question for staff. It shows on the map that we have 54`h Street is proposed in the future to be extended north as a collector, is that correct? Pate: It actually turns into Sunshine Road adjacent to this property. Vaught: I was looking at the Master Street Plan drawings of what will be to the west of this site. It looks like there is something, is that correct? Pate: That is correct. Vaught: I think that goes to Mr. Frederick's property right? Jorgensen, D.: It is referred to on our vicinity map as 55`h Street which would be fairly hard to construct at that particular point where it reaches our southwest corner. Vaught: That's what I was looking at. It looks like it goes right off a cliff. Jorgensen, D.: Right, it does. Ostner: A question for staff. On the issue of the Master Street Plan, the overview of the Master Street Plan calls for 54`h to wind up in a gorge, of course, it wouldn't. Would we lean that one way or the other as development proceeds to hopefully connect with this? Pate: Most likely. Especially when there are environmental or topographical conditions that do not allow for the construction of a street in this location Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 23 such as a cliff and a river to cross with an expensive bridge to construct. That is something that we always look at with development to see the ability for a developer or the city to put a street in that location. It is obviously on our Master Street Plan and that is what we adhered to at this point but with the development of this site we would look at those conditions as well. Anthes: That actually concerns me a little further. If we were leaning to the east with the 54`h Street connection then it seems like that would be the connection that would end up on the southern part of this property. The intention of that street is to be a north/south street which makes the case for making that go through to the north even stronger. Ostner: Does staff have any light to shed on that? Pate: I believe staff's position is the same as it was at Subdivision Committee when this was brought up. We do not consider this a dead end street and we anticipate growth in this area to the south which will potentially connect in the future. The connections to the north I believe that your arguments Ms. Anthes, are warranted because it does provide another means of access for a looped system there. I believe that a crossing of this 100 -year floodplain would have to be looked at in quite a bit of detail to see if the crossing could actually make it to the street before that transition occurs. That is kind of in the detail stages. Obviously, we are approving plans or denying the plans tonight so that decision does need to be made. It is staff's position that we feel comfortable with the current alignment of the streets and the way they are. Ostner: This street Yellow Brick Road is being built to local standards? Pate: That is correct with 28' wide streets with sidewalks on both sides. Ostner: Obviously, the collector would have to be somewhere else or it should be somewhere else to the west to that gentleman's property. I would like to say that I know that this does go longer than our rule but it does provide for an opening at the other end. Back in the 1970's we built streets a mile long with no outlet and 50 cul-de-sacs and everybody moved in there and drove out one way and now we have good rules to avoid that. I think this is acceptable. The development to the south could I think easily alleviate the issue. I know it is not perfect but it is extremely hilly terrain in parts of this. MOTION: Vaught: I would agree. I think Commissioner Anthes' concerns are legitimate and definitely to be discussed but I agree with you, especially with the size of Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 24 the lots, the traffic and the use of this road at this time is going to be extremely heavy. There are large lots so it is not like they are just packing houses in. I think as the southwest develops we can pretty easily tie to this future 54`h Street to the south as well. Whatever subdivision comes in south we definitely need to address that like this subdivision to the north like we usually do. With that said, I would like to move for approval of PPL 04-06.00. Trumbo: Second. Ostner: I have a motion by Commissioner Vaught and a second by Commissioner Trumbo. Before we vote I have a question of staff relating to the chicken houses. This happens a lot when we develop on the outskirts. What is to become of me buying a lot and being very discontent with odor? Pate: I believe that is a challenge in the way that the City of Fayetteville is growing so rapidly at this time that often times the very property that is being developed, chicken houses, for instance, are being torn down to do that. I applaud the citizen here that came and let everyone know that that would be the case so that potentially he can lessen some of those concerns at the time that this development does go in. It is really a buyer beware situation. Ostner: Do we have any other discussion? Clark: I am concerned. I think Commissioner Anthes' point is well taken in terms of the outlet. I see a tad bit of inconsistency. On one hand we are saying that we are going to hold firm to the stipulations and the guidelines that are set for us yet in this project we are saying that there is going to be future growth in the south so they will take care of this problem. I think that is an inconsistency and I think it is something that is going to come back and trouble us later. I had no problems with this, to be perfectly honest with you, when we sat down tonight but based on the discussion, I'm now troubled that we are saying it is three times longer than we allow but gosh, we'll take care of that later. My word is of caution that we don't become too inconsistent and hold somebody strictly to the letter of the law because it is what we think we should do and not hold somebody strictly to the letter of our rules when we think in the future this will be solved. If you are going to play that game the future can solve everything and we're off the hook and I don't think that's what we are supposed to do. I am troubled by the lack of outlet here. Vaught: If they were proposing to build this road only 1,000' in and leave the last 500' unbuilt. I think that the issue in the prior case was a different finding of facts. Each proposal that comes before us has it's unique set of circumstances. Since they are going to build the roads to the property line Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 25 and have the temporary turn around, it's not a cul-de-sac, it differs because they are doing their part of the development. They are not saying we think that we should cost share the last 200 yards because it is going to connect to another development. That is where I see the difference. It is a little bit different than a connectivity issue which is more of a judgment on our part as opposed to a letter of the law meeting an ordinance. They are meeting the ordinances for subdivision of this land by constructing everything to the edge of the property. For me that is the difference in this situation. Clark: I hear what you are saying and I understand it but I think sometimes we get down to real semantic games at times and I'm just weary of it I guess. Ostner: Do we have further discussion? Renee, would you call the roll please? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to approve PPL 04-06.00 was approved by a vote of 4-2-0 with Commissioners Clark and Anthes voting no. Thomas: The motion carries four to two. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 26 CUP 04-11.00: Conditional Use (Bridgeport POA Pool, pp 360) was submitted by James Harter of the Bridgeport POA for property located at Lot 125 of Bridgeport Subdivision. The property is zoned RSF-4, Residential Single-family, 4 units per acre. The request is to approve the development of a 1480 sq.ft. pool, 8 ft. concrete deck and a 16' by 12' bathhouse for the subdivision. Ostner: The next item on our agenda is a Conditional Use. At this point I would like to note speaking to the applicants who are sitting here. From here on we are voting with a limited body. Conditional Uses and Annexations and Rezonings require five affirmative votes. There are only six of us. The issue is going to be on the table from here on if the applicant would like to withdraw we can go ahead and talk about that and they can withdraw, or we can table. We have other options. For all Conditional Uses, Annexations and Rezonings five affirmative votes are required. With that, we will have the staff report for the Conditional Use. Pate: Thank you Mr. Chair. This item five is CUP 04-11.00 for the Bridgeport POA pool submitted by the Bridgeport Property Owner's Association. This property is located at lot 125 of the Bridgeport subdivision. The request is to approve the development of a 1,480 sq.ft. swimming pool, concrete deck, associated bathhouse and picnic area. This is in Phase IV of the Bridgeport Subdivision on New Bridge Road. The frontage is on New Bridge Road. The property is zoned RSF-4 and is surrounded by single family homes and Red Oak park to the east. The property was designated for use by the Bridgeport Property Owner's Association with the Final Plat of this phase in the year 2000. The applicant, representing the Bridgeport POA proposes to construct this swimming pool to serve the residents of this neighborhood. There has been a vote of the POA and correspondence is included in your packets indicating a 157 in favor to 35 not in favor vote of the project. A neighborhood swimming pool for public use falls under Use Unit 4, Cultural and Recreational Facilities. That is why we are here tonight. In the RSF-4 zoning district it requires a Conditional Use approval. The applicant is requesting a Conditional Use approval for both the pool and the associated structures with that. Some of the findings are vehicular access is not proposed onto the subject property as you may have noticed on your site plans. There is no parking required for this particular use although parking is allowed along New Bridge Road based on current city ordinances and the way that that street is developed. Sidewalks are to be constructed along New Bridge Road to connect to existing sidewalks on either side of the lot. Emergency service personnel will be able to access the proposed structures from New Bridge Road. The applicant indicates the entire lot will be enclosed and screened by fencing. A wooden privacy fence is proposed around the western boundary with the remainder to be constructed of iron. Any signage proposed in the future must be permitted in compliance with current sign ordinances and just as a point of fact, signage is strictly limited in RSF-4 zoning districts Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 27 so most likely they would be way finding types of signs. The applicant does indicate that any lighting for the pool facility will be within the POA covenant restrictions and will be minimal enough to ensure adequate security in the interior of the lot but not result in a nuisance to neighboring homes. That is also included in our conditions of approval. The proposed use of the lot for a neighborhood swimming pool is generally compatible with and provides a neighborhood amenity to the surrounding properties. A swimming pool, obviously can often times be a source of increased noise and obviously, activity. However, hours of operation and the other conditions set upon this project by the Conditional Use allow for maximum opportunity to use the facility but limits use for consideration of nearby residents. Staff is recommending approval of this Conditional Use with eight conditions. A couple of those, item number three, proposed bathhouse and sheltered picnic area shall be constructed of materials that are compatible with and complimentary to the existing single family homes in the surrounding neighborhoods. The applicant indicates that the materials used are to be brick, iron and wood fencing, shingles and steel doors. I believe that is important for both the users and the neighborhood. Item number six mentions the lighting. All of the lighting for the proposed swimming pool and associates structures shall be adequate to ensure security in the interior but not result in nuisance to neighboring land. I believe that the applicant can speak to the fact that they also have to get state approvals for this pool. Ostner: Thank you Mr. Pate. Is the applicant here tonight? Would you introduce yourself and tell us about your project? Warningham: Don Wamingham, I'm just here to answer any questions. I live in Bridgeport and I'm a builder and I was going to help the P.O.A. with construction of the pool. Seaside has got the contract to actually put the pool in. I've lived out there since Bridgeport started so if there are any questions I hope I can help you. Ostner: Thank you. At this point we will open it up to the public. Is there anyone who would like to make a comment on this issue? McMillan: I'm Amy McMillan, I live in Ward 4, Fieldstone Addition, which is adjacent to the property. My question to the builder is will the only people to utilize this pool be Bridgeport or will there be others that utilize the pool? Parking is a concern to me because there is not a lot of area to park in Bridgeport. You can park along the road but there are no other areas to park and you will be parking in front of houses. That's my concern. Ostner: Thank you. Are there any other citizens who would like to comment on this Conditional Use? I'm going to close it to the public and bring it back to the Commission for comments. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 28 Anthes: Would the owner like to address the resident's question? Warningham: It is a private pool for the P.O.A. of the Bridgeport homes. There is no parking designated for it. It is centrally located in the center of all phases of Bridgeport and is less than probably 1/8 mile from any home in that neighborhood. It is a private pool with a keyed access strictly for the Bridgeport P.O.A. Obviously, there are fees associated with being a member of it. Anthes: Thank you. Jeremy, there is no requirement for parking, is that correct? Pate: That is correct. Theoretically this would be a place to which the residents of this neighborhood could walk, children in the neighborhood as well. With this specific use there is no designated off street parking areas. Again, I mentioned there is on street parking allowed on New Bridge Road. Although, I do believe the covenants prohibit on street parking. I've been speaking with the neighborhood association member, the applicant present tonight, in trying to determine the best feasible way to provide parking there and not break their covenants as well. MOTION: Anthes: Based on the staff report and the affirmative vote of the majority of neighbors, I will move for approval of CUP 04-11.00 subject to the eight conditions of approval. Allen: I will second. Ostner: I have a motion by Commissioner Anthes and a second by Commissioner Allen. I have a question. Is this pool going to be staffed? Is it sort of like a community backyard or are there going to be people working there? Warningham: There are no lifeguards on duty. Obviously, we are responsible for maintenance of it but there will be no staff. It is strictly managed by the P.O.A. officers for maintenance. Ostner: How big is that P.O.A.? Warningham: We've got 218 homes in the neighborhood. Allen: Just as a point of clarification, the concern to the neighbor that just spoke, are you saying that there are no houses that would be within 1/8 of a mile that aren't a part of your P.O.A.? Warningham: I haven't measured it off. I think that there are two 40 acre plots there in the middle of those two 40 acre plots. I'm not sure where she lives at. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 29 McMillan: I live on Dover which is connected to Des'Arc. Warningham: Right, that is not a part of Bridgeport Ostner: Thank you. Are there any other questions? Renee, will you call the roll please? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to approve CUP 04-11.00 was approved by a vote of 6-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries six to zero. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 30 CUP 04-13.00: Conditional Use (McFerron/Childcare, pp 367) was submitted by Alice and Brian McFerron for property located at 2021 Baker Drive. The property is zoned RSF-4, Residential Single-family, 4 units per acre. The request is to allow a childcare facility in the home in this Zoning District. Ostner: Our next item is CUP 04-13.00 for the McFerron Childcare. Can we have the staff report please? Pate: This item is a proposed Conditional Use for a childcare facility in the RSF-4 zoning district. With the staff report there is a letter from the applicant and a site plan denoting the areas of where the childcare would be. The applicant is requesting the Conditional Use permit to operate a childcare facility in this zoning district, which does require a Conditional Use approval. The subject property is 2021 Baker Drive at the end of a cul-de-sac that intersects with Elm Street to the north. An existing single family home is located on the lot in the developed neighborhood. Within the RSF-4 zoning district a childcare facility is allowed by a Conditional Use with a maximum of 10 children attending on a fulltime basis. The applicant proposes to run the daycare with the assistance of one employee. The facility is to operate out of the existing single family home. The use is currently in operation with a conditional approval from the state's licensing board awaiting city approval. Hours of operation are from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. There are outside play areas designated in the rear yard within the fenced enclosure. Play equipment is being provided and I think both of those meet the state requirements. Parking for drop-off and pickup is available. Basically, the only parking allowed with this Conditional Use request is that existing with the single family use. An off-street parking lot is not allowed with this type of use. Obviously, the drop-off and pick up times will generate more traffic but those are usually in small increments of total time. As you can see, the lot area is a'/4 acre lot which is well within the size permitted. The building size of the indoor and outdoor activity areas also meet the requirements set forth by our ordinances. Within the findings, as I mentioned, traffic will increase with the drop-off and pick up times. With this being at the end of a cul-de-sac there is space for that to occur as well as in the driveway. A need for additional parking for this use is not identified by the applicant either. The applicant does propose to utilize those existing ingress and egress points for this. Granting the requested Conditional Use will not adversely affect the public interest. Again, traffic volumes will not increase substantially except for the peak hours of most likely 7:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Outdoor play areas are located to the rear of the property and the use does provide a needed service for neighboring residents and will not create an adverse situation. No signage is being proposed at this time. Neither is any additional lighting other than your standard residential landscape lighting. The applicant shall coordinate with the Solid Waste Division for any appropriate solid waste disposal. Residential Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 31 carts are recommended at this site. The adjacent property consists of single family residential dwellings and the proposal to utilize this lot for a childcare facility will serve the surrounding single family neighborhood and be compatible with properties in this zoning district. Based on these findings, staff is recommending approval of CUP 04-13.00 with five conditions. Number one being the applicant shall pay $630 in lieu of sidewalk construction as recommended by the Sidewalk Coordinator. With any Conditional Use we are required by ordinance to look at provisions of sidewalks or money in lieu. This payment the applicant has requested be made over a period of six months, which we have granted in the past for this type of facility. Item number two, no more than 10 children may attend the childcare facility on a regular basis. Items three through five are self explanatory. Ostner: Thank you. Is the applicant here? If you would please introduce yourself. McFerron: I'm Alice McFerron and I'm just here to answer any questions that you may have. This is my husband Brian. Ostner: Thank you. At this point we will open it up to the public. Is there anyone who would like to comment on this Conditional Use of the McFerron childcare? Seeing no one, we will close it to the public and bring it back to the Commission. Allen: I would like to ask whether or not Alice and Brian McFerron are currently operating a childcare at that location. McFerron: Yes I am. Allen: I wondered why a Conditional Use was not requested sooner. McFerron: I wasn't licensed before because I was watching children in my home but I have temporarily got custody of my grandchildren which gives me more children than what I am supposed to have. I chose to, instead of getting rid of some of the children that I'm already watching, I chose to go ahead and get licensed. Allen: Thank you. MOTION: Ostner: This seems like a good item to me. I'm going to make a motion that we approve CUP 04-13.00 with the five conditions. Clark: I will second. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 32 Ostner: Is there any other discussion? Renee? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to approve CUP 04-13.00 was approved by a vote of 6-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries six to zero. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 33 RZN 04-07.00: Rezoning (Parnell/Hanshew, pp 595) was submitted by Eric Johnson on behalf of Triangle Builders Supply, Inc. for property located south of Hwy. 62 on Hanshew Road. The property is currently zoned R -A, Residential Agricultural, and contains approximately 17.00 acres. The request is to rezone the subject property to RSF- 4, Residential Single-family, 4 units per acre. Ostner: Next on the agenda is RZN 04-07.00 for Parnell. Trumbo: Mr. Chair, I am going to need to recuse myself from this item due to a business relationship with this property. Ostner: We have five and five Commissioners are required so we are going to go ahead and hear the item. Pate: As you mentioned, five is a quorum and it does require five affirmative votes to go forward. This item is RZN 04-07.00 for Parnell on Hanshew Road submitted by Eric Johnson. You may remember this item has been before either the Subdivision Committee or the Planning Commission in a couple of different forms a couple of different times. I won't belabor the history but for the new Commissioners, the rezoning request was originally from R -A, Residential Agricultural to RMF -12, Residential Multi -family, 12 units per acre. That was submitted in October. Based on the surrounding land use, which is relatively agricultural and single-family in use with a relatively low density, we did not feel that was an appropriate land use nor an appropriate density for that area. In November the rezoning request was reviewed a second time by the Planning Commission at which time a Bill of Assurance was introduced by the applicant limiting the proposed density to nine dwelling units per acre. There were a few other items on that Bill of Assurance. The discussions at the Planning Commission level, you recommended that the applicant research a PZD to determine if it was feasible on this site. The applicant determined that it was not feasible for them to pursue a Planned Zoning District for this site and requested the same zoning again on January 26`h The Planning Commission did vote to deny that rezoning request from R- A to RMF -12 at that date. The current request is to rezone the property from R -A to RSF-4, Residential Single Family, four units per acre. The subject property is located south of 6t" Street west of the Lowe's Home Center and south of the Magnolia Crossing subdivision. It does not directly front onto 6`h Street but there is an intervening property. The 17 acre site is heavily wooded with significant areas of steep slopes. It is somewhat remote. If you reviewed your packets both the Fire Department, Police Department, Engineering Services have said that improvements will be necessary for this property to develop. Those are primarily along Hanshew Lane. Currently that is not up to city standards. The applicant does propose in the future to develop a subdivision of single family homes on the subject property not to exceed four units per acre. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 34 Hanshew Road is a paved roadway in this area. However, it is substandard. It has severely deteriorating pavement and if development occurs on this site street improvements would be recommended for the full width of Hanshew Road including this property's frontage and offsite to Hwy. 62. Other services are available but will most likely need to be extended into this property to serve any future development. The subject property is located two miles from the fire station on Hollywood. The normal driving time is three minutes, fifty-four seconds which is well within the service time for emergency access there. The proposed rezoning is consistent with land use planning objectives in that it is residential and surrounding properties are also residential and/or agricultural in nature. As I mentioned before, staff was not in support of rezoning the property to a more densely populated zoning district. Also in conjunction with the multi -family zoning district. That has changed with this zoning request, I think staff believes for the better. Based on those findings, and a few others, staff is recommending approval of the requested rezoning included as a part of this report. Ostner: Thank you Mr. Pate. Is the applicant present? Johnson: My name is Eric Johnson, I'm here representing Triangle Builder Supply which has a contract to purchase this piece of ground. This is the same piece of ground that you all, except Ms. Clark, have seen before. I won't go into the history, I think Jeremy did a good job of conveying that. Our new zoning request will allow us to yield approximately 66 to 68 single family lots depending on the dedication of the right of way, which is going on right now with the Lot Split. I have one copy of a site study that we prepared and I would be happy to show it to the new Commissioner if she would like to look at it. We've contacted the neighbors who opposed the original request of RMF -12 and they indicated they had no objection. In fact, one of them indicated that she would support this project as currently presented. With that, I would be happy to answer any questions to the best of my ability. Ostner: At this point I would like to share with you that since one of our members had to recuse it will take all of us so keep that in mind. I will open it up to the public. Is there anyone who would like to comment on this issue? Moorman: My name is Barbara Moorman, I have a property that adjoins right across Hanshew Street. I got hold of the application papers only recently and I contacted two organizations that in a sense, have an ownership right on the property with me, because my property is under a conservation easement which means that I have divested myself of the right to do anything but live on the property and enjoy it. I do own it but I cannot make any changes. I can't pave, I can't cut trees for commercial logging, I can't kill the animals, I can't destroy the plants. The intention was to save to Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 35 preserve the natural character of this 90 acres. I believe you may have in front of you two letters, one from Jim Reed of the Humane Society of the United States Wildlife Protection Land Trust and the other from Greg Galbrath from Ozark Regional Land Trust. Both of them I assume you have the letters so I won't read them to you. They both express the feeling that the density requested in this rezoning, even though it is stepped down from a much more dense proposal, is a threat to what my property is trying to do. We've been there since 1960 and our intention has always been to preserve the property. I noticed in the application that there is no reference at all to this conservation easement of mine. The conservation easement is a document that is on file in the Planning Department, it is on file in the Circuit Clerk's office and it is recognized by the Federal Government. I do notice on the map that is provided with the application that there is a reference to private open space. I think that in this case, is ambiguous. It doesn't convey the full definition or impact or intention of what is happening on my property. What I have is what the city is negotiating with the Fayetteville National Heritage Department for Mt. Sequoyah. I think the city has talked about putting conservation easements there. It is the same kind of thing as what I'm trying to do. The letter of application from Triangle Builders, under land use of surrounding properties says that this property is largely undeveloped. Again, that is a little misleading. It isn't developed but the whole point is it is being preserved. To be accurate it should say that the surrounding property is permanently to be preserved in it's natural state. When you understand that deeds of title have been exchanged that divest me of the privilege of making money off of this property. My family has done this for a reason and these land trusts have agreed to take on the responsibility of watching over the protection of the property. I think that it becomes important when you realize that to state it, to acknowledge that. Another thing that is said in the application papers is that the appearance should not conflict with surrounding property since there are no adjoining buildings. I think again, that is somewhat inaccurate. Buildings are not the only possible thing that could be there. You have a natural landscape that is considered significant enough to be acknowledged by a national land trust, by the Federal Government and by a local land trust. There certainly is going to be a conflict, there is absolutely no doubt. I can stand on a hill and look over what has happened to west Fayetteville in the last 7 or 8 years and believe me, there is a tremendous contrast between what I see and what I'm seeing it from. Mr. Pate sent me a note this morning saying staff is aware that your property lies to the south of this tract. Again, that's not the full story. The Planning staff certainly is aware of who owns the property across the street but the Planning Commissioners should be aware. Not just of the ownership but of the nature of the enterprise that is going on across the street from this development. I think first of all that there should be a very visible acknowledgement in the application and in all of your paperwork regarding this development, of the existence of this Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 36 conservation property and of the nature of the conservation property, and of the terms of my conservation easement to promote the preservation of the natural landscape. Also, I have some specific concerns and the General Plan does pay lip service to preservation and protection of existing resources and natural features in Section 6. Specifically, my concerns are things that could adversely affect me as more roads get built and as development becomes more and more intense animals, birds; deer; foxes are backed up onto my property. The population is too intense for them. That is a concern to me because one thing I've been trying to do is maintain a natural state of things and not create an animal ghetto. I certainly don't want that but that is being imposed on me as I'm more and more beset by these intense residential developments that are going on. Another thing that is costing me an incredible amount of money is the invasive plant species that have been coming in as there is more and more development. I have actually seen people planting by blowing seeds up into the air. That certainly isn't the only thing that is happening but I'm getting a lot of invasive species. Invasive means that they kill off the natural vegetation. tree of heaven is one, bush honeysuckle is another. I could give you a list of about 25 but those are really serious because you don't have anymore oaks, you don't have anymore dogwood, you don't have anymore redbud or sycamore or whatever once tree of heaven and bush honeysuckle take over. You have it in Fayetteville in the city. You can control it because there are lots in the city and properties are smaller but if you are talking about a wooded hillside you really have an awful lot of trouble controlling it. You need crews. I think they are going to find that out on Mt. Sequoyah when they try taking care of that. I'm all in favor of taking care of it but it is made very difficult by the encroachment of this intense development this quickly, the speed with which development is taking place is making things more difficult too. I think I could give you more things that concern me but I won't. I think basically that the development is going to be too dense to take into consideration what is around it. It is not just me. There are other properties next to me. There are 65 acres adjoining me, it doesn't adjoin this property but it adjoins me, and everything has a domino affect, has been set aside or will be set aside for protection. I think that it should be less dense and I want to stress that there should be a buffer, a transitional kind of zoning. I know you don't have a conservation zoning but you should have it. Even in the absence of that you've got to establish buffers. You are looking at two extremely contradictory types of development, what is being proposed here, RSF-4 and what I've got which is total conservation. They couldn't be more in conflict with each other. I know Mr. Galbreth suggests the wall. I want a buffer of natural vegetation on this property that is being proposed for development. I am requesting that you think very seriously about that and some of the other suggestions that are made in these two letters that you have. Thank you very much for your attention. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 37 Ostner: Thank you Ms. Moorman. Are there other people in the audience who would like to comment? Wilkes: My name is Steve Wilkes, I live at 4188 W. 6a' Street. This is my second time before you on a similar issue. My concern is for drainage into Farmington Branch. I'm concerned that as we continue to develop this corridor, and I do want to say I'm not opposed to development. I share many of the previous speakers concerns but I'm not opposed to developing south Fayetteville and west Fayetteville but I am very concerned about the infrastructure, including drainage and in my case particularly drainage, I happen to live on Farmington Branch. It runs right through my front yard, it is about 50' to 75' from my front door. I can tell you that last weekend when it went from being about 6' wide and 2" deep, which is it's normal state to being about 50' wide and 12' deep I was pretty scared. This is happening more and more frequently. It is much easier for that little creek to have a flashflood today than it was seven or eight years ago and I'm sure than it was 20 or 40 years ago. Every time we pave another square foot it makes the people downstream that much more susceptible. I probably lost $4,000 or $5,000 over the weekend. I don't really blame what happened on anybody but I do know that the subdivision that was put in upstream from me, the Camellia Road subdivision, I don't know what it's real name is, but I know that after that occurred we began to get very heavy silt built up. The streambed narrowed considerably. It got more shallow and I lost lots and lots of flowerbeds and retaining walls in an episode about 4 years ago. We rebuilt all of that but I lost a good deal of that the other night. Again, I'm not really blaming any particular person but I'm very concerned and very frustrated that we put in a Lowe's, we are putting in more subdivisions and every time we do this the water runs a little faster. It comes off the mountain side and in this case we lose that percolation that nature provides to us. I would like to hear that these things are being addressed and being looked at and that it is not just a promise in the wind that oh, it will change. What I know is that if you might have a 100 -year flood, I'm making up numbers, but it might be 750 cubic feet per second orl,500 cubic feet per second or whatever, but if it weren't for that additional 68 homes or additional 200 homes and all the pavement that that provided that flow might have been 400 cubic feet per second lower and my bridge might still be standing. That is my concern. I just wanted to bring it to you. I will probably bring it to you every time I see another big development go in. I just don't want you to forget that there are a lot of people living at the bottom of that valley, I'm one of them, that don't want to see our property destroyed because someone has built 68 homes upstream from us. Thank you for your time. Bowman: I'm Kathy McGuire Bowman and I'm here to speak in general about slowing down development on the west side. I will just second what the Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 38 other people are saying. I think it is moving much too fast. I think it is not moving according to a smart growth plan. I think we, as citizens, elected a smart growth mayor on the assumption that we were going to have smart growth and protection of our neighborhoods and instead, we are having this huge, what looks to be urban sprawl model. I feel betrayed and very concerned and on this item I will just ask for a slow down of development on the west side. I will speak on later items. Thank you. Ostner: Does anyone else want to comment on this issue? I will close it to the public and bring it back to the Commission for discussion. Anthes: It is my understanding that we need five affirmative votes to pass a rezoning request and we have five commissioners here. This piece of property has been before us before and it has some troublesome qualities. First of all, I would just like to say that we have other single family zonings to us besides RSF-4. Maybe you wouldn't know it if you watched our meetings very often but it is true. We have compatibility issues with surrounding property. We have street conditions that have been problems. We have connectivity issues, we have had objections by neighbors. We have 10% to 15% slope on a large part of this property. I just would like to ask the applicant again if he feels comfortable going forward because my inclination is to table this item tonight. Johnson: Unfortunately, I hate to hear that is your position, but due to time constraints on our part, we've been at this since October. I don't think we would be granted any further time extensions. I am going to have to bring it to the vote tonight. I would like to address some of your concerns. We will address all of these important issues back with you at the Large Scale Development process. We will address drainage, we will address roads, we will improve the utilities. We will do all the things that would be necessary for the development of this property. I was unaware that there were any other objecting property owners surrounding this property. I personally contacted every person that surrounded the property. The two that objected I have met with many, many times. One of them changed her tune and will, in fact, support RSF-4. That was Vicki Norvel from the last meeting. Mr. Beard who is not here tonight, indicated that he had no objections the this new plan. He didn't have any objections to the previous plan, he was just more concerned at what would happen to his property. To address a few of the previous concerns, what we are proposing would be kind of a residential buffer. That corridor of Hwy. 62 is very heavily traveled and the frontage I believe is to be zoned mixed use, commercial or retail or something like that. This would provide a buffer between a commercial retail zoning and the larger tracts. I was unaware that there were any conservation districts surrounding us. There is certainly not one on this property. In fact, it was clear cut less than 10 years ago. I have yet to see a deer or anything on this property. If you stand on Hanshew Road Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 39 you can hear the roar of the cars going back and forth. I can't imagine a deer wanting to be in that location. I may be wrong but I've been there several times and am yet to see one. As far as drainage, we will of course deal with those in accordance with city requirements, whatever those may be. We would like to work with the city on those issues. Fayetteville is growing. Development of this corridor I believe is eminent. The Lowe's is less than 2,000 yards to the east. There is a residential subdivision of much higher density just to our north across Hwy. 62. The surrounding property on the east and I believe on the west, is zoned RSF-4. I don't believe this is out of the compatibility of the surrounding property. I respectfully disagree with you on that. We would like a chance to deal with the city on the issues that you've raised regarding the street and the access and all of that. Tonight is the rezoning. I am going to ask that it comes to a vote because we are on time constraints. Thank you. Allen: I would have to say that I have the same concerns as Commissioner Anthes. I do have concern about the speed of development in that area. I don't see RSF-4 being a buffer between a conservation area. I would not feel able to vote for this rezoning. Clark: The idea that the conservation easement abuts this property came as a surprise to me. Is there any provision in our zoning that would've reflected it? To look at this you never would've known. Pate: Really, as far as our city records, Ms. Moorman is right, it is filed at the county and is within our Planning offices as well. This private open space designation on the Future Land Use plan is really the only physical designation that we have on a map. The zoning is still overlaid, it is still a Residential Agricultural type of zoning in that area. Clark: I've got to say that I realize growth is inevitable but it is my position that growth should be approached wisely, cautiously and with a full awareness of the surrounding issues. I'm sure that if you stand inside this development you are not going to see a deer. They are smarter than that, they are in the conservation area. I also agree with both of my fellow commissioners that this is not, in my opinion, a proper buffer for that type of land that we are encouraging citizens in the city to think about and to leave us some green area in the future. This troubles me and I'm sure that my fellow commissioners with a lot more experience than I, have other issues but I'm not inclined to support this at this time. Vaught: I guess my concern is, we've seen this many times before and talked about many different issues and this has never been an issue in the past. It kind of bothers me that it is just now coming forward and it is an issue now. In the past it has never been raised as one of the issues we have not supported this project for. Now it is and part of me feels like we are imposing the Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 40 decision of a neighboring land owner to admirably donate a conservation easement and we are transposing that on a neighbor who did not make that decision with his property. Just balancing that is something that I think we should really think about. I have a hard time restricting a neighboring land owner in a sense. I do think RSF-4 is a good zoning here. It is far less than anything we've ever seen on this due to the commercial nature of 6`h Street. I do think it would be a lot better of a buffer. It has gotten a lot better than when it first came before us and all of the restrictions and walls and things like that are things that we deal with later. I would be in support of rezoning this to RSF-4 and giving them the chance to come before us with a Large Scale Development that met these specific criteria. That being said, I would be in support of this to let them have a chance. We will have another say in what goes in here and how it is arranged and how things come in. Anthes: I haven't actually made up my mind how I want to vote one way or the other on this. I just wanted to give the applicant this. You are under a time constraint. I believe that a denial actually puts you in a longer sequence of events than giving you the opportunity to hear this with the full panel up here that might change the outcome of that vote because we would have a full panel to discuss this and hear all of the issues and have the opportunity for a full debate. That's what I wanted to give you the opportunity to have. If you don't want that that is fine, we can vote tonight. Vaught: If we table an item how soon can it come back? Pate: If the item was tabled at this time it could come back to the next regular meeting of the Planning Commission. However, if it were denied there is a 10 day appeal process in which the applicant must appeal to the City Council and then it would go on the next slated City Council agenda which most likely would be more than two weeks out. I don't have that schedule in front of me but I would venture to say it would be more than two weeks. Johnson: Our issue, I don't know how a delay of two weeks would affect the City Council's agenda. That final day is what we are concerned with. You recommend it to the City Council and then the City Council approves it. If it pushes back that City Council hearing date then we are going to be beyond our time allowance. Those are my issues. If they can be addressed through a postponement that's great but if not, I'm going to have to bring it to a vote. Anthes: We can debate it here. I just wanted you to be really clear on what your options were. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 41 Johnson: I understand and I appreciate that. Vaught: I would also like to have the City Attorney here to answer some of the questions about neighboring conservation easements and how that transposes onto neighboring properties. That is something that I would like to get a legal opinion on personally. Clark: I understand your time constraint but I would really favor putting this off to give you time to get some answers to some of our questions because I'm telling you I'm not going to support it. That is a bad thing for you. If we have more time and you have more time to investigate some of these issues that have been raised and give us some answers and there will be more Commissioners present next time then I think that would work in your favor quite honestly. Johnson: I agree that it would. The problem comes that we have now had a contract on this piece of property for over nine months. The owner is probably going to be disinclined to give us much longer. We have come before you three times now trying to find something that fit and we have unfortunately, run out of time. I wish that the conservation easement had been brought up at one of the prior meetings. This is my first knowledge of anything regarding that. There is definitely no conservation easement on this piece of property. That's all that I'm aware of. I didn't go examine the adjacent properties to see if there was a conservation easement on their property but it is not on ours. That's all that I was looking at. I understand that her intent was to preserve hers for wildlife preservation but I don't believe that within this corridor that wildlife preservation is very viable. Honestly, that's my opinion. There is a junkyard to the east. There is a development to the west. Lowe's is less than 2,000 feet away. It is right in that corridor and everything behind that is much less dense. It is, in fact, inhabited by quite a bit of wildlife. I don't know if I can adequately address your concerns today. I just don't have anymore time. Those are my only issues. Ostner: The comment that I have is similar to these three. I think it is too dense. RSF-4 is something that we use a lot. It is great in the flatland and it looks great, it is not too dense. It is too dense on this hill. I would be willing to vote for an RSF-1 or RSF-2 maybe, which is half the density that you are proposing. If I were to make a motion for that would you be amenable to RSF-2 tonight? Johnson: I don't know. I am not the owner. I can't make that decision. Clark: I know you couldn't answer my questions about potential buffers for the conservation easement? Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 42 Johnson: I can probably go there. We have provided some information before on a previous layout where we did provide some buffer. We would be willing to work with the city. We would hope to do that in a Large Scale Development process, which would proceed after this so this would not be the final say. This is just a general land use zoning and then we would address all of how the streets were laid out and how the buffers, where they needed to be if you required them. I would like the opportunity to address those but I can't address them today, I hope I can address them with a Large Scale Development. Ostner: The problem with that approach is it doesn't really work well that way. After the rezoning there are very few rules upon you to adhere to. You get to develop at that density and you follow our mechanical rules. We can't require a buffer and we can't do this and that, that's why we have been requesting this PZD for so long which allows us to do that. We have been down that road. Johnson: We have been down that road very far. I appreciate it. Anthes: Staff, would you for our well being, remind us what we look for and can comment on for a rezoning? Pate: With regard to findings, they are in your staff report but just as an overview. Typically we look at compatibility with existing land use, which is obviously important as we have heard neighbors comment on the rezoning for this rezoning request before this to RMF -12. The neighbors tonight with regard to how compatible this specific land use is to adjoining properties. Additionally, we look at the density that is requested. The number that staff looked at for RSF determines the maximum potential density for that piece of property. At 17 acres, 4 units per acre I believe that is 68 units at a maximum to be developed on this piece of property. Typically in RSF-4, again, this is just a typical. In flatland development, agricultural land that is in the Wedington and Mt. Comfort area. Legacy Pointe I believe is developed at 2.6 units per acre and zoned RSF-4. Our range typically is from 2.6 to 3.2 units per acre in the RSF-4 zoning district, not to say that they couldn't go longer. Obviously, four units per acre is attainable, otherwise it would not be an option. Typically, when you actually calculate in all of the right of way dedication and the streets, lot sizes and configurations it lessens that density. Those are the two principal issues that we look at. Land use, compatibility and density. Additionally, we also ensure that there are adequate services to this lot and that we can provide those city services to this property. That's why we have Fire Department, Police Department, Engineering Services and Planning that make findings with regard to how well we could serve this property. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 43 Anthes: I would like for us to come up with something that we can pass tonight. This applicant has been before us a lot of times. This is a complicated site and a complicated condition. If you just looked at it and looked at what was around it it would seem that when you have a C-2 that is approaching and you've got all these other things that are in this, it would seem in most areas of the city fairly easy to vote for an RSF-4 in that area. This is a more difficult site and I would like to come up with something that we could endorse. I think Commissioner Ostner was eluding to the fact that he could support a lower density. Maybe that is something that we should discuss. Ostner: I don't think the applicant is able to make that decision. Anthes: We can. Johnson: I've considered that. If I did make that decision tonight I think we could withdraw it if it was unacceptable to the owner. Go ahead and make your discussion and see what you are willing to support. If it is something that is viable for us then we will proceed. If not, we will withdraw. Anthes: I think that Jeremy brought up some really good ideas. The likelihood on a 10% or 15% slope with the greenspace dedications that you have talked about in the past, which I'm assuming you're still talking about doing and some other things, the likelihood is that we weren't going to actually approach the RSF-4 zone with any plans that you were going to do. It is just as Commissioner Ostner said, we are giving you the right to go as close to that as possible. Vaught: Staff, on Large Scale Developments I know we work with the applicants on location of dedication on things like parkland, is there a way that at that level we can work with them to make the parkland dedication be abutting this corner of the property where the open space is instead of putting it on other parts of the lot? Can we require that kind of a condition or is that something we express and hope they follow at that level? Pate: If this development were to be rezoned tonight or at the City Council level, to RSF-4 the typical process would then be for the applicant to submit a subdivision plat, a Preliminary Plat. At that time the general lot size and configuration based on our zoning ordinance under that zoning classification would be determined. Adequate infrastructure improvements including water lines, sewer lines, streets, and those types of things are addressed. There are provisions in our zoning codes to look at buffer strips at the time of development. Again, these are at the time of development, you are entirely correct. We are looking at the actual development of this property. Tonight we are really deciding land use and density and if this is compatible with our General Plan, which is Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 44 residential in this area. With regard to park land dedication, any residential project within the City of Fayetteville they do look at the potential acceptance of land dedication for their rational formula for park land dedication. What they have to base that decision on also though is their master park plan. It ultimately becomes the city's responsibility to maintain that property then so taking that land into ownership by the city parks department may not benefit them in anyway except for that buffer, which is obviously, important in this case. We do have a Buffer Strips and Screening portion in our ordinance. Whether this would be applicable at that time, the applicant has stated tonight that he could offer that. I'm not sure how much we could enforce a screen because typically itis against commercial uses. We would more likely be looking at a buffer strip required between this residential use and the commercial use to the south, which is not developed yet but it is C-2, Thoroughfare Commercial along Hwy. 62. Clark: In your opening comments you said that it is going to be a potential of 66 to 68 lots so you are planning for that? Johnson: That's just the potential. We have not done any further layouts. We provided one layout with a much higher density. We haven't gone there yet. Obviously, the site does not lend itself to where you can get the maximum density. There are a few areas of significant slope. Most of the area is sloped but it is not inconceivable to be developed. I don't know how many we can get on there in honesty. We would be willing to work with the city to find some medium ground if possible. The intent was to get as many lots as we could get on the land with providing that buffer between our property and the property that it adjoins to the south. Ostner: May I remind the Commissioners to make their discussion fully available to the public and the reporters? Clark: I'm just looking to you for leadership and guidance. MOTION: Ostner: From my leadership I'm going to make a motion that we vote on this. I am going to make a motion that we approve this. Vaught: I will second. Ostner: Before we vote, I am simply making a motion to get the ball rolling. I am going to vote against it. For the record, the issue is density. Does anybody want to talk more before we vote? Clark: I call the question. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 45 Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to approve RZN 04-07.00 failed by a vote of 2-3 with Commissioners Ostner, Clark and Allen voting no. Thomas: The motion fails two to three. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 46 ANX 04-03.00: Annexation (Nooncaster, pp 61) was submitted by Raymond Smith, Attorney, on behalf of Nooncaster Vineyards, Inc. for property located east of Crossover Road and north of Hearthstone Drive (Stonewood S/D.) The property is in the Planning Area and contains approximately 20.01 acres. The request is to annex the subject property into the City of Fayetteville. RZN 04-08.00: Rezoning (Nooncaster, pp 61) was submitted by Raymond Smith, Attorney, on behalf of Nooncaster Vineyards, Inc. for property located east of Crossover Road and north of Hearthstone Drive (Stonewood S/D.) The property is currently zoned R -A, Residential Agricultural, and contains approximately 20.01 acres. The request is to rezone the subject property to RSF-4, Residential Single-family, 4 units per acre. Ostner: The next item on our agenda is ANX 04-03.00 for Nooncaster. Can we have the staff report please? Pate: I am going to review items nine and ten simultaneously. They are both on the same property. The first item is for the Annexation of the subject property and the second is to rezone that potential annexation to RSF-4. Ostner: Jeremy, let me interrupt you. If someone can get our sixth Commissioner it would help. Thank you. Pate: This property is 20.01 acres of vacant property located in north Fayetteville. The property is surrounded on the west, south and east by platted subdivisions currently in various phases of development from fully built out to just beginning construction. To the west is the Stonewood Subdivision. To the south and east is Copper Creek Phases I and II respectively. Right of way and city services including water and sewer are stubbed out from each of these three developments for future access and street connections to the subject property. Single family residents are located north of the subject property also along Albright Road. Portions of that property are in the county and portions are in the City of Springdale. The applicant is requesting with the first request to be annexed into the city limits. When a property is annexed into the city limits it is automatically zoned R -A, Residential Agricultural. If this annexation is recommended for approval the applicant is requesting that the property be designated RSF-4, Residential Single -Family, four units per acre. The property that is subdivided in the planning area outside of the city limits does not allow for enforcement of many of the regulations required within the city. Thereby allowing for uniform and consistent standard of development. When property that is consistent with the General Plan 2020 and the city's guiding policy of annexation is incorporated into the city undeveloped it allows for many things that we do not actually see such as grading and drainage review, detention, tree preservation review, parks land, code enforcement. There is always confusion of protection for public safety with regard to police and fire and Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 47 who responds to that. The ability to require the same level of infrastructure improvements for new development as required within the city limits. That is important because in this specific property this area has been anticipated for future development as is on page 8.13 obvious with the stub outs of streets from the west, south and the east and the stub out of utilities to service this particular property. With regard to findings, obviously improvements will have to occur on this subject property to develop a single family subdivision. The timing of the requested annexation is sufficient. It is following essentially the development of the property surrounding it. It is under pressure to develop. Surrounding subdivisions did anticipate the development of this tract and subsequently have been required to provide access for public infrastructure should the property be annexed and developed. The Fire Department and Police Department say they do already adequately respond with the same level of service as in the city to these areas. There are issues with a lift station in this area which could potentially need to be upgraded with future development of the property. Those are things that I believe the applicant is aware of already and we have been in contact with the Engineering staff and the applicant on these issues with subsequent development proposals. Staff is recommending in favor of the annexation request based on those findings and also in favor of the rezoning request based on the findings found in item number nine of your staff report. I will leave that for any questions you may have. Ostner: Thank you. Is the applicant present? Smith: I'm Ray Smith representing Nooncaster Vineyards, Inc. and with me here this evening is John Nooncaster of Nooncaster Vineyards, Inc. I think Jeremy covered the main points there as far as both the annexation and the rezoning is concerned. This property is south of Albright Road and the property just to the north of this property is in the Springdale Planning area. This property is in the Fayetteville Planning area. The 20 acres will probably at this stage be developed somewhere between 40 and 50 lots all together. They will be single family dwellings compatible with the housing that is located both to the west and to the south of this. If there are any other questions I can answer on their behalf or if Mr. Nooncaster can answer we would be glad to answer them. Ostner: Thank you Mr. Smith. Is there anyone from the public who would like to comment on this topic, the annexation and rezoning. We are discussing two at the same time for Nooncaster. I'm going to close it to the public and bring it back to the Commission. A question for staff. Is this property kitty corner to another property that we saw two weeks ago? Pate: Yes it is. If you remember the Harper/Brandon annexation rezoning request that was at the last Planning Commission meeting. That was Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 48 northeast of the subject property. If you go to the east that is a part of Copper Creek Phase II and directly north of that property the Planning Commission did recommend approval of that and I believe it is at the Council level at this time. Ostner: Thank you. MOTION: Trumbo: I would like to make a motion to approve ANX 04-03.00. Vaught: I will second. Ostner: In the discussion of this I see this as a little bit different from the last issue we just saw. This is practically an infill annexation. On three sides it is developed and on the west side it is platted and streets are being cut. This seems like a good density fit for the neighborhood and I am going to support the annexation and the rezoning. Do we have any other discussion? Allen: I would agree with the chair that those are the reasons that this is significantly different than the last rezoning. Anthes: I would say that it is different than what we are going to hear later this evening for several reasons. One is that it is surrounded on three sides. There are stub outs for utilities and streets to this property from three different directions. Approving this annexation would be consistent with our recommendations from the property nearby and would be consistent with the development pattern that surrounds the property on three sides. Thank you. Ostner: We have a motion on the annexation and a second. Is there further discussion? Renee? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to recommend approval of ANX 04-03.00 by the City Council was approved by a vote of 6-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries six to zero. Ostner: Do we have a motion for the accompanying item, RZN 04-08.00? MOTION: Anthes: I will move to forward RZN 04-08.00 with a recommendation for approval to City Council. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 49 Trumbo: Second. Ostner: Is there any further discussion? Renee? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to recommend approval of RZN 04-08.00 by the City Council was approved by a vote of 6-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries six to zero. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 50 ANX 04-06.00: Annexation (Leigh Taylor Properties, pp 169) was submitted by R. Chad White on behalf of Leigh Taylor Properties, LLC for property located at 2470 Hwy. 112. The property is currently in the Planning Area and contains approximately 29.86 acres. The request is to annex the subject property into the City of Fayetteville. RZN 04-12.00: Rezoning (Leigh Taylor Properties, pp 169) was submitted by R. Chad White on behalf of Leigh Taylor Properties, LLC. The property is currently zoned R -A, Residential Agricultural, and contains approximately 39.86 acres. The request is to rezone the subject property to RSF-4, Residential Single-family, 4 units per acre. Ostner: The next item on our agenda is another annexation, it is ANX 04-06.00 for Leigh Taylor Properties. If we could have the staff report please. Morgan: This request was submitted by Chad White on behalf of Leigh Taylor Properties for property located at 2470 Hwy. 112. The request is to annex approximately 29.86 acres into the City of Fayetteville. If you look on page 10.12 that identifies the approximately 30 acre tract that is requested to be annexed into the city. The accompanying rezoning for Leigh Taylor Properties is a request to rezone this 30 acre tract as well as the 10 acre tract of land just north of Hwy. 112 to RSF-4. The annexation is 30 acres and the rezoning is for approximately 40 acres. Fire and Police have reviewed this item. It is approximately 5 minutes 56 seconds from Fire Station 2 and Police have reported that this annexation will not substantially alter the population density. However, they did comment that access to this site would be of concern due to the intersection of Hwy. 112 and Howard Nickle as well as Hwy. 112 and Deane Solomon. Access into future development will be reviewed for safety at the time of development when there is a development proposal submitted to the city. Improvements to street systems will be reviewed also at the time of development and staff finds that this is an appropriate location for annexation into the city. As I mentioned earlier, they are requesting a rezoning of this 30 acre tract as well as the additional 10 acres to the south. Staff finds that this proposed zoning for single family residential is compatible with the land use to the north and the south. There are two subdivisions in either direction. Property to the south within the city limits is zoned RSF-4 at this time as well as R -A. Staff finds that the zoning is consistent with the future land use map and existing development within this area. Public comment has been received regarding this proposal with regard to density, lot size and traffic volume. However, staff finds that in accordance with findings from other divisions such as Engineering, Fire and Police, staff is recommending approval of ANX 04-06.00 and RZN 04-12.00. Ostner: Thank you. Is the applicant here? Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 51 Hogue: Good evening, my name is Curtis Hogue. I'm an attorney in Fayetteville here on behalf of the applicant. I actually represented the applicant through the annexation process of the county. In reading the recommendation from staff and in looking at the findings made and the recommendations made and there was reference made to extenuating circumstances on this particular annexation. I'm not sure in particular what those are although I think that there are a number that apply here. In particular, as noted by the staff recommendation of this parcel 10 acres are within the city. We are asking to annex the entire parcel to bring it all into the city and then allow the total rezoning. I know that there are a couple of specific issues that were addressed in this. With me is Art Scott who is handling the engineering on behalf of the applicant and I'm sure can address some of those particular issues that were brought up in the report. Scott: I think there were a number of pretty good concerns. First of all, if it was my property next door I would want to know what the density was too. The RSF-4 does allow for four units per acre. This developer is intending to build an upscale sized sort of premium lot in that zoning. It is a minimum of 80', which the zoning allows for 70' and then the normal depths are 130' to 140', which is another 30' or 40' larger in the rear than would be allowed by the typical zoning. The entire 40 acres would end up with their intention is around 108 to 110 units which is 2/3 of the maximum density. There will be a 2,400 minimum square foot home. The access and the proximity to that corner where Hwy. 112 makes that 90° corner would be a concern. We have on the south side very good visibility in both directions from where we intend to apply only one access point on the south and we only intend to have one access point on the west side on Hwy. 112 also with a stub out for connectivity to the north and to the east and both of those have 1/4 mile along Hwy. 112 with very good visibility in both directions for access. Also, one other concern was drainage and that is always a concern when the development of 40 acres takes place. We will have to abide by all the city codes and detain any water before it leaves the site and keep it to a pre -development level so that shouldn't be a concern for the future and for the downstream properties. I will answer any questions you might have. Ostner: At this point I will move it to the public comment period. Are there people who would like to comment on this item? Futral: My name is Charlie Futral and I have property adjoining this property. I'm on the north side. I sit on one acre of land. I'm in the Forest Hills subdivision which is to the north here. I've lived here for nine years. We have a very established neighborhood. The houses surrounding this property are very established. My neighbors directly to the north of me sit on 1 %z to 2 acres. My neighbors directly to the west of me who adjoin this have approximately 2 acres. His neighbor who adjoins this property Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 52 has approximately 3 1/2 to 4 acres I believe. Throughout our neighborhood we are not equal to what they are designing here. You are talking about 80' lots here, we sit on one acre plots. Yes there are some properties in there that are less than one acre but not many. Most of them have multiple acres, up to 8 acres within our particular subdivision. Across the street to the west you have approved zoning for 2 acre lots. We had 4 acres and then you all came back with 2 acre lots. That is nowhere near this kind of density and there is nothing in our neighborhood that has this kind of density going on. The density is one of the primary concerns that we have as it relates to this property. We have several concerns that relate to density. One is property values as it relates to us and it relates to the whole neighborhood, not just our particular subdivision but in each direction from us. As we look at this we don't see that this is enhancing our property values out in the area where we are at. The concerns that relate to the density is the safety issue. What he just addressed on this curve, this is a curve where we have had two fatalities in the last nine years that I've lived here. There have been two fatalities, that is adjoining this property that is immediately on the southwest corner of this property. That doesn't include, I don't know the number of wrecks that have occurred along this stretch of road. It is a dangerous piece of road. It is a dangerous piece of road because it is narrow, because it doesn't have good visibility and because of the speed and the direction that cars come into. Mainly it is a narrow piece of road. It is a state highway that the City of Fayetteville is not going to come in and rebuild and neither is the developer. With all good intentions, everyone is trying to manage growth as it goes out into the community and one of the things that was talked about here this evening was the appropriateness of what is RSF-4. My concern and what I would like to suggest is that this be a RSF-1, one house per acre as the density issue. It raises the property values on the thing, it doesn't inculcate 250 or more cars into this dangerous situation of where fatalities are already occurring, they are on the record. We had a runner just down the street on Hwy. 112 as you come around the curve to the drive in theater along that stretch, we had a runner who was hit and killed a few years ago. You may remember that. There is the third fatality in less than 9 years. As we look at this the density is a real issue. One of the things that was mentioned here as we were listening closely to what was being said is that RSF-4 on a flat plain makes sense that you can see where you are going. It spreads it out. This is a rolling hill country that you are coming into. Another one of the big issues and concerns on this is that when you look at this plat, this is obviously not approved. It is the one that you all have probably all seen and had across your desk as you look at this approach. Ostner: No. Futral: May I bring it up? Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 53 Ostner: Sure. Futral: For what it is worth, you need to see what is about to go in here. This is the plat that they have presented as an informal plat. Here is the dangerous curve, here is our subdivision. These are all one acre lots and more coming through here and if you watch this these are tree lines. These are all just trees but what you are seeing here, this area and this whole 1/3 of the property is a low area. These are trees in water. Their idea is that they are going to put a ditch as lots back up to each other and they are going to carry the water through here. This water is coming off of all this slope, all of this basin back over here which includes the development from Clear Creek. Clear Creek now is flowing water through our neighborhood which is an issue for me and for other neighbors there. It goes immediately into this neighborhood here at the north end of this and they think that they are going to handle it down here with an engineered detention pond. I don't think so. Especially after what we just saw this week as it goes through here. This is also a boggy area down through here. Now we are going to put density into a boggy area, not a flat area and not a nice dry area. We are going to go in and we are going to completely cut the trees and we are going to reshape this land to insert this kind of density. In a neighborhood where you have one acre lots, modest in many cases, not so modest in other cases. We have homes out in our area that would approach close to a million dollars and we have land that have been platted across the street that are 2 acre lots, 4 acre lots, that are not scheduled to carry this size of a home on it. What is going to happen to that gentlemen's property values as he goes along? I think density is the culprit here and it is the concern that we all have. Some of the reasons and things that are attached to it are safety on the roads. This is a very real issue out there. We already have proof of it with the fatalities that have occurred and the wrecks that occur. We also have land that is a rolling hill country. In this particular location and what I'm showing you here with these tree lines where the water flows, these are dry creek beds. Think of it like a bowl and what you are doing is our neighborhood is sloping into that bowl, the west is coming into that bowl and the east is flowing around and into that bowl. Their property, roughly 1/3, 25% to 30% of it is the bottom of the bowl as the water flows through it. One other thing, I would like to ask that the number of people that are here that are concerned about this raise their hands so that we have some sense of the neighborhood that has come to see you this evening. There are many neighbors here and some of which have lived here for 30 years, some of which have been here for 2 years and many of us that have been here for several years. Ron has been here since 1962 on this property so we are really very established and appreciate your concern and consideration with this. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 54 Approximately 25 people raised hands McWhorter: My name is Rick McWhorter, I have property that is adjacent to the north side of this property right across the street from Charlie Futral. I don't know if you are aware but to go along with the density issue we received a report that came across from the Educator. It is a news letter from the Fayetteville Public Schools. One of the things that came out was a map showing large areas of development. In this blue area is exactly the property that we are looking at, or at least it is within that. If you were to count up and this map is not very good to be able to identify the actual number of homes, but if you were to count up the number of homes that are in these developed areas that are already either approved or in the process then we are looking at anywhere from around 600 new homes to around roughly 1,200 give or take. The school system figures one child per three lots is what their formula is. This would add a tremendous overflow to the school system, in particular the elementary school district that this serves. Holcomb Elementary School District is already in the process of having to build six new kindergarten classrooms to service a school system that is almost at full capacity already without even considering this development. When you start adding onto this you are adding a problem that is not just traffic, not just safety, not just drainage, but we are adding an issue that deals with public education here within the City of Fayetteville. As you are aware with the vision 2010 that is posted right behind you. You look at point 11, Quality and you start adding more and more student possibility in this area to an overflowing school then that is even creating more of a problem. I would like for you to consider that because I think Charlie was very eloquent in what he said. My other concern is the road through or at least the way we have seen the layout of the road through that would tie into Woodside Drive. The concern is the traffic flow through there and the service vehicles that would go through there and those kinds of concerns that we do not have at this point in time that I would hope you would consider keeping us from having that. We appreciate your time and we appreciate your concern. I think Charlie was very good at pointing out that drainage and density are major issues. Thank you. Myers: I'm William Myers, I also live just to the north of the area. I'm certainly not going to go into as much detail but I would like to reinforce what Charlie has said. Particularly our concern is the population density and the traffic safety. For whatever it means I was born in Fayetteville in 1934 so I remember when the first traffic lights were put in in Fayetteville and you can't imagine the fuss that caused. I did some mental arithmetic and depending on however many children you expect people to have that is going to be a population density out there between 6,000 and 8,000 per square mile. I don't know what to compare that to but you guys can do that. The other thing I would express my concern about is the traffic. I Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 55 drive from my home out there to the University of Arkansas every morning and have done so for the past 18 years. The traffic is getting worse and worse and worse. If you look at the small development immediately to the south across Hwy. 112 from this corner the fencing company has a pretty good business of repairing the fence there where cars go a little bit too fast, miss the curve and go through the fence. Hwy. 112 which used to be an unpaved road that I hiked on as a boy scout, has become a very dangerous place to drive on. I hope you will not make it more dangerous. Thank you very much. Ostner: Thank you Sir. Clark: Good evening, my name is John Clark. I do think Charlie covered most bases. I would just simply add that RSF-4 is too dense for this area. I really can't add much more than what has already been said except to say that even though the visibility is good on those entrances, it is a dangerous venture to pull out on Hwy. 112 under the best circumstances. We would ask the Commission to do the right thing and consider a less dense rezoning there. The annexation, I think most of us welcome the annexation. Thank you. Forbes: I am Bill Forbes. I live right across the street from John Clark. We have a 3" water main, what is going to happen to our water pressure from Fayetteville? Casey: If this property is to be annexed and rezoned and if we see a development proposal on this property at that time we will look at the public infrastructure, water and sewer, and make sure tat there is adequate capacity to serve the development. If the capacity does not exist it will be up to the developer to provide the capacity for the area. Forbes: We are already developed. Casey: The developer of this property would have to supply the infrastructure to make sure there was adequate capacity to serve their property and also make sure there is no negative impact on the existing customers. Forbes: Thank you. We have 26 houses on over 40 acres. As Charlie said just very few of them are on one acre or 3/4 acre plots. Whoever was here before, we also have deer, quail, dove, they will be gone forever. The water detention, it appears on the plat like it is one lot, 100'x40', is that correct? Scott: This is still in the preliminary stages. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 56 Ostner: Excuse me Sir, you need to address us and we will ask him and that will keep things moving. Forbes: If it fills up where does the water go? 26 of those lots that they have platted there are right on Hwy. 112. Instead of getting a fence knocked out you are going to have a home knocked out. Today I walked down there and they were surveying on the flat area while we were cutting yards and everybody doing fine, they were stuck in the mud down there with the surveyors. They were stuck in the mud down there Thursday before the big rains came. They are walking around out there in the flattest part with long boots on and doing a pretty good job. We have been a good friend to Fayetteville. We live about 400' out of the city limits. We have paid you guys for our fire insurance and the price got dearer and dearer. We have called you two times in 30 years. As far as calling the police I don't think we ever have and we sure don't need this right next to us. Thank you. Kemp: Hello, my name is Jeff Kemp, I'm involved with the development near this subject property so I'm somewhat familiar with it and the area. I just once again, want to reinforce the problem that I think this density will pose as far as traffic. Not only do you have the 90° turn on Hwy. 112 on the southwest corner of the property. You also have Cris Hollow Road on the east side just as you top a hill Cris Hollow pulls out and I know from experience it is kind of a take your chances and pull out on. I just can't imagine the density of RSF-4 traffic in that area. Ostner: If I could I would like to remind everyone to keep your comments short and if someone has already said what you are going to say just agree with them. Wheeler: My name is Joan Wheeler, my late husband bought 40 acres south of this property in about 1968 and the back of my house faces Hwy. 112. It is my fence that they come through on a regular basis. The traffic is so bad out there I can't even imagine how dangerous it would be with that many houses added to that area. I hope that you won't consider the RSF-4. Butcher: I'm Betty Butcher and this is my husband Perry. We live south, we are a neighbor of Joan's and we live south on Deane Solomon three houses down. People have come up and talked about the traffic. Most of the neighbors here are going north around the curve up to their homes there. I have to stop and turn south on Deane Solomon, which is approximately where they would put the opening of that subdivision. I cannot even explain to you how dangerous that is. You cannot see when you are looking at the Howard Nickle Road you cannot see what is coming, it is a blind spot and it is just right there. To have people coming out and turning left towards town on there with the amount of traffic going over there would just be suicide. It is a terrible idea. Thank you. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 57 Ostner: Are there any other comments? Riser: Hello, my name is Randall Riser and I'm a neighbor of everyone here that you have heard from already and I concur with everything that they have said. It is true beyond what you can even imagine if you haven't ever lived out there. One other thing that I would like to bring up is that the development that they are trying to put in here does not even fit the landscape of this area. This is a development you would see in downtown Dallas or some place like that. This should be planned better for the City of Fayetteville in my opinion. Thank you very much. Ostner: Is there anyone else? Futral: I know you all are really tired. I'm Anna Futral. In line with what he just said, there is not a TOPO map reflected with this plat and I think that the lay of the land is an issue. Ostner: Thank you. Are there any other comments from the public? Baird: I'm Laurie Baird and our property would be the one directly north to where this development is proposed. We have got five kids and we come out of that neighborhood and just coming here this evening I had to sit there forever trying to get out of the neighborhood and turning left. I have a true concern with all my kids going to the school there with all those houses how are we even going to get in and out of the neighborhood safely? I know I don't let my kids go on Hwy. 112 at all but just the cars and the traffic, I've assisted in some of those accidents. My husband has directed traffic as I've held bodies until the EMS unit can get there. I am really concerned about the density of all these houses that are going to be in there. Our square footage is about 4,000 sq.ft. in our home and we have an acre and a half and it isn't adding up right to having four houses per acre right next door to us with that much traffic too. I would like for you to consider that. Thank you. Moore: I'm Benny Moore, we live at the northwest corner across the road from this development. We just got through building a new home and hopefully the development will compare with our house and look similar to it is what we were hoping. The north of us all of the homes are larger homes. I think Tyson has a minimum of 3,200 sq.ft. The 2 '/z acre blocks south of us have 3,200 sq.ft. minimum. Hopefully we won't get into this compacted settlement there. As far as safety, we have lived there about 20 years on the property and there have been deaths in that area and lots of wrecks. It is not a safe corner. Thank you. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 58 Ostner: Do we have anymore comments from the public? Seeing none, I will close it to the public and bring it back to the Commission for discussion. Once again, we are discussing them together and we will vote on them separately. Vaught: I think we need to discuss them separately in one respect with the fact that the annexation, I know this property is also being looked at by Johnson to be annexed. To me that adds a little bit more priority if we want control of what happens on this acreage we need to look at the annexation more seriously. If Johnson annexes it in, I don't know how the timing works. I know that they have a vote coming up but apparently I think Dawn was telling us since we had ours filed first it would take precedence, is that correct? Morgan: We believe that is correct at this time. Their vote will be I believe May 11`h to vote on the area and whether it will be annexed into Johnson. Vaught: This is where I would like Kit to be here to answer questions about if we postpone this. If we turn this down then obviously they will be able to annex it in and then they will have control over what happens here. I think they are somewhat two separate. We could pass one and table the other or pass one and not pass the other. I think that is something to keep in mind as we talk about it but just for everyone to understand. Anthes: I have a question for follow up on what Commissioner Vaught is talking about. One of the things that we look at is development pressure and we don't really have development pressure here so much as we have annexation pressure. We have got a situation where we've got another municipality that is looking at this piece of property which if it was annexed by that municipality, would subdivide this particular owners property into two parcels. That is troublesome I'm sure for them and for us in terms of how to look at how this owner would develop this property if it was in two different municipalities. That is one thing that I'm looking at. I would like to comment that it is interesting, the neighbors, there are a lot of them here and a lot of them have spoken about density but I only believe that one even mentioned the annexation at all. Obviously, the density is the thing that is the largest concern to those neighbors. I guess as far as the circumstances about that split, can staff tell us about what this would mean if this 40 acres ended up in two different municipalities and development came forward? Pate: Essentially if that were to occur and the Johnson city limit moves south along the Fayetteville city limit our Planning boundary line also would move to where that line is. If a subdivision did occur on that piece of property, the portion in the City of Fayetteville would be reviewed by the City of Fayetteville and the portion in the City of Johnson would be Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 59 reviewed by the City of Johnson. Technically they would have no jurisdiction over our city municipal boundary and vice versa as well. It is a concern of staff and we believe that this petition was filed and released by the county prior to the election being called. I understand timing is definitely an issue with the applicant on this piece of property. As far as development regulations I believe we do have some subdivisions that have been phased, developed with one portion in Springdale and one portion in Fayetteville. It has been the subject of a lot of problems with regard to infrastructure improvements. Street standards are not the same with different cities. Additionally, the overall infrastructure with regard to water and sewer I would refer to our Engineering Division with regard to what types of infrastructure, public improvements if he has any knowledge of what Johnson does and how that would loop the system. Casey: The water situation I would have to do some research on to see how the water service area boundary would change with the city limits change or if it would change at all. We would certainly have the ability to serve with water if that were allowed by the contract between the two cities. Sewer, on the other hand, would only be allowed for the small portion to the south of the site that is already in the City of Fayetteville. We cannot provide sewer service outside the city limits of Fayetteville unless it is specifically approved by the City Council. Pate: Additionally, with regard to other findings we have made tonight, the confusion with regard to who responds to what calls comes up. I believe a citizen mentioned that they pay the City of Fayetteville Fire Department to serve their residents. That is how that works in areas outside the city limits but there is always some confusion with regard to emergency response calls about who actually works that call. Anthes: While we are on the issue of water, our staff report does indicate that the property has an access to a 6" water line across Hwy. 112, is that indeed true based on an earlier comment? Casey: I believe that to be the case. I don't have that on the maps here in front of me but I am the one who wrote that so I believe I consulted the maps before writing that so I would say yes, that is true. Allen: If we annex this area it would come in as R -A. I would welcome these people into the City of Fayetteville in terms of an annexation but I do not see the RSF-4 as being compatible with the area and wouldn't be able to support that. I do think a good planner takes a long step backwards and looks at the whole picture and I don't think that's good planning. Ostner: I would like to agree. We welcome this area to adjoin our city but I don't think RSF-4 is appropriate. I believe RSF-1 might be. I understand that Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 60 there is another area of RSF-4 nearby but this piece of land the context that it is in, is clearly less dense than RSF-4 on top of the safety issue. It is a very dangerous intersection and with the difference between RSF-4 and RSF-1 I believe is night and day. Hogue: Can I make one comment? It is on the issue of annexation. I think if I understand the discussion, that there may not be a strong opposition on the annexation. You all asked some legitimate questions of staff about where are we if we are splitting this up and what is going on with the City of Johnson. When I spoke initially about extenuating circumstances, that is one of our concerns. In trying to sort out if this scenario what happens with Johnson. The only way that I can determine, and I don't know all of the answers because there is a whole lot going on up in that area with other municipalities, the only way that I was able to determine that we could solve a lot of those problems is if Fayetteville would allow the annexation and then we don't worry about all of those other problems that you asked questions about. Just simply addressing the annexation, there are some time constraints and that is certainly something that we would like to accomplish. From the concerned neighbors I didn't hear any direct objections to the annexation. I know there are other issues, a lot of greater issues, but that is certainly an issue to us tonight. Anthes: The other thing I'm struggling about with the potential for that split is the issue of Hwy. 112 and that it borders two side of this property. If the property was split controlling access onto and off of Hwy. 112 in a manner that we could find to be acceptably safe would be very complicated. Ostner: I would like to add at this point that the R -A zoning, which is automatic with coming into the city with an annexation does allow housing. It allows everything, it is simply two acre lots. MOTION: Clark: The whole issue of annexation and infrastructure issues concern me but the fact that if we don't annex this, this would be split between municipalities supercedes that concern. I would like to move that we approve ANX 04-06.00. Allen: Second. Ostner: I have a motion by Ms. Clark and a second by Ms. Allen. Is there any other discussion on the Annexation? Renee? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to recommend approval of ANX 04-06.00 by the City Council was approved by a vote of 6-0-0. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 61 Thomas: The motion carries six to zero. Ostner: The tandem issue is RZN 04-12.00. We have already had some discussion. Trumbo: As the citizens in that neighborhood have clearly stated, that is a very dangerous stretch of highway. Common sense to me says to add another 108 possible homes compounds the problem out there. I don't see how in good faith I could vote to allow that size of development at that place. I understand for the city to build affordable housing we have to have denser zonings but I don't believe it is appropriate right here considering how dangerous that highway is. I will not vote for this zoning. Ostner: Thank you. Can we have that map that we tried to get together just showing us some general location? Anthes: We don't have the City Attorney here so can someone tell us if the best way is to move for approval and vote it down or to table? I remember Mr. Williams telling us about the different strategies for that before I don't remember specifically what they were. Ostner: I don't either. Allen: I think we call for a motion and it fails for lack of one if I recall correctly if no one so moves. Hogue: At that point would it then be tabled? Ostner: I believe we are bound to vote on this issue. We can vote to table, we can vote to pass. Pate: You can make a motion to table and table to a date certain or otherwise vote it up or down. Vaught: If the applicant withdraws they start over is what I believe he said. If we vote to table it can come back as soon as the next meeting. What I would like to see is if the applicant has met with the neighbors. Have you met with the neighbors discussing these issues? Scott: We have not. Vaught: One thing that we typically like to see is that you meet with the neighbors and discuss these issues and see if you can come to a resolution and bring back something more amicable between everybody. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 62 Hogue: That is with the zoning issue tabled? Vaught: Yes. Hogue: We will do that. MOTION: Vaught: I will make a motion to table RZN 04-12.00. Trumbo: Second. Ostner: We have a motion by Commissioner Vaught and a second by Commissioner Trumbo, is there any other discussion? Anthes: I don't know that I'm not completely comfortable with leaving it as an R- A zoning. We could go ahead and vote tonight to deny the rezoning request and then we would still have an R -A zoning. Ostner: There is currently a motion on the floor that needs to be voted on up or down. Do we have any further discussion? Vaught: Since it is currently R -A, I think we should give the developer an opportunity to go speak with the neighboring land owners to see if they can come to some sort of a resolution without stopping the process. It could be a real quick discussion at the next meeting if it comes back and everyone still doesn't like it or we think it is not the right zoning. That would be my comment. Ostner: Let's not forget that we did not annex it, we have simply forwarded it to the City Council. They have still got a long road before they are annexed. Is there any further discussion? Renee? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to table RZN 04-12.00 failed by a vote of 2-4 with Commissioners Clark, Allen, Anthes and Ostner voting no. Thomas: The motion fails two to four. Ostner: Are there more motions or discussion on this issue? We are still considering the rezoning of this item. The tabling motion failed so we are going to revisit it or do something. Pate: Mr. Chair, based on the Planning Commission bylaws the way they are stated any Conditional Use or Rezoning request requires a five affirmative vote to carry. It is the applicant's prerogative to be able to table that Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 63 motion in order to come back to you with something that could potentially pass. Because we do not have a full Commission there are potentially three commissioners that could vote for this project. Therefore, it is appropriate to table this item if the applicant wishes to do that. Scott: We do wish to do that. Clark: Can I make one comment? Tabling it is certainly your prerogative and probably a wise course of action. I have a very extensive list of concerns that the neighbors have voiced that when you bring this back I sincerely hope that you have talked with them and can address some of them because I happen to agree with them. Scott: We'll do our best. Allen: I would agree with Commissioner Clark. Anthes: Kit is not here so Jeremy, does this mean if the applicant still wishes to table we still then need to have a vote on our level to do that or they withdraw it? Pate: That is a little unclear to me reading the bylaws whether it requires a vote to be tabled or not. Obviously, a vote has failed for that motion. Clark: That motion was to table at our request, not their request. Pate: There can be another motion on the floor to table this item I believe. MOTION: Ostner: With Mr. Pate's advise, he is not a lawyer, I would be willing to vote for a tabling on this issue. I am going to make a motion that we table it. Clark: Based on Jeremy's suggestion and interpretation of the rules I guess I will second it. Ostner: Do we have any further discussion? Marr: Mr. Chair, I think your requirement is that a person who voted against tabling needs to motion to reconsider. You vote on that and then you can vote to table. Otherwise, your action won't be legal. MOTION: Anthes: I move to consider RZN 04-12.00. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 64 Clark: Second. Ostner: We have a motion and a second, is there any further discussion? Renee? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to reconsider RZN 04-12.00 was approved by a vote of 6-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries six to zero. MOTION: Anthes: I move to table RZN 04-12.00. Ostner: I thought we just did. Anthes: No, we moved to reconsider. Vaught: I will second. Ostner: We have a motion and a second. Renee? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to table RZN 04-12.00 was approved by a vote of 6-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries six to zero. Break Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 65 Ostner: The next item on the agenda is which is ANX 04-04.00 for Tipton/Sloan. Can we have a staff report please? Morgan: The applicant is requesting to table the Annexation and Rezoning pairs for Tipton/Sloan, Greenwood/Sloan, and McBryde/Sloan until such time that a full Planning Commission is available. Those are the last six items. Allen: Why were we not made aware of that earlier? It would've been nice so that people wouldn't have had to wait so long. Ostner: This has been a published meeting. It is appropriate to hear from the public and even to make a few comments from the Commission before we end the issue. We will table these motions after we hear them. Since we haven't had really much of an introduction, I will introduce this item. This Annexation was submitted by Raymond Smith on behalf of Robert and Minnie Beth Tipton for property located east of Double Springs Road adjoining the southeast corner of the Legacy Pointe Subdivision. The property is in the Growth Area and contains approximately 29.31 acres. The request is to annex the subject property into the City of Fayetteville. The applicant has tabled this item but we are going to open it up to the public for comments. Davison: Thank you and I appreciate that. For those of you who don't know, my name is Sharon Davison and I have lived in or around the Fayetteville area for about 25 years. I would first like to really thank you all because you are doing very, very important work here. I would also like to say that you have given me a lot of hope tonight that we are going to get things a little back in control here. I really appreciated your frankness in acknowledging that you are new to this process but more importantly I was impressed with your willingness to ask questions. I am actually here tonight to make a request, which I think you followed the theme: Density, Traffic, Safety, please don't annex anymore. In watching, too, I was very proud at how you looked at each issue. Yes, it was appropriate in that case to annex that small piece on Crossover for it's situation. Yes, this other piece was appropriate to annex, not rezone. Excellent! Here we are at a totally, totally different thing as the end of your agenda will show. This is inappropriate annexation and inappropriate rezoning at this time. I think we'll find out this area is actually probably not going to be as good for building as people think because it's flat. We found some surprises in what is going on over there anyway. I will try to get back to my point. Quickly, I did want to address that my husband is at our son's baseball game tonight, but he wanted me to ask you to keep in mind three major things and that would be roads, sewer and taxes. To generalize, traffic counts, we are waiting on some traffic studies and we would hope that you maybe would wait on some of your decisions until we get a lot of this important data back instead of rushing all of this development. In fact, I Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 66 would like to add up how many things we actually approved tonight anyway, I think it is a few hundred units. If we had gone through this whole process tonight and these folks got all that they wanted, you, in one evening, would've approved over 1,400 units and that is a lot when we don't have roads and other things. He wants to know where the cars are going to go. Even if we build out here what is going to happen when they all come into town because we know what a mess that is. Our questions also is we are waiting for our new sewer to come on line. Staff, can you tell us the projected date of sewer coming on line? Ostner: If you could keep your comments to us and we will try to ask them later. Davison: I'm sorry, I didn't realize that was inappropriate. That is alright, that is a question that we want to make sure. Part of the deal is I have this new sewer thing in the mail today. We approved this tax under our Mayor Coody telling us we had to have this sewer to maintain ourselves. We have, I think, found out that's really not the case because look at what all is coming through here. My husband would also like to know about our subsidizing this as the tax payers. You will learn more about proportions and what developers pay but I think a lot of tax payers are a little concerned for their part for paying for roads and infrastructure for developing and the profit on our exterior which is actually not beneficial and works against the third item on our 2010 plan, Development of our Crown Jewels, the Square and Dickson Street. It works against planned and managed growth and it works against improved mobility and street quality. These are reasons that I am asking you to go ahead and not annex our property out west until we have more in line. Thanking you for staying strong and looking at issues and not just saying yes to everything. It would be frustrating when I've come in the past and developers would ask for things and there would be a feeling they had to give it because it was asked. In your position people are coming to you wanting to check their T's, they have pretty much dotted their I's over here but they are really coming to you to ask for favors, the exceptions and you have every right to say no, this is not appropriate at this time even under great pressure, which I know you often are. Our city is overburdened by infrastructure needs and new service demands. Let's get to the specifics over here on the mess, and it is a mess on the other side of I-540. Asbell has been flooded and dealing with issues for years and years and years. Those issues of being in that low lying area were exasperated when I-540 went in. We have done nothing yet to help those people who have lived in our town for 10, 20 or 30 years. The other problem on the other side of the highway, if you remember Wilson Springs, that whole section to what I call Marinoni Mountain, which is the mountain on the back side of all of this between 6th Street and Hwy. 16. It is a swamp. It is low lying. Everybody wants to build in there because it is easy to lay lines because it is flat. If you went out there today you would still see huge standing Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 67 sections of water in fields. You will also notice with a lot of these construction projects the extent of retention ponds that they need. The amount of trench drainage, the width of these drainages, that is a clue in itself. When I drove all the way down to where Persimmon will eventually go, that goes back to eventually, people want a lot of things before the streets and all are there. There is a huge water retention pond right about where I think Persimmon would have to go through if we go through there and that would end up making the street just right on the doorstep of the Boys and Girls Club then they are going to have to remediate whatever the water is in there because it really, really is wet over there. The issue for that, and this is my bombshell that the developers don't want you to know is that there is a lot of mold going on over there. We have already had mold growing in our new schools. Holcomb hasn't even been here for a few years. We don't want to talk about it but we are setting ourselves up. California has quite a rush on mold mitigation lawyers. Those are issues that are very, very real going on over there where there is too much water and that is why it wasn't built on or planned on before. Now, the third part is there are a little bit of things that I think hopefully you all find out about sort of plans that we are all left out of the loop between our city government and our school districts and some of these developers and I think if they were more up front about it and maybe you can research some of these connections because it seems that their plans are being made assuming that you are already going to approve all of this. That concerns me that we have done that. I will try to go ahead and close so other people can speak to this. One little comment on it is the school that we are trying to put in right next to the Boys and Girls Club, that directly relates to all of this property. This property all runs to what I consider Farmington. I used to live over there right behind Dot Tipton Road and we all called it Farmington. I understand that we are moving over there but that does not have to happen right now. There is something wrong if we only need 10 acres for a school but for some reason we are entering into a contract for 20 acres and we are being told don't worry about the 10 acres that is in the floodplain that you won't need to build on it anyway, you don't need it. So that is telling me that if I need to do a major project I have to buy two for one acreage. One acre I won't be able to use. Essentially, that means instead of paying $30,000 an acre, we are essentially paying more for one usable acre. There is something wrong with what is going on over here. I would just like to ask that you all please go ahead and check it out. Wait on some of this. Look at some of the projects. My whole thing is that if you go back through the past year and look at what has been approved you will be amazed. If you go out and look at what is going up you will be amazed. I think you can then step back and say wait a minute, we need to fix our roads first. Wait a minute, we need to get our sewer plant on line functioning before we make all kinds of promises to people. All I'm Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 68 asking you to do is please hold off on annexation and rezonings in major growth areas like that. Thank you. Ostner: Is there anyone else from the public who would like to make a comment? Bowman: I'm Dr. Kathy McGuire Bowman. I am here in kind of an unusual situation, I don't know quite how to do this but I think there needs to be a gap bridge and I'm going to try to do that. It may be hard to do it but I'm going to try. I did want to come to make sure that you realize the school board's proposed purchase of 20 acres from McBryde and Company next to the Boys and Girls Club fronting on Persimmon Street as the location for the Jefferson School relocation is intimately connected with the annexation request before you for acreage on Persimmon. Maybe you all knew that but I think there is not an overlap here between the school board's massive real estate planning that is going on now and what the Planning Commission is doing. I'm concerned that you have to bring those two things together that you need an overview of what the school board is doing because right now he school board is in a dramatically different role. They are, if you look at their overall plan which I gave you in the packet, the colorful news letter is called a long term capital investment plan. If you look at the overall what's happening, they've already closed Bates Elementary School. Now they are going to close, that's a neighborhood school in the city's center right behind the high school. Now they are going to close Jefferson Elementary on the south side and they are going to relocate it to west of I-540. In fact, at this Persimmon address. That is the proposal from the school board, the offer from McBryde who is listed here in your annexations at Persimmon, to sale 20 acres to the school board for the relocation of Jefferson School. This school is going to be unique to anything that has ever happened in Fayetteville. It is going to be different than anything that has ever happened in Fayetteville. It is going to be a combined elementary and middle school. It is going to have 1,000 students out right here where all of this development is happening. I'm a psychologist. Everything I know about education would go toward smaller schools, neighborhood schools, and here we are having this mega complex. I guess I wanted you to be aware that you need to look at the overall plan in terms of planning for the growth of our city. You need to realize that this development is being spurred by putting that school out there. Mayor Coody talks about how school placement drives development and that is what you need to be looking at. What is the school district doing, where is it placing schools and how is it driving development. When you start looking at the school board process you realize that it is not like the City Council process. There is very little opportunity for public input. I think that if you add these two things together, they need to be seen together. You will discover that development in Fayetteville is being determined by a handful of people. I gave you a list of the Capital Investment Planning Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 69 Committee. It did include Hugh Earnest from the city. That is another reason why school business has really become city business at this point. Hugh Earnest, City Manager, sat on the Capital Investment Planning Committee for the school board. Tim Conklin was on a sub-committee so they were intimately part of this planning when you look at the whole overall decisions in that capital plan you see that you are moving schools from the city to the outskirts of town including eventually, the high school is going to be relocated to the outskirts of town. Jefferson is being closed and it is a neighborhood school. It is really frightening if you look at it in context and look at the whole picture. When you see a lot of development happening on the west side you also need to understand that it is development being taken away from the south side by the location of the school. I was talking about the more closed process of the school board. Here is an example that may be a dramatic example of how decisions might be being made at the school district or school board level. I have been told that Mr. Hissum of "H" Farms going out towards Goshen was going to have a casino complex. I've been told that he went to the City Council in Goshen, told them that his casino idea had fallen apart and that now he was going to have a Fayetteville school on his property and then he has a whole plan. The plan was described in the paper and it includes, according to the new rules you have to have mostly greenspace along the highway but you are allowed to have 25% commercial frontage right on the highway. In his description of his packets there was 20 acres of frontage on the highway and the school district is always talking about 20 acre plots for their new schools. If you think about this from what I've seen hanging around the school board, the way it sounds is that Mr. Hissum as already made a plan with the school district to have a school on his property. That is where we have to get it folks. This does not come before the school board where the public might have a chance to have input. You have to consider the administrators who do not have any decision making power may be making deals with developers. Again, this needs to be looked at and that is what I'm asking, is that you, as the Planning Commission, begin to look at this. What is going on in terms of development here? How is it that these Persimmon developments have shown up tonight one week after the school board was approached with this surprise opportunity to buy land by the Boys and Girls Club, as if that hasn't been in the works for years since they got the Boys and Girls Club. I do have an example that I want to read. This is not particular to the school district but it is an example of this kind of under the table, possibly kind of relationships that go into development. This is from September 19, 2000. It is from the law office of Deb Sexton. Dear Mayor Hanna, in order to document the understanding between WHM Investments, Inc., McIlroy Company and the City of Fayetteville, City, this letter is being written. The Fayetteville Youth Center, d/b/a The Boys and Girls Club of Fayetteville, the old FYC is purchasing 9.69 acres in the Meadowlands Development from the McIlroy Company on which a new FYC building Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 70 will be built. McIlroy Company will deed six acres shaped to go around the new FYC building to be deeded to the city for new parking lots and playing fields in consideration for the city banking the six acres to be used for any parks and greenspace required by the city in order for the McIlroy Company to do any future development in the same quadrant of the city. He McIlroy Company has already deeded to the city and banked for future development, three acres of land adjacent to the above -referenced six acres causing a total of 18.69 contiguous acres to be available for a joint project for the FYC and the City. If the above describes an understanding of the transactions please indicate so by signing this letter and returning a copy to me. If you have any comments or questions please call. Sincerely, Deb Sexton for McIlroy Company. I wasn't here for all that planning time but the point here would be if this kind of an arrangement was made before it was brought to the voting arms of the public then that is problematic and I'm concerned that this is happening in a lot of the real estate deals going on. I do have a petition here. It does have 245 signatures of tax payers who have said that they would like to slow school board real estate action. I support further community and neighborhood discussion of the Jefferson School relocation decision. I respectfully request that the school board allow further public comment on the board's current plans for design and location of our public schools and that an outside mediator be called into negotiate such two way communications with myself of Fayetteville Hopes as the representative in choosing a mutually agreed upon outside mediator. Those of us who have been trying to deal with the school board on letting the public have access in the decision making have found that it is not an open and democratic process. It is driving development from what we see so I wanted to bring this to your attention. I know I'm taking a long time and it is late. I am just going to read one letter. Some people think that those of us trying to bring this out are our own little kooky clan so I want to read a letter from someone who heard what we are saying and validates it. This is from someone who has been here since 1974 and I never met him and he wrote this letter which echoes what we are trying to say. INSERT LETTER HERE I just want to make this clear that this is not a new idea. Again, I do have 245 other tax payers who very much want the way that the school district is driving real estate decisions to be considered and the example of all the new houses around the new Jefferson School, around the Boys and Girls Club, all of these things taken from the center of the city. The Boys and Girls Club was the first. You remember the battle. Mayor Coody came in just when that was happening and there was a lot of outcry and he said ok, ok, we will consider keeping it in the center of the city. Then we were told oh no, the Reynolds grant will be pulled. You cannot even consider, you cannot even talk about changing the location of this Boys and Girls Club because the money will get pulled. I would say, looking at this McIlroy letter that I just read, that this was a very predetermined first move. Now we've got the Boys and Girls Club what are they telling us? Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 71 They have to bus the Jefferson children over there now so that they can go to the Boys and Girls Club after school. It is very disturbing. I will stop. I'm sorry for taking so much time. Ostner: I would like to assure you that we will completely revisit this issue when it is not actually tabled and we will vote on it. McMillan: I'm Amy McMillan, I just want to say very brief, very brief, thank you for your time and your effort into this and it is very encouraging some of the votes that you guys made tonight. About 10 days I turned on the television and I saw Mayor Coody doing his show that he does and he is talking about an award that our city has received for being a livable community and I have to laugh to myself because I sit here and I look at the list of units that are going before you which have been tabled tonight. The total is so discouraging. I have driven out to Persimmon. I drove out there today. This land is under water. The land is under water. It lies in the floodplain. I wonder if soil samples have been taken and at what point are soil samples taken? I wonder how these units are going to affect our waste water treatment plant that has not even been built yet and I wonder how it will impact our south Fayetteville. My children attend Holcomb Elementary. This school is running at capacity. We are full. We cannot make anymore children. I will reiterate that yes, we do have a mold problem there. It is true. The roads that are out on the west side of Fayetteville, the four lane highway begins right at the development of our subdivision, it begins right there at the entrance. Anything past that towards Double Springs Road cannot sustain the traffic that they are trying to put out there. It cannot sustain it. I am urging you to please stay in support of that livable community, that Smart Growth plan. Thank you. Ostner: Do we have any other citizens? Marr: I'm Don Marr, 410 W. Holly. Thank you for letting me speak. I know it is not a common practice for the City Council to address the Planning Commission but I wanted to ask your assistance. In an effort for the Council, at least from my perspective, as we look at things that you vote on and we read the minutes of your meetings and we see 6-0 votes, 9-0 votes, etc., one of the things with a lot of these annexations coming forward that I want to ask you to pay particular attention to, at least from my perspective, is on page 14.7 of your packet. I just picked the largest annexation, which was the 160 acre one that has been tabled tonight. This would apply to all of them. You have the guiding principals of the General Plan 2020 and in that there are two things that stand out that I would like to really ask that you do strong due diligence with as a Commission. One of those is an annexation study should be completed on all annexation proposals. I don't know that in reading the reports that the Police report, the Fire report meet that requirement as the philosophical Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 72 principal of the 2020 Plan. The last one is on that same list from the 2020 Plan it is called 11.6.t which is Conduct a fiscal impact assessment on large annexations. It was interesting to me as I read through your packet in preparation for what we might see two weeks from now that if 160 acres, if you go to page 14.6 on that particular item, it says conduct a fiscal impact assessment on large annexations and the finding is n/a, not applicable. I don't know at what point it becomes significant enough to distinguish fiscal analysis. That is our biggest challenge at the Council level. Do we have the infrastructure in place to handle adding these additional pieces of land. I have had various Commissioners, I've heard you say it's the City Council's responsibility to look at the financial picture. It is a finding that you look at as a result of your packet and it is valuable to me as an alderman to know that it got debated much earlier in the process, that it wasn't one of the last issues that we looked at and to see what 8 or 9 other people's perspective was on it, particularly since you are a very diverse group of Commissioners. If you would do that at least, me asking you as an alderman and as a citizen, I think it will assist us in making better decisions. Thank you. Ostner: Thank you. Do we have any other comments tonight? Are there any other announcements? Pate: Just a reminder, I do believe we need to vote on all six items to table. Clark: Staff, this follows up on what Alderman Marr just mentioned. As I look at all of this now tabled annexation, it is a lot of acreage. Every time I look through this packet the Police say there is no adverse impact, etc., etc. Has there ever been an example of a proposed annexation that the Police or the Fire have said no, we can't do that? Pate: I believe so, yes. Specifically I can only thing of one incident reading through historical packets from 2001 and 2002. Clark: My historical index is not in my packet. Pate: Sure. I believe there was a property to the west of the springwoods, Wilson Springs area that was actually tabled for almost a year based on Fire Department comments and Waste Water impact. There was a property that was specifically tabled for those reasons. I can't list off the top of my head if there were others. Clark: Do you have any idea how long ago that was? Pate: I can get that information to you for sure. Clark: How many acres were we talking about tonight atone? Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 73 Anthes: 269.3 acres in this section. Clark: I'm troubled. I will follow up exactly on what Alderman Marr, who used to be my alderman, along with great Alderman Cook, have to understand where we draw the line and say no because we don't have the infrastructure. Hat troubles me, especially when I read some of the other comments of other aldermen when our decisions ultimately reach their desks and they say we don't have it. That troubles me and I'm not sure that I'm getting all of the information that I need to get and I'm new here so I don't know sometimes what all to ask for until I hear other comments. That does bother me and I'm really glad that we are tabling this tonight quite honestly because I want more time to look at it and to hear differing opinions and to listen to the constituents. I had no idea about the school board stuff. That was an education tonight. The infrastructure issues do trouble me considerably. Vaught: I do have questions that might be a City Attorney question on what we can take into consideration as far as the school board issues. From what I understand I don't know how much of that really impacts the decision that we make because they are an independent body of ours. That is one thing that I would like an explanation on for the people here. The development impact on the area is definitely a consideration for us and all this stuff with the school is interesting, I just don't know how that plays into our overall consideration of things. Also, I don't know how there is a way to even quantify, there are two sides of development. There is a bad side because it creates demand but there is a good side because everyone of those homes when we annex them are going to pay a sewer tap fee, the impact fees we use to fund the building of our new sewer plant and to fund building of the new roads in the area. I don't know how we can develop better tools to be able to weigh all of those options. There is a give and take with everything. That is what I don't know what we even need to be asking for myself being relatively new as well. Clark: Would that be the fiscal impact of this? Vaught: I don't know, I've never seen a fiscal impact assessment. Anthes: I want to thank the applicant for requesting to table these items tonight because I have several questions that I need to ask of the City Attorney who could not be present this evening. For the record, I would like the staff to take note of what I would like and maybe you can request this information. I am reading over and over the General Plan 2020 with regards to annexation and it is sort of distressingly vague. I'm looking here and I've added up these three requests for annexation that we are considering tabling are 269.31 acres. The entire year of 2000 to August, Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 74 2001 we approved four annexations that totaled 393.54 acres. That is not a tremendous amount more. I'm looking at what we require and we have a couple of things that may or may not apply here. One is 11.6.f which says annex environmentally sensitive areas which could be impacted by development and utilize appropriate development regulations to protect those areas. When I look at our maps it looks like we have an extreme amount of floodplain, flood way and streams and creeks in the areas of these properties, but I have no way to quantify whether or not there is an environmental impact because we don't have an environmental assessment impact report. The other things are two items that Alderman Marr referred to and that is requesting annexation studies and fiscal impact assessments. We particularly say a fiscal impact assessment on large annexations but we have no definition on what large is. 270 acres seems large to me but I have no way to say what is and what isn't large. The other thing is what I don't see in the General Plan 2020 is who is supposed to conduct and therefore, pay for, these assessment reports that we might need in order to make these judgments. That is what I would like to know from the City Attorney. Ostner: I would like to also voice my concern over the amount of acreage and the decisions that we are going to make two weeks from tonight probably since we are going to come back to these issues. I agree that Chapter 11 out of our General Plan 2020 seems really like a mechanical how to annex. It really doesn't tell you any guidance on should we annex or should we annex there or there, what's the difference. I'm referring back to a lot of other knowledge that I've learned in other places. A different chapter of that General Plan 2020 is back in 2000 we made a bunch of projections. I believe this is Chapter 9. The 2020 Plan projected between 2000 and 2020 we would need to build 13,800 units of housing and they estimated about '/2 of that will be homes, about half will be apartments. That comes to about 690 units per year to build. We could've done that tonight. Another thing, on that 2020 Plan, these are projections that take past development and they shoot a crystal ball in the future, but they estimate roughly about 5,000 acres of land will be needed for that 13,000 residents. We have got 2,800 acres of undeveloped residential land in the city limits, which is half of what this 20 year projection is asking for. This is land inside the city limits with streets, with adjoining sewers, no annexation required and it is already zoned Residential. I asked Jan in Planning to give a quick rundown of what we have done in the first three or four months of 2004. These are rough numbers and hopefully they are over instead of under, Final Plats, Preliminary Plats and PZD's, 381 lots have been approved. We have rezoned to allow for another 796 so that is over 1,000 lots that could be developed in 2004 which is almost 199 acres. My point is this: I'm not sure that there is a crowd of 10,000 people standing in line to buy homes or develop or build homes. I understand there are opportunities to Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 75 build terrific neighborhoods. That's great, we need good neighborhoods in this town. I'm not sure where is the best place for them. Clark: Can I follow up on that? The thing that I'm also keeping in mind with these new annexation requests is the knowledge that Planning is going to start annexing islands that exist currently in the city. That is something that goes along with the plans that are in place already. I'm really concerned about annexation that goes outside that. I think you make some really good arguments Alan in the numbers are there. Opportunity, just because you have the opportunity, as my mother taught me as a young child, doesn't mean you need to do it all the time. I guess that's how I'm annexing new property. I'm really glad we are tabling this. Can we make a motion to table all at once or do we need to table them individually? Pate: Individually. Ostner: Ok, ANX 04-04.00. MOTION: Anthes: At the request of the developer I would like to move to table ANX 04- 04.00. Clark: Second. Ostner: We have a motion by Ms. Anthes and a second by Ms. Clark, is there any further discussion? Renee? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to table ANX 04-04.00 was approved by a vote of 6-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries six to zero. MOTION: Clark: At the request of the developer I would like to move to table RZN04- 10.00. Vaught: Second. Ostner: We have a motion by Ms. Clark and a second by Mr. Vaught. Is there any further discussion? Renee? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to table RZN 04-10.00 was approved by a vote of 6-0-0. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 76 Thomas: The motion carries six to zero. MOTION: Clark: At the request of the developer I would like to move to table ANX 04- 01.00. Allen: Second. Ostner: We have a motion by Ms. Clark and a second by Ms. Allen, is there any further discussion? Renee? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to table ANX 04-01.00 was approved by a vote of 6-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries six to zero. MOTION: Anthes: At the request of the developer I would like to move to table RZN 04- 11.00. Trumbo: Second. Ostner: We have a motion by Ms. Anthes and a second by Mr. Trumbo, is there any further discussion? Renee? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to table RZN 04-11.00 was approved by a vote of 6-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries six to zero. MOTION: Allen: I would like to move to table ANX 04-02.00. Anthes: Second. Ostner: We have a motion by Ms. Allen and a second by Ms. Anthes, is there any further discussion? Renee? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to table ANX 04-04.00 was approved by a vote of 6-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries six to zero. Planning Commission April 26, 2004 Page 77 MOTION: Allen: I move to table RZN 04-09.00 Anthes: Second. Ostner: We have a motion by Ms. Allen and a second by Ms. Anthes is there any further discussion? Renee? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to table ANX 04-04.00 was approved by a vote of 6-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries six to zero. Ostner: That is the last item in our agenda. Do we have any further announcements? Announcements Meeting adjourned: 9:40 p.m.