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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2005-06-27 MinutesMINUTES OF A MEETING OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION A regular meeting of the Fayetteville Planning Commission was held on June 27, 2005 at 5:30 p.m. in Room 219 of the City Administration Building, 113 W. Mountain, Fayetteville, Arkansas. ITEMS DISCUSSED ADM 05-1606: PACK RAT FPL 05-1476: MAPLE VALLEY VAC 05-1522: SPRINGWOODS CONSENT ADM 05-1582: RAPIDO RABBIT CAR WASH PAGE 4 ADM 05-1605: USE UNITS PAGE 8 LSD 05-1542: FAIRLANE APARTMENTS PAGE 14 R-PZD 05-1463: OAKBROOKE PAGE 29 RZN 05-1546: MATHIAS PAGE 51 RZN 05-1560, MOUNTAIN RANCH Al RZN 05-1561, MOUNTAIN RANCH A2 RZN 05-1562 MOUNTAIN RANCH B RZN 05-1563, MOUNTAIN RANCH C RZN 05-1564, MOUNTAIN RANCH D, F, H, I, J RZN 05-1565, MOUNTAIN RANCH E RZN 05-1566, MOUNTAIN RANCH G PAGE 54 ACTION TAKEN APPROVED APPROVED FORWARDED TO CITY COUNCIL DENIED FORWARDED TO CITY COUNCIL APPROVED FORWARDED TO CITY COUNCIL FORWARDED TO CITY COUNCIL FORWARDED TO CITY COUNCIL FORWARDED TO CITY COUNCIL FORWARDED TO CITY COUNCIL FORWARDED TO CITY COUNCIL FORWARDED TO CITY COUNCIL WITHDRAWN BY APPLICANT FORWARDED TO CITY COUNCIL Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 2 MEMBERS PRESENT Jill Anthes James Graves Audi Lack Alan Ostner Nancy Allen Sean Trumbo Christian Vaught Christine Myres Candy Clark MEMBERS ABSENT STAFF PRESENT STAFF ABSENT Jeremy Pate Renee Thomas Suzanne Morgan Brent O'Neal Jesse Fulcher Andrew Gardner Matt Mihalovec Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 3 Ostner: Welcome to the Monday, June 20th meeting of your Fayetteville Planning Commission. Can you call the roll please? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call there were nine Commissioners present. Ostner: Allen: Clark: Ostner: Roll Call: Thomas: The first item to consider is the approval of the minutes from the June 13`h meeting. There are no minutes present so we will have no motion. On our consent agenda there are three items. The first is ADM 05-1606 for Pack Rat submitted by Scott Crook of Pack Rat Outdoor Center. The second is FPL 05-1476 for Maple Valley submitted by Dave Jorgensen. The third item is VAC 05-1522 for springwoods submitted by Patrick Hargus. Would anyone in the audience or on the Commission like to have these items pulled from the consent agenda? Otherwise, I will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. I move for approval of the consent agenda. Second. Discussion? Will you call the roll? Upon the completion of roll call the motion to approve the consent agenda was approved by a vote of 9-0-0. The motion carries. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 4 Ostner: The next item is ADM 05-1582 for Rapido Rabbit Car Wash. Fulcher: The subject property is located south of Wedington Drive and west of Shiloh Drive. The Large Scale Development for this project was approved by the Subdivision Committee on October 15, 2004. The fourth condition of approval stated with that Large Scale Development, and accepted by the applicants, states that the proposed monument and/or wall sign shall comply with the Design Overlay District specifications for location, size, type, number, etc. Therefore, the applicant was made aware of the unique sign requirements within the Design Overlay District at the time of Large Scale Development approval. In May, 2005 the applicant made inquiries regarding the sign ordinance to determine the number and type of signs that would be allowed at the new Rapido Rabbit Car Wash location. Staff informed the applicant of the ordinance on sign content in the Design Overlay District. The Unified Development Code states that content of monument wall signs shall be limited to the name of the business. Advertising shall not be permitted on the structure, wall sign or monument sign. The applicant is requesting that content other than the name of the business, Rapido Rabbit Car Wash, be permitted on the proposed monument sign. The applicant proposes a monument sign with business name and logo along with price and services provided on the site. Those being $3 per car wash and 3 minutes free vacuums. Inclusion of the price and type of services rendered by this business is information other than the name of the business and thus, isn't allowed within the Design Overlay District. A sign stating the name of the business will sufficiently inform potential customers of the services rendered at this site and the price of the services can be conveyed in an appropriate location on the property which will be visible only to those using the facility rather than the general public. Staff finds that no special privileges exist which are peculiar to the land, structure or building, which are not applicable to other properties within the same district. All properties in the Design Overlay District must adhere to the same regulations as stated in Chapter 161.24. We also find that the literal interpretation of the provisions of the zoning regulations would not deprive the applicant of rights commonly enjoyed by other properties in the same district. All signs within the Design Overlay District are limited to the name of the business only. Finally, literal enforcement of the Design Overlay District regulations would not result in unnecessary hardship as all other businesses in the Design Overlay District have had the same requirements to comply with regard to content of sign. If you have any questions I'll be happy to answer them. Ostner: Thank you. Is the applicant present? If you could step forward and if you have any presentation that you would like to give us. Kenneke: I would like to give a presentation of the existing monument sign across the street. My name is Kurt Kenneke and I'm with Arkansas Car Wash Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 5 Systems. We are the area developer for the Rapido Rabbit Car Washes. Rapido Rabbit's trade is nationally and the $3, 3 minutes, free vacuums is part of their trade nationally. It is imperative that we have this to maintain our image. Most people relate it to the $3 car wash more so than the name of the car wash. I just wanted to show the exhibit showing that across the street they are showing the price of gasoline in their advertisement. Osmer: At this point I am going to open it up to the public. If anyone would like to speak to this issue please step forward, this is ADM 05-1582. Seeing no public comment, I will close the public comment session and bring it back to the Commission for discussion. Trumbo: We are being passed around a photo of a monument sign with gas prices, what is the difference here with what they are proposing? Obviously, they are both advertisements. Pate: There is a separate section within the sign ordinance for gasoline fuel price signs in Chapter 174. I do believe that this is referring to a separate type of advertising situation. It is something separate for the fuel pumps that probably wouldn't address the situation for the monument sign with the prices being on there. I'm not aware of when that sign was permitted so I am not exactly sure how that was permitted within the Design Overlay District requirements. I would have to look into that. I can't answer why they have advertising for fuel price on there. Vaught: Has the TGI Friday's issue been resolved? Pate: It has not. Vaught: When does that go before the City Council? Pate: A week from Tuesday it is on Old Business. Ostner: It does seem that the applicant has a point if we can't seem to find a part in our regulations that allows this advertising. Pate: We know that there are signs out there that are either non -conforming or have been permitted under different Commissions or Councils. Each and every sign is different and has it's own circumstance and that is exactly what you have to do when you are looking at a variance is to evaluate it under it's own merit. Based on the ordinances in front of us at this time that have not changed with regard to any of the content for advertising in the Overlay District, we made those findings based on that. Honestly, that is something that we could look into. It would take research into that particular development's file to see if they had some other issues. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 6 Potentially they gave up wall signage to allow for monument signage with that type of advertisement. Again, there are a number of options available. Vaught: Staff, in the past with Variances if we have allowed them typically the language of the name must be smaller than the business. Was that discussion taken on with the applicant? Right now the name of the business is smaller than the rest of what they are advertising, which to me, even as a variance I wouldn't allow. If I were to allow a variance it would be in line with the other applicant's requests. Was that discussion ever had with the applicant? Pate: MOTION: Allen: Not to my knowledge. We have had situations in the past where Variances were approved by this Commission to allow more than just the name of the business. Focus Salon is one. In that location they did decrease the size of the advertising portion of that and this Commission did vote to grant that variance. I don't know when this other sign might have been permitted. But, in my view, rules are rules and two wrongs don't make a right. The Council is looking at these issues with the TGI Friday's sign. It is my feeling that I would prefer to go with our rules and if the Council wishes to override that that is certainly their prerogative. With that being said, I will move for denial of ADM 05-1582. Trumbo: I will second. Ostner: There is a motion and a second to deny. Is there further discussion? Graves: Staff, is it just the $3, 3 minutes or is the Rabbit emblem part of the beef that staff has with the sign also? Fulcher: The initial monument sign that I looked at did have the logo, we did not have a problem with that. It was the direct advertising for products and services on the site. Graves: The motion doesn't have a problem with the Rabbit? Allen: No. Vaught: Just a comment to the applicant. Just watch what the City Council does. I know that they are taking this issue on directly in the next couple of weeks so you can always appeal to them based on what they do. Ostner: Is there further discussion? Could you call the roll? Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 7 Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to deny ADM 05-1582 was approved by a vote of 9-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 8 Ostner: The next item on our agenda is ADM 05-1605 for Use Units. If we could have the staff report please. Fulcher: Frequently staff members or citizens have come across certain Use Units within Chapters 161 and 162 that may not be specifically listed or may not be compatible under the zoning district in which they are listed. There are quite a few items that staff is looking at right now. Tonight we have three specific amendments before you that we would like to cover briefly. The first item has to do with bail bonding agencies, which I know this Planning Commission and City Council have both recently reviewed a few rezoning requests based on bail bonding agencies. In response to these requests the City Council did ask staff to reevaluate the Use Units under which bail bonding agencies have been listed in the past. The first amendment we are looking at is an amendment to Chapter 162 Use Units, of the Unified Development Code, Section 162.01 Establishment Listings to include bail bonding agencies under a permitted and detailed use under Use Unit 12, Offices, Studios and Related Services. The reason for some of the confusion in these rezoning requests for bail bonding agencies is that this use has never been officially listed as a detailed use in any zoning district. However, previous interpretations by our Zoning & Development Administrator have placed this specific use under Use Unit 16 Shopping Goods. We have done a study and description of the actual use, hours, traffic impact and other impacts on surrounding properties that this use has and staff finds that this use is more appropriate under Use Unit 12, Offices, Studios and Related Services. This use includes things such as banks, office buildings, social welfare agencies, employment, travel and advertising agencies along with dental clinics. Amendment two that we are looking at is an amendment to Chapter 161 Zoning Regulations of the Unified Development Code. §161.15, R -O, to remove manufactured home park as a permitted use but to include it as a Conditional Use in the R -O zoning district. This use was not permitted in the Unified Development Code prior to the most current version and staff could find no reason why it would be appropriate as a use by right in the R -O zoning district based on a comparison with other commercial and residential zoning districts. The final amendment is an amendment to Chapter 161 zoning regulations of the Unified Development Code. §161.17, C-2, Thoroughfare Commercial and §161.18, C-3, Central Commercial, to include Use Unit 25 as a permitted use. Use Unit 25, Professional Offices is a use that is allowed by right in the R -O, C-1 and C-4 zoning districts. This use consists of professional offices that are compatible with medium and high density residential areas including, but not limited to, doctor's offices, dentists, architects, engineers, attorneys, accountants, realtors, brokers, business consultants and others. This use specifically has been the source of much confusion for staff and citizens wishing to operate professional offices within two commercial zoning districts within the Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 9 city. Therefore, staff is recommending approval of all three amendments tonight. Ostner: Thank you. I will take public comment on this issue. Would anyone like to speak to ADM 05-1605? Seeing none, I will close the public comment session and bring it back to the Commission for discussion. Trumbo: We are going to move manufactured homes out of R -O, will they be allowed by right in any other zoning? Pate: Yes, they are allowed by right in R -A currently and they are allowed by Conditional Use in several of the higher density residential multi -family zoning districts. This proposal is to move it out of the use by rights into a Conditional Use much like the other multi -family zoning districts. Trumbo: R -A is going to be one? Pate: It is a permitted use, that is correct. Trumbo: If we annex a piece of property into the city and we don't rezone it, it comes in R -A on it's own so it could be a manufactured home park by right? Pate: Correct, it has to be a use permitted by right in at least one residential zoning district in the city. That is the one that the Council has chosen for it to be a use permitted by right. Trumbo: Just as long as they know that that is sitting there. Ostner: My question for staff has to do with, I don't think I have a problem with amendments two and three. It is amendment one creating bail bonding as basically putting it into Use Unit 12 and permitting it by right in R -O if I'm understanding that right. Pate: That is correct. That is the current proposal. Our initial thought was to find a zoning district that it would best fit into as a Conditional Use in the R -O zoning district. Simply because it changed from being only allowed in C-2 and changing that to be allowed in the R -O is quite a jump. However, when you actually evaluate the use, the hours of operation, the number of vehicle trips per day that this type of business generates, the types of structures that they are located within, it really falls into line with a lot of the Use Unit 12 operations which are more business and not necessarily retail, but office oriented. The letters in your packet support that. We did look on line on several occasions to several different businesses and on the web for several different types of descriptions trying to find different uses or other permitted items that are located within a bail Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 10 bonds office and they all seem straight forward and would be less impact than a lot of your other uses that would be allowed currently by right. Those again, include financial institutions or banks, which do have quite a bit of traffic generation, and those are allowed by right in the R -O district. Trailer supplies and equipment, including office furnishings, architect and artist supplies, business machines. Services including parking garages, blue printing, employment agencies, ticket offices, small animal out patient veterinary clinics. We felt that those were in line with this type of use. The previous use as it was established was never established by ordinance. When there is a use that comes about and is not a detailed use staff is required to make an interpretation on where that use specifically falls. Periodically we will update the code to try to catch up with technology or catch up with the times, we are looking at a small over haul of these use units currently. However, these were some more pressing ones that the Council and staff felt were appropriate to bring to you now and we could get your mind around these three at least at this time as opposed to looking at the entire ordinance. The last time we did this was a few years ago when we codified the entire Code. Ostner: Thank you. One of the first thing that you talked about was other businesses that are included by right in the R -O. You mentioned doctor's offices, dentists, architects, engineers, attorneys, accountants. The businesses that you mentioned that are allowed in R -O don't have 24 hour operations. That is what worries me. We use R -O as a buffer for low density residential and it is a good buffer. It is like commercial light, it is commercial without the retail. I think I can see bail bonding fitting in there but I'm concerned that it needs to be a Conditional Use in the R -O. Pate: Allen: I agree, we definitely looked at that open 24 hours. A lot of these advertise 24 hours. I guess the first point is that there is nothing saying that these couldn't be 24 hours. These types of uses could operate 24 hours if they wanted to. We don't have ordinances that disallow that. Also, with the materials supplied here and most of the materials that we looked at with other sources, indicated that though they advertise 24 hour availability that they are not open 24 hours at that specific location. Most of the calls are forwarded to a home phone or an agent that is working out of that office and the meetings are held at the detention facility or otherwise. That is another key component. We agree that if the office were open 24 hours much like a convenience store or something else, it is a different animal. Most of our indications though are that these aren't open for business 24 hours. Even driving by at midnight most of them do not have their lights on. They simply have a number you can call. Due to the very nature of the business of bail bonding I would feel more comfortable with including the hours that the office could be open such as from 8:00 to 5:00. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 11 Ostner: Is there a way to differentiate in a Use Unit? Whitaker: Other than the state and local alcoholic beverage service laws, we don't regulate the hours of any businesses in the city. Of course, alcohol always being a special category in the history of juris prudence, we do have hours of operation for those businesses serving alcoholic beverages. We don't have any for any others. That would introduce a wrinkle that is not contemplated in the code. Allen: Clark: Pate: I would just say that it is hard for me to support this because of the hours and the fact that it would abut, nearly always, a residential area. Jeremy, we have a letter in our packet from Butch Thomas, the president of Mountain Man Bail Bonding, which I found very informative because I don't know how bail bonding works. Mr. Thomas explains that they forward their phones at night. I run a business that we do exactly the same thing. Our office is only open from 10:00 to 2:00 and we forward phones somewhere. Did you call or contact any other bail bonding companies to find out if they work in a similar fashion? We called a number of the bail bonding offices that are coming to you for a rezoning from C-2 along this stretch and they indicated similar circumstances. Clark: With that point I have no problem with putting it in R -O because when you forward the phones it is off premises. If they all work according to what Mr. Thomas' letter indicates, and I have no reason to believe they don't, you are not going to get a lot of traffic generated. I know that in some of the professional buildings we service when alarms go off there is traffic. People have to come back in at midnight and 1:00. That doesn't happen very often though. The business is normally closed from 5:00 in the evening until the next morning so I am comfortable with this. Anthes: Staff, can you review for me how the signs that would be allowed on this building would change between a R -O and a C-2 district? Fulcher: In the R -O district they would be allowed one 16 sq.ft. sign per business and if they did a monument sign they would be allowed 16 sq.ft. If they did a free standing sign they would be allowed four sq.ft. It is one or the other. If it is C-2 they would be allowed four wall signs at 150 sq.ft. or 15% of the wall base, whichever is greater, and then one free standing sign or monument sign, each with 75 sq.ft. allowable. Allen: Continuing along, I have yet to have to spring somebody from the slammer so I really don't know the protocol for this. Do you normally go Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 12 to the parole office to do this or is this done at the jail? How is this handled? Maybe that would make me feel more comfortable. I just don't quite like the idea of it being right there by the neighborhood and that kind of activity going on potentially 24/7 since we can't regulate their hours. Pate: If it please the Chair Mr. Thomas with Mountain Man Bail Bonding is here and may be able to answer some of your questions. Thomas: I am Butch Thomas with Mountain Man Bail Bonding. If you were to call me and Mr. Trumbo was in jail you would meet a bail bonding agent at the jail. At that point everything would be handled, my secretary, who handles everything, would have most of it handled over the telephone and a piece of paper to sign. The money would change hands right there where you were at. If, by some chance, you didn't have all of the money and said can I make a payment. You get your bail and then you could drop it by the office. That would be the only time we would see you there at the office unless you really had some tricky situation or something because he wasn't a good risk. If it was late at night we would just meet with you the next morning. We are security conscious. We don't like our bondsmen at the office by themselves. We are an 8:00 to 5:00 business. They leave at 5:00 and the phone rollover goes to them. They are paid on a commission basis. They want to get down to the jail and get their business done and go back home and go to bed. Allen: Primarily your office is used for paperwork? Thomas: The office is used for logging the bonds in, for handling the telephone lines. We have lines for Rogers, Springdale and Fayetteville. Some of the companies may have them from all over the state. We just do it here locally. Our phones ring off the wall but most of the time it is somebody, they let people call up there no matter what their bond is, we filter through the ones that we need and then we contact our agents and direct them from there. Allen: You are saying that that is typical of how other offices are managed? Thomas: I could say that. I don't have any way to verify that. I have been in the business for about five years and that is the way that we do our business. Ostner: If everything in your office after hours is done in the jail when you put up a sign that says 24 hours why do you do that? What is the rare occasion when you would need that? Thomas: I would imagine that a good attorney would be on call 24 hours and used to a good doctor would be on call 24 hours. It is a service that everybody in the bail bonding business usually provides. I would just as soon have Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 13 Ostner: Clark: Ostner: MOTION: Clark: Myres: Ostner: Roll Call: Thomas: my business on the other side of Goshen and have a big sign right there close to the jail that says call Mountain Man 24 hours but that is not doable. Thank you. That helps me. Do we have any more questions? I understand exactly what Mr. Thomas is saying because our business advertises 24/7 and we are, but we are not at the office when we answer the phone. People find it very reassuring. I guess maybe we're thinking outside the box here a little bit but just because you have an office where people call doesn't mean that that is where the phone is being answered. I am very comfortable with this. There are several different things that we are talking about and we have only really talked about amendments one and two and so if there is no more discussion on amendment three having to do with including another Use Unit in the C-2, are there any motions? I will make a motion that we recommend approval of all three amendments as stated. I will second. Is there further discussion? Could you call the roll? Upon the completion of roll call the motion to recommend approval of the amendments to the Unified Development Code was approved by a vote of 9-0-0. The motion carries. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 14 Ostner: The next item on our agenda is LSD 05-1542 for Fairlane Apartments, if we could have the staff report please. Pate: This property is located on Fairlane Street west of 15`h. The property is zoned RMF -24, Residential Multi -Family, 24 Units Per Acre and contains approximately 6.2 acres. The request tonight is to approve a Large Scale Development with 114 apartments including 174 bedrooms and 158 parking spaces proposed. There are major electric transmission lines across the western portion of the property and provide the single largest challenge to development on this property. No structures can be located within those easements and no facilities may be placed within this easement. Currently, the plan is to provide small amounts of landscaping as well as parking area within this easement and then all structures will be located to the east of this. The applicant is proposing to construct five three story residential structures with 114 apartments. The proposal is for 60 two bedroom apartments and 54 one bedroom apartments for a total of 174 bedrooms. Parking is in compliance with the parking ordinance and that is one space required per bedroom with an allowance of 30% over or under that number. Surrounding land use and zoning includes single family to the south zoned RMF -24, single family to the north zoned RSF- 4, to the east is R -O, RSF-4 and RMF -24 and likewise to the west is single family and multi -family zoning. Right of way being dedicated for this project includes Huntsville Road, which is a state highway, a minor arterial as well as Fairlane Street. A 6' sidewalk is to be constructed at the right of way line through the proposed driveway along Huntsville Road and then staff is recommending assessment in lieu of the remainder of the sidewalk due to planned improvements in this area in the near future. The money paid in lieu of the sidewalk will be utilized to construct the sidewalk at the time that the road is improved. With regard to Parks, on May 2, 2005 the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board did vote to accept a combination of money and parkland to satisfy the parkland dedication ordinance with a total of 1.34 acres of deeded park, as shown on the plat, additionally, there was a $13,829 fee for the multi -family units to be due prior to issuance of a building permit. This will require Council action as it is a combination above 100 units. Several citizens did attend the Subdivision Committee with concerns regarding this development, specifically with concerns regarding increase in traffic, height of structures and drainage. The developers representative stated that a meeting with the neighbors was planned to be held on June 5th . Additionally, another concern that has been addressed was obtaining approval from the Fire Marshal for three story structures for access. A condition of approval for this project is that the drive aisles be widened to a minimum of 26 feet which can be done relatively easily decreasing the solid depth spacing of the green space by 2'. Staff is representing approval of this Large Scale Development with 20 conditions of approval. A couple of which do require Planning Commission determination. Planning Commission Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 15 determination of off site improvements. Staff is recommending the construction of a 6' sidewalk at the right of way of Huntsville Road through the proposed drive and then payment of $1,215 in lieu of installation of a 6' sidewalk adjacent to Huntsville Road. Planning Commission determination of a variance in the parkland dedication. As I mentioned, by ordinance with any development over 100 units the developer is required to dedicate parkland for that project. In this case, parkland is being dedicated, simply not the entire amount for 114 units. The difference will be paid and that is $13,829. The Parks and Recreation Board did recommend that to the Planning Commission and staff is also recommending that. If you have any questions feel free to ask. Ostner: Thank you. Is the applicant present? If you could introduce yourself and give us your comment. Kelso: I'm Jerry Kelso with Crafton, Tull & Associates representing the owners. Jeremy pretty much went over the plans as far as what we want to do here and I will entertain any questions that you may have. We did send notices out to the adjacent property owners and had an on site meeting on Saturday to try to address concerns. Ostner: At this point I will open it up for public comment. If anyone would like to speak please step forward. Corke: I am Alisa Corke and I live on Fairlane. I have for over 15 years. You should have in your packet a letter that I gave to the Planning Commission earlier this week addressing this development. I have been down there for over 15 years and this is the largest development in this area of town in the 15 years that I've been down there. When I talked to the Planning Department earlier this week I had a lot of concerns about questions not asked. A few years ago you may realize that the city turned Huntsville Road into a major thoroughfare. It is a connecting road between Hwy. 265 and Hwy. 71. It is a two lane road without shoulders. It is the only connecting road on that side of town between Hwy. 265 and Hwy. 71. The traffic on that road since opening up that extension has been horrible. I have actually sat longer at the Happy Hollow/Huntsville Road intersection than I have at the Hwy. 265 and Hwy. 45 intersection. If you have ever been down there in the morning, I'm telling you the traffic in this area is worse! Less than two years ago 44 houses were added to the south of this proposed apartment complex. Zero infrastructure improvements were made. Less than three years we have turned this area into a major thoroughfare, added 44 additional homes, keep in mind, this development is only one block from where you are making the new city offices. This is only one block from where you are going to be turning the old Tyson complex into the new city complex. These are some extensive changes to this part of town with zero infrastructure improvements. You Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 16 are looking at a two lane, no shoulder road handling now more traffic than it has ever had in the 15 years I've been down there. You are going to add to that the Police Department, the Fire Depaitinent and the Courts Building. Now 250 plus people. It can't handle it. You are going to have to make some changes down there. I understand from the Planning Department that they are looking at making a change to the intersection of Happy Hollow and Huntsville but that is not going to happen for some time. I was not sure what the time frame is for that. Nobody could tell me what the time frame is for when they are going to be opening up that Fire Station, Police Department, Courts Building. Where you are going to have the emergency signals. You have to have those for the Police and Fire to be able to get out. You are going to dump into that mix another 250 people. Right now the traffic on school mornings, I have had to increase my leave time from my home by almost 30 minutes in the past three years to get through the traffic in that area. The only traffic signal in that area is at the back end of Curtis next to Armstrong on the back side of Happy Hollow Road. I talked to someone who said you can get ingress and egress by going out that traffic signal. The traffic backs up at the intersection of Happy Hollow and Huntsville on school mornings, goes from that old Tyson plant down past the city offices. I'm talking about where Solid Waste is. That is / mile of traffic. You can sit there longer than you can at the Hwy. 265 and Hwy. 45 intersection in the mornings. I think before you dump another 200 people into this neighborhood you need to look at traffic, you need to look at traffic counts, you need to look at some infrastructure improvements, at least get a road with some shoulders or a road with some turn lanes. Ingress and egress from this complex is going to be 1/2 a block from one of the two ingresses and egresses to Huntsville Road. That is Curtis. You are looking at a major ingress and egress from Curtis 'h block down. You are going to have Curtis 1/2 block, this five building apartment complex, go a block and you have the Happy Hollow intersection where you are going to have your new city offices. I think you need to seriously look at these traffic issues because you are basically going to traffic lock everybody that lives in the loop of Huntsville and Happy Hollow. We are already in pretty bad traffic situations down there and you are going to basically traffic lock us in the mornings. Don't forget that there is a funeral home across the road from your new city offices. Can you imagine what the nightmare is going to be if school is letting out, you have a funeral going on, which has happened many times, and you suddenly have a fire. You can't imagine what a nightmare it would be down there. I think you need to take a step back, look at these traffic issues, get some of these issues addressed before you pull another 200 or 250 people down into that area. Thank you. Ostner: Would anyone else like to speak to this issue from the public? Seeing none, I will close it to public comment and bring it back to the Commission for questions. I have a question before I get to Ms. Corke's Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 17 issues. On page 6.1 in our report it says this development will have 174 bedrooms. It goes on to say the minimum parking spaces allowed is one per bedroom and that means 122 spaces are required. I guess I'm not understanding the 50 space discrepancy. Pate: Per our ordinance they can go 30% under or over the required parking which allows for a minimum of 122 parking spaces. Anthes: You show your detention area but not everything is draining toward that detention area. Can you explain how that is going to work about the land that looks like it is going to end up on adjacent properties? Kelso: There is drainage from adjacent properties that we are taking around the site in a ditch. Everything that is under roof and everything that is in the parking lot will get into that detention pond. Anthes: Are you creating a ditch on the property line? Kelso: Yes, it would be on the east side of the property. That will collect off site flows and veer it around the site so that we can detain everything that is on the site with the impervious areas. Anthes: Mr. O'Neal, have you reviewed that and are you comfortable with that? O'Neal: Yes Ma'am. Myres: I have some of the same concerns that the neighbors do about increasing the number of cars in that area. I used to live right up the hill. Even three or four years ago it was a challenge sometimes to get out onto Huntsville Road. The problem, as I understand it, is that it is a state highway and the city has no teeth to demand or require or ask for the kind of improvements that that road needs and has needed for some time. I don't know exactly what to suggest or if there is a suggestion about getting that road improved sometime so that we are a little proactive for a change instead of being reactive. We have had this issue coming up several times with some of the developments that have gone on further out Huntsville closer to Elkins where we are consistently approving developments that add more and more traffic to that road. I don't know exactly what kind of solution there is to it. There needs to be something done but I'm not sure that this body or this city can make the necessary changes. Pate: I would just mention that your aldermen and your City Administration are working extremely hard in trying to get the State to do improvements. Gregg Avenue is one street that had significant street issues with traffic getting north and south. That is something that the City Administration and the City Council along with the University, talked to the State about in Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 18 Kelso: trying to bump up those improvements on the list as much as possible. That is something that we can try to do. I am sure those discussions are taking place. Parts of Huntsville are also being discussed as part of the street bond program and I think that is part of the improvements that we are looking at with regard to that. It is definitely in the forefront of all of our minds as well. I believe in the CIP in the next year or so that there are proposed intersection improvements at Huntsville and Happy Hollow which would also probably coincide relatively closely to the city's moving in to the Tyson Complex. That is probably going to be something that we will see in the near future for street improvements in this area. I definitely take the citizen's comments very seriously. As we approve developments that aren't directly fronting onto Hwy. 16 but further out east that do utilize Hwy. 16 as a major corridor. That is why it is considered one of our primary arterials in the city is that it is an important east/west connection. I will say this, we do have access to Hwy. 16. We also have direct access to Fairlane which is a curb and gutter street that takes you directly to Happy Hollow. Folks do go around that way also. There are other ways to get in and out of this piece of property. Clark: I have to laugh at that one. I live out there. It is going to be terrible. It already is terrible. There is just no easy solution to this. I feel for the neighbors because I am one of the neighbors. I am going to have to drive that street with all of the other folks as well. As we discussed in Subdivision, this is a use by right for this property. It is zoned properly. Traffic is a concern but I can't document that it is going to be a grid lock. I can't document that it is going to be enough to stop this development. I do hope the city looks at whatever they can do. I think it is hysterical that the city offices are about to move into the old Tyson Complex with traffic as bad as it is going to be. At least I will have some company in my pain as I try to fight my way up to city hall when I have to come. There is no way around it. This is going to compound an already bad situation but I don't know that it is bad enough to stop this development. Myres: Assuming this is approved and it goes under construction, how long do you suspect it is going to be before this is actually built? Kelso: I would say within twelve months. Myres: So we have a one year window. Allen: Being the kind of self appointed Fire Marshal during the last few meetings, how far is the closest existing fire station to this development approximately? Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 19 Pate: The one on Crossover by Hyland Park is probably the closest. Allen: Pate: When we discussed this at Subdivision you gave a very good explanation about the fire response time and I thought in case others had shared my concern that it would be worthwhile offering that explanation again. The Fayetteville Fire Department does have a service expansion policy. A lot of times when we are reviewing annexations we look at a fire response time. That is what we have asked the Fire Department to calculate for the city when the city is growing. This particular piece of property is developing, not necessarily expanding the city limits, but it is developing and providing more units and more percentage of a service area that will within one or two years be populated. That is one of the criteria that the fire station utilizes when assessing needs for a new fire station. Fire Station # 7 for example, Planning Staff recently did some calculations and presented them to the City Council at our annexation strategy meeting. Our calculations indicated that Fire Station #7 was exactly on target with the number of units and the timing. That is done in a number of different ways. I don't want to get overly complicated and I will get this document to you as well. Essentially on a service area, which I believe is about 12 square miles or a 2 '/ mile radius, there are a number of criteria that cause trigger points. Utilizing density for example, if zero to 10% of the calls occur outside of the district of the covering company that is potential triggering point for monitoring that area to look for land potentially to purchase. Say 30% of the calls within an area exceed six minutes or 10% of the calls exceed eight minutes or 5% of the calls exceed 10 minutes that is the threshold for which a new fire station is needed immediately. They have a number of different things. There are eleven different things that they actually utilize in their criteria. Not just service response time. While we look at annexation and growth in general, more population within the city limits, response times is one of the criteria by which the Fire Department looks at responding to an area. Population of that 12 square mile area is another one. If it is only 10% populated and they have 12 or 18 minute response times. That is not necessarily bad because the traffic numbers aren't nearly as bad because population density is not as great. Once it gets more populated they will still have those higher response times however, you start seeing that threshold creek nearer and nearer. I use Fire Station #7. Based on our calculations that we did, it took 28 years for that fire station. For the population area in that general vicinity to reach critical mass where a new fire station was needed. It is not going to take another 28 years obviously. We are growing much more rapidly than we were in the past and probably the past five years really pushed us to that level. Emergency personnel are all criteria that we use to evaluate these developments. This will go right into the mix on the numbers to increase street infrastructure, so it gets back to street improvements in that area, and our ability to let our state representatives Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 20 Allen: know and those that deal with AHTD know that there are needed improvements in that area to allow for those emergency response times to stay at a minimum level. I just feel that is relevant information for the Commission to have and information for our citizens so that they have a better understanding of how that develops. Thank you. Vaught: Staff, have they ever looked at a light at the other end of Curtis on Huntsville Road? I know there is one coming out the end on 15th Street. Pate: Not that I'm aware of. Vaught: I didn't know if Huntsville intersection will be signalized in the future or if there is another way. This isn't a large area that is inside this little circle but it is pretty high density. I didn't know if in the future there were plans or things that were looked at for possible aiding access in and out of that corridor that the lady was speaking about. Pate: I would imagine that 15th, which turns into Happy Hollow there is probably the prime candidate in that area for a light. Again, the State Highway Department has a lot of control on where they would allow lights. We have to look at the spacing distance but I think the spacing from Crossover Road would be adequate in that area. Anthes: To follow up on Commissioner Vaught's question, I'm looking at the lot/block configuration on page 6.12 and comparing this when we think about build out and density to other parts of town even up on the upper left hand side of this same map. You can see that the distance between streets is pretty far and that there are no other east/west connectors shown so that necessitates having to go out to 15th and Huntsville, which is a tough situation. Has our Master Street Plan addressed this area and do we need to allow for additional east/west movement? Compounded on that question is that lots of other subdivisions adding 100 plus units might require a stub out to accommodate that. Have you looked at that on this site? Pate: On this particular site we haven't because a public street is not proposed in this area. It would likely be too close with this type of development off of 15th the way that this area is developing with arterial streets. Huntsville is I believe a minor arterial, 15th is a minor or principal arterial. In that way the Master Street Plan addresses the area to increase the capacity of traffic going east and west. Other than that, there are no other streets proposed in this area based on the Master Street Plan. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 21 Anthes: You just stated the reason why parking lots that are streets that are parking lots don't really work because they don't contribute to the city's grid. It is much better to build an internal street to be shared and used so that you have multiple outlets. I look at this and this is a lot of people to go one of two directions with no possible way to connect into a lateral movement at a future time. Vaught: On that, I think that as a Commission we have a responsibility. Especially property to the west, Fairlane Street, we need connections over to Morningside Drive. I think that would help facilitate. As land comes through in the future we can possible develop that. That might be something we can discuss when we look at the Master Street Plan issues or make suggestions to the City Council. I know we are taking that up this year. Somehow making some more east/west connections inside that loop. At least one I would think would definitely help facilitate the traffic in this whole area. Especially since there is a lot of RMF -24 inside of this circle. I think that is something that we need to take up this year or make a recommendation to City Council on that. Ostner: There are several other determinations that we are supposed to look at. Determination of off site improvements. Staff recommends constructing a 6' sidewalk. Condition number three, we need to determine a variance in the parkland dedication. Is there any discussion about those items? Vaught: Pate: Ostner: Kelso: Does Fairlane have sidewalks along this property? Yes it does. Staff, there is some mention, some issue from the neighbors about the height of this building be three story. I believe most of the apartment buildings that I have seen are two story in this town. Can you elaborate as to the reason why? Our thought was by going three stories we are able to reduce the building footprint and allow for more green space on this piece of property. We had a layout with just two stories but you lose a lot of green space that make these sites more attractive allowing us to put more landscaping and things like that in. The Crowne at Razorback are all three stories and those are all very good looking buildings. That would be comparable to the type of development. Ostner: Are these going to look like the Crowne? Kelso: No, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that those are three stories and these will be three stories. Those are really nice buildings. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 22 Ostner: I know that is one discussion that has come up in the past is that we don't have commercial design standards for multi -family apartment buildings. When an issue like this comes up it would be nice if we had a look at what we are talking about but our rules don't require anything like that right now. Anthes: Staff, can you read the list of rules for Large Scale Developments particularly as they pertain to traffic? Pate: The Planning Commission may refuse to approve a Large Scale Development for any of the following six reasons: The development plan is not submitted in accordance with the requirements of this section; The proposed development would violate a city ordinance or state statute or a federal statute; The developer refuses to dedicate the street right of way, utility easements or drainage easements required by this chapter; The proposed development would create or compound a dangerous traffic condition. For the purpose of this section a dangerous traffic condition shall be construed to mean a traffic condition in which the risk of accidents involving motor vehicles is significant due to factors such as, but not limited to, high traffic volume, topography or the nature of the traffic pattern; City water and sewer is not readily available to the property within the Large Scale Development and the developer has made no provision for extending such service to the development; The developer refuses to comply with subsections B and C pertaining to required offsite and on site site improvements. Those B and C are typically our recommendations to the Planning Commission for off site improvements that are not directly on the property. Based on those six criteria, this is where staff's recommendation comes from with the conditions of approval that you have listed, we feel it is appropriate for this development to be approved because it does meet those criteria. Anthes: Mr. Whitaker, my confusion is that where this northern end of the parking lot ties into Huntsville Road and the curb cut there it appears that there is some pretty steep topography and it is turning out onto a street that we know is already heavily congested and there is not many other lateral connections. What methods do we have to evaluate that accurately? Can we request a traffic study? What can we do to be sure that the visibility at that corner is good? That the safety of pulling out onto Huntsville Road is good there? Whitaker: To be honest with you, I don't know that the law addresses that. It may be more appropriate to ask staff what mechanisms are available to you if you need more information. You can certainly always make a request for more information if you feel like you don't have enough to make a decision. I don't think the law addresses specifically what you can request. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 23 Kelso: I can address that. Typically, according to design standards we can do an analysis of the sight triangles with the plans that we submit to Engineering to be sure that there is adequate stopping sight distance. We will do that. Pate: I would further add that because it is a State highway, the State Highway Department does have to approve any plans for improvements or access onto that right of way as well so that is another review that Fairlane for instance, won't receive because it is not a State highway. City Engineers will review that, and they are extremely competent to review those and we do everyday. There is one further level of review to determine if it is a safe sight distance when you are considering access onto Huntsville Road. Anthes: I wish I had that report in front of me now and I wish I understood the sight distances now. We are saying that we approve this and when we say that we believe that we are not compounding a dangerous traffic condition. I don't know that I feel good enough to say that at this moment. When I look at the number of contour lines at the mouth of where this meets Huntsville Road and without any kind of report. Kelso: Anytime you do a permit for the Highway Department they require you to look at sight distances. That is typical with any driveway for a State highway. Anthes: Have you made that application? Kelso: We have to get approval from you first. Ostner: Mr. Pate, on Shiloh Drive we approved a commercial office building a few months ago, that is the one where their curb cut was nearby the off ramp to I-540. We had a traffic report by a third party. It was very helpful in explaining the situation. I am leaning towards agreeing with Commissioner Anthes. I don't even know the questions to ask for the applicant to provide me next time. I'm not qualified to even come up with the list of things that I need. How did that traffic report come to be? Pate: With that situation there was a waiver request from our design standards with regard to distances from curb cuts. We evaluated that, had requested their engineer to evaluate it. We disagreed and therefore, requested a third party to evaluate that. In those situations where we do find a case where there is a potential waiver request or variance request from our own standards and it is a State highway that would be our trigger point to say maybe you need a third party to evaluate this situation. In this case, in our visit to the site and our review, we didn't see that as a trigger point to have a full blown traffic study done. Ostner: What time of day did you visit the site? Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 24 Pate: Honestly I can't tell you. My staff has visited a couple of times. I visited to look at trees at least once. It has been a couple of times. Ostner: My visits in this area when I've driven by have been in the off hours from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 in the afternoon. It is very safe. It is desolate. It is like a local street and then it is an absolute river at certain hours. It is disproportionate. I'm not trying to grill the staff, I was just curious on whether you all had visited during the peak times and seen the real problems. Pate: The Planning Commission visited it at 5:00 on Thursday in our van. There weren't significant problems for us. Allen: Jeremy, can you explain to me the specific criteria that staff uses to determine whether or not a project creates a safety hazard with traffic problems. Pate: I don't think there is anything specific. We do look at a number of things like sight distances. If there is an obvious instance where you are pulling out turning and you can not see traffic going 55 miles per hour when you are pulling out. That is a criteria that we would use to say, maybe not necessarily that the drive cannot be permitted there, but what methods could be used to mitigate the circumstances. We do recommend an access to Huntsville Road. Limiting entire access to Fairlane I don't believe is appropriate for this development either. We would definitely recommend another connection to Huntsville Road in this case. Other instances are if for instance, the traffic condition has gotten to the point that it is a river all the time we would recommend maybe a right out only. That is an option so you will have a right in and right out. That is a traffic control device that would not allow for a left hand turn. In some cases large developments warrant traffic signals and we have seen particular cases where contributions and assessments have been made for traffic signals in the area. There are quite a few criteria to look at and each case is really specific. Allen: I just wondered because it is difficult for us to ascertain whether or not an area is a danger. Pate: Honestly you have to depend on staff a lot for that. We have reviewed these plans for 40 days now that we have had this in process. We have taken a lot of the situations on this and are making our recommendations based on staff engineers and our planners' expertise. Graves: I have one question that may be a fine distinction. On this traffic criteria I'm concerned that maybe there is an idea that you can sort of use it as a Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 25 back door way around zoning. I think zoning that you are looking at density. The criteria that you read a minute ago you are looking at the development. Not the number of people, but the way that the footprint is laid out, does that create a traffic problem. That is my understanding. Whitaker: I think that is a fair interpretation. Pate: This property is allowed to develop at 24 units per acre as long as they don't create or compound a dangerous traffic condition. Anthes: I don't have a problem with the density on this property. It is by right. I'm worried about the way in and way out and the traffic pattern in the general area. There aren't any other roads. I'm worried about the fact that we have adjacent lots that I can see here on the north end of this property. One owned by Barbara and Don Wilson and one by Sylvia and Lonnie McClelland that look like single family homes that I'm assuming have driveways that face onto Huntsville Road in very close proximity to this driveway. We usually are looking for a separation of 200' on a road like Huntsville Road and we are inserting one in these three very close together. I'm a little dismayed that the street through this development is actually a parking lot rather than a street and therefore, we can't look at stub outs for future street connections that may help alleviate the problem. It is a matter of how this development is configured is why I'm asking the question, not density. Ostner: I would concur. My issues aren't with the density. Graves: I wasn't trying to accuse anybody of anything. I think you take the piece of property as you find it and you take the zoning as you find it and so I'm just making sure that we are not looking at how this property is laid out and how it is zoned and that we are truly looking at the development itself. There are certain access things that they can't control because of the way that this piece of property comes. It has already got that zoning attached to it. Ostner: If Huntsville had a turn lane at the intersection in my mind I would feel more secure. There is no traffic study and I'm not qualified to know whether that would help or if it even matters. That is where I'm concerned. Vaught: Can we even require a turn lane onto Huntsville since it is a State highway? I don't know if that would be the best situation. I think you three laned the whole thing. Just doing a turn lane in front of this particular addition wouldn't be as beneficial as having one on Curtis Avenue I think. There are multiple access points out of this development. There is some level of connectivity. You have Fairlane that takes you to Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 26 Happy Hollow. You have Curtis that will take you to 15th and you have a direct access to Huntsville or you have a few other accesses to Curtis and Huntsville. That is why I was asking about the light on Huntsville Road to one of those. I know that is not something that the state loves on their State highways, especially if there is going to be one at Crossover in the near future. To me the way this site is laid out, I agree with staff that access is adequate. Is it ideal? Probably not but nothing in this area is ideal currently. We are trying to get there. We have long range plans. A lot of our improvements are dependent on future development. That is how we fund them. I do know, and I'm not sure if staff knows, are some of the Huntsville Road improvements fronting this property or further east? I think they are further east that will help the intersection of Happy Hollow through Crossover and then on out where a lot of the huge problems are to me. A lot of people will cut up north at Crossover and a lot of people will cut down to 15th and take that down. I know a lot of people will drive Huntsville Road. My family lived out this way for years and I've seen it grow. This is probably the least congested portion of Huntsville Road currently if we can say that. Like you said, it flows with the peaks and valleys. I know there is congestion as bad as this in a number of neighborhoods in Fayetteville that we continue to develop in. That is not something that is a concern of mine I tend to agree with staff that this development and the conditions that it has does not compound or create a dangerous traffic condition. It is not an ideal situation but nothing in this area is currently ideal. We have better development of roads but I don't know if that is something that this development can necessarily fix. We just don't want to make it worse. It is unfortunate where we are at right now. Ostner: Mr. O'Neal, do you have any information on the scheduled CIP improvements, where they are occurring. O'Neal: The one I do have some knowledge of is the intersection of Happy Hollow and Huntsville. It has been designed and it has been back to the State for a final comment There is a light at that intersection. The intersection is being redesigned where Hwy. 16 comes from 15th Street up to Happy Hollow will be the through street and traffic going west onto Huntsville will have to make a turn onto Huntsville. Ostner: Did you mention that Happy Hollow is actually Hwy. 16? O'Neal: As far as I know at that point it is. Ostner: The intersection will be reconfigured to a big curve taking westbound people on Hwy. 16, turning them south onto Happy Hollow, feeding them onto 15th and there will be a smaller intersection. I think that is important. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 27 15th is built to handle a lot of people. There is a wide right of way that turns to a four lane street west of Hwy. 71. I think it is very appropriate. Anthes: One final question, if we have a rule where we are looking for 200' separation on streets with classifications like Huntsville is that correct? Pate: That is only in the Design Overlay District. Anthes: Then is it 150' everywhere else? Pate: Itis 60'. Anthes: Are we within 60' of the driveways of these adjacent properties? It just looks very close on here. Vaught: Kelso: Anthes: Pate: Anthes: MOTION: Trumbo: Lack: I believe the property to the east accesses Sherman Avenue. It is close to 200' separation. What about the house to the west on McClelland? I'm not aware of where that one is based on this information. It looks to be approximately 50' to the middle of the lot. The applicant states that the driveway is to the west of that. That is something that you will look at about the precise alignment of this drive. That's all that I have. Commissioner Anthes brought up a great point about the safety and the contour of the opening to Huntsville Road. I agree. That is something from what I understand, the Highway Department will have to evaluate and approve that. They are the ones that are going to decide whether this intersection is safe or not. To the neighborhoods, I understand. Every part of Fayetteville is like this. We sit up here week after week after week and hear the same complaints of traffic, traffic, traffic. I think that staff and the city is doing everything that they can to keep up with it. It is a slow process. Hopefully they will catch up. It sounds like everybody understands Huntsville Road is a major area of concern. However, having said that, I don't feel that adding more inconvenience is enough reason not to approve this project so I am going to make a motion that we approve LSD 05-1542 with the findings in agreement with staff's conditions two and three. Second. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 28 Ostner: Allen: Ostner: Is there further discussion? I would like to add that I am going to vote against this. I do not feel that I have enough information. I would like a traffic study. I think this is potentially a good development. I don't feel secure in approving it in the state of the drawings I see in front of me. I am going to take the very opposite point of view of what you just said. I feel like barring a traffic study, which I also wish we had, that I am going to depend upon our staff's recommendations and will vote for the project. Is there further comment? Could you call the roll please? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to approve LSD 05-1542 was approved by a vote of 8-1 with Commissioner Ostner voting no. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 29 Ostner: The next item on our agenda is R-PZD 05-1463 for Oakbrooke. Pate: This is Phase I of Oakbrooke PZD subdivision. It is located west of Rupple Road east of Bridgeport Phase II. The property is currently split zoned RSF-1, Residential Single Family, one unit per acre and RSF-4, Residential Single Family, four units per acre. It is part of an island that was annexed in the Summer of 2004. The property contains approximately 21 acres. The request is to approve a Residential PZD with 68 single family lots to consist of attached and unattached dwelling units. The property is currently mainly large and open pasture developed as one single family residence. There is a draw that contains quite a few significant oak trees that drains to the north. This area was incorporated into the City of Fayetteville in August, 2004 with the annexation of islands of county property within the city. There is a natural drainage feature within the site that is shown as your open space and tree preservation area as well as general detention area which drains to the north. The majority of the tree canopy on this site exists in this area and staff has worked with the applicant diligently to find a plan that staff could recommend for approval of a majority of the tree canopy as well. There are a number of different criteria under which this particular application falls for a PZD. The proposed use of the site is for single family development with traditional American style bungalows and American tutor style houses according to the information presented to staff'. All lots will have a front building setback that is actually a build to line that all homes must build to with either the front of their house or porch stoop or something that nature. No shared driveways are proposed. Instead, all driveways are proposed to be constructed as two narrow strips of concrete for access and detached garages are proposed on most of the lots. Of the 68 lots 58 are to be single family detached units and the remaining 10 lots on the eastern portion of the property may be constructed as either single family detached or town homes with either two or three attached units Each of these 10 lots will have rear alley access as opposed to accessing from the front. This is an alley that is 20' wide with a 12' access road. Surrounding land use includes primarily single family and agricultural. To the north is Bridgeport Phase VIII as well as an undeveloped piece of property. To the south is Bellwood Subdivision which is under construction. To the east is a single family home and pasture and a portion of the Phase II property for this subdivision. West is another phase of Bridgeport as well. You can see on pages 7.2 and 7.3 the different zoning criteria by which this applicant is requesting this zoning. That includes Use Units such as Cultural and Recreational Facilities, Single Family Dwellings, Two and Three Family Dwellings and Home Occupations. Some of those units are specific to certain lots as noted on the plat and in the staff report. Lot width and lot area minimums are also located as well as land area per dwelling unit are in your staff report as well. Setback requirements vary. As I mentioned, there is a build to line on most of the front setbacks in which all of the Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 30 buildings must be constructed. At the time of permitting that is the time at which we would enforce those regulations based on the approved zoning and development plan approved by the City Council. A maximum of 56.5' height requirement will allow for three story structures. This is likely on either the single family detached or the other developments which would be the 10 lots of attached units. Water and sewer lines are being extended to serve the development and there is access from New Bridge Road to the north, two points of connection to the south with the stub outs for Bellwood Subdivision as well as a Rupple Road connection, which is a minor arterial. Staff is recommending several conditions of approval for this project. We are recommending that this be forwarded to the City Council with a recommendation for approval with 26 conditions. There was some comment at Subdivision Committee and some significant discussion primarily centering onto access into the open space and tree preservation area. You can see on condition number one, Planning Commission determination of appropriate access to the available open space within the subdivision. Staff is recommending that that particular open space lot be provided with two points of pedestrian access. We have given indication of where we would recommend those points of access be. They coincide with utility easements that are required to go through these lots. This access will allow pedestrian access only, no vehicular access, with a sidewalk or a trail from the street to the open space. While this is intended to be an open space and tree preservation area, as indicated in the latest correspondence from the applicant, staff feels that this area of mature tree canopy should still be enjoyed by area residents from this neighborhood and should not be entirely blocked off with the creation of lots. We do not recommend, and the Parks and Recreation Board did not recommend that this area is suitable for a public park. However, it is to be utilized by the neighborhood for private, passive recreation and to comply with the tree preservation ordinance for this particular development. There are three waiver requests from the city's street design standards. As you know, with PZDs we often see different types of design and in this particular case there are three waivers, primarily for the radius of streets. One is 100', one is 75', one is a jog between two streets at 98'. The required minimum is 150'. Also, there is a Planning Commission determination of off site assessments, which the assessment number was modified at the agenda session. Staff recommends that the developer be assessed for future construction of a bridge on Rupple Road in the amount of $4,625.68 for the 68 lots. The previous number indicated the full two phases of the subdivision. Additionally, the developer is required to pay an assessment in the amount of $4,749 for improvements along the frontage of Rupple Road. Again, those fees will go to the city in order to improve this street in the future. Staff is also recommending one off site improvement, all other improvements are on site. The intersection of New Bridge Road and Street "A" to include the widening of the constructed portion of Street "A" from a 24' wide street to a 28' wide street. There is Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 31 a small section of street that was stubbed out in this particular location by the developers of Bridgeport Subdivision that was stubbed out as a 24' wide cross section within a 50' right of way. This developer is proposing a 28' wide street, which is conducive to the development that he is proposing. However, it would essentially narrow down to a 24' wide street at that intersection. Staff feels that this would not be an appropriate situation and finds that this meets the rough proportionality test for the developer to contribute for an off site improvement. I believe the rest of the conditions we can address if you would like. There are some revisions that will need to occur to the plat before staff will put this on the agenda for City Council. There is a very quick turn around. Those revisions will have to be sent up on Friday morning should this be approved. Those revisions will need to occur prior to that deadline for us to put this on the City Council agenda. With that, we are recommending approval. Ostner: Will the applicant step forward, introduce yourself and give us your presentation? Milholland: I'm Melvin Milholland with Milholland Engineering representing the owner. Mr. Tracy Hoskins is here as the owner tonight. I would like to say in regard to several of the conditions of approval, that the developer concurs with 21 of the conditions of approval with the exceptions of the following: #13 where it talks about where the buildings will be sitting along the front building setback line. We would like to think that there is some flexibility in that. We will do that wherever possible. There may be a time or two where we can't, but just for clarification, we would like to say when possible on that. #5, the street off of New Bridge is not even a year old yet. This body approved that subdivision and staff recommended it. The back of curb, that short section which is 100 some odd feet that goes onto this property was constructed at 24'. We are looking at a 28' street here tonight. My client offers to the city that he will have his construction company construct the widening of the street but doesn't feel like he should come in after a brand new street is constructed, it was an over sight on someone's part evidently, and put his money in to widen the street for that 100'. We would like that to be considered tonight also. The third item has to do with the large tract that has the trees on it and detention ponds. Items 1, 11, 16 and 17 all relate to the tree preservation and detention pond area. We would like to address those items tonight. Mr. Hoskins may have something to say on his behalf'. Also, at Subdivision level we did discuss this item fairly thoroughly about whether this is private land or public land, who has the liability on it, if it remains in tact as private ownership by Mr. Hoskins and staff is wanting to put several access points to it for public use. This is not a public park. Parks did not accept it. Mr. Hoskins had said over and over if the Parks Board wants it he will be glad to give a deed to it and let the city take responsibility for it. He doesn't want people walking across his land. It is Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 32 a large tree preservation. The city's preservation group decided they wanted it because there are some valuable trees. We agree with that. Parks didn't think it was suitable for a park. We don't agree with that. We feel that they should try to work together to not cost the developers an enormous amount of money. It is an enormous amount of money for trees and for parks today. The value normally lately of .25 acres per lot is fairly expensive when you take into consideration the cost of the land and developing around it. Item one refers to making it a park or having access points for pedestrian access and Mr. Hoskins commented at Subdivision level. You should have comments with regard to what he said. Item number eleven on the conditions of approval says again that Lot 69 needs to be reserved as open space and tree preservation on which no use unit is permitted. There are options to that. I think in the overall scope here tonight, is it fair to cause a developer to have to preserve trees, pay a large amount of money for the few they knock out and then tax them for a piece of land that the city's Parks Board doesn't want for people to walk across. It is a beautiful piece of land. We respectfully request this Committee to consider this tonight. If nothing else, at least discuss if it is fair to do that. Whether it is legal, I'm not an attorney, but is it fair to the investors in this town to have to do that? I personally as an engineer think it is too far and something should give on this one. Number 16 says note number four to be modified, we agree with that. The second part says to include a number on the detention pond so it is a part of the overall detention pond and tree preservation. Number 17, which also relates to this particular lot, it says the lot reserved for open space and tree conservation shall be the responsibility of the POA. To my knowledge, Mr. Hoskins has not set this up for that purpose. To dictate to him that he would have to do this, I don't know whether that is permissible or not, but that is something to discuss. The open space and tree preservation lot should be designated by a lot number, that has already been said in the above items. Therefore, we are here to answer any questions that we can. The members on the Subdivision Committee were very kind and genuine and discussed it very thoroughly and they probably have as much information as I do for you in answer to your questions. We have a presentation of that large lot in the middle where the trees are. That is labeled as Lot 69. This is actually the whole area for Phase I and Phase II shown. Mr. Hoskins has some pictures of houses similar to the types of homes to be built in that area. Thank you. Ostner: At this point I am going to open it to public comment if anyone would like to come forward and give us your name and share your comments. Upchurch: My name is Ben Upchurch. I'm representing Bridgeport POA. I'm the president of that association for this year. I'm representing multiple people who have approached me about this development kind of unsure of exactly what is going on. I'm pleased to hear so far tonight that it does Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 33 sound fairly attractive. However, the concern that has been expressed to me is the ten lots that could be two or three attached units each on these lots. The concern there is for the high potential for multi -family housing, that this could be rental or leased out housing. I know it sounds like it is going to be a condominium or town home type development which sounds good. Our concern is that we want to keep continuity. What is located between Rupple Road, 51s` Street and to the north and south, we would like to see it stay single family homes instead of attached units. The second concern of the POA is the congestion that is currently on New Bridge which will connect Bridgeport Subdivision to Oak Brooke. Right now we have gone through several studies with the city that have addressed our connection onto New Bridge which connects the eastern and western end of our neighborhood. We are not to the point yet from what we understand from the city, that it is going to require more stop signs or traffic calming devices but any additional traffic on that street will set that trigger to require more traffic calming devices. Those are our two main concerns and we just want to express that. We are all in favor of more growth in that area, more services, but we definitely want to stay away from multi -family housing in that section and any type of restricted access in the future to New Bridge Road is what we would like to see. Ostner: Would anyone else like to speak about this? Thompson: My name is Elaine Thompson, I'm a resident in the Bridgeport Subdivision on the eastern side of the Bridgeport Subdivision. As he just mentioned, I would like to keep single family dwellings in that subdivision and I would prefer not to have any multi -family in that area. It is a nice subdivision and I shudder to think what could happen if we put in multi- family units. Arling: I'm Steve Arling, a resident in the Bridgeport development as well. I support what Ben Upchurch has said about the concerns that the POA has. Personally, some of the concerns that I have is with the way that the development is laid out with the limited access for the traffic and the additional housing will just cause more congestion. There are a lot of children along this main road. There is a pool there so a lot of children are going across a lot of the time. Keeping it as single family keeps the numbers down so we don't have as many people coming through with the traffic. There is only one access now so there is only one way to go. That could be a concern not only for traffic congestion but also for any kind of fire safety or access for the Fire Department as well. My concern is to keep it as single family. The current zoning does limit the number of houses so it makes it a little bit more conducive to some of us in that area. Upchurch: Just very briefly, that is one point I didn't hit strong enough on. The traffic congestion on New Bridge, our POA did this spring open a Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 34 community pool. There are 220 homes in our neighborhood that use this pool. This pool is on New Bridge Road. I just want you to really look strongly at the traffic congestion increase along this road. Helmer: I am Bill Helmer, the developer of the Bridgeport Subdivision. We just built that Phase of Bridgeport that connects to this and I would ask that whatever widening they are going to do is addressed to our satisfaction before they go into construction. Also, Ms. King has asked me to address a couple of issues that she has. It has to do basically with the street stub out that comes onto her property. I don't know how this can be worked out because you are only looking at Phase I tonight. She would much rather have that stub out come out in Phase II which would bring it further east on her property and would allow that connection to be more towards the middle between the connection that we now have and Rupple Road if that could be worked out. Ostner: Could you be specific which stub out you are talking about again? Helmer: The stub out for Street "C". Thank you. Ostner: Is there further public comment? I am going to close the public comment session and bring it back to the Commission. Anthes: I would like to get some clarification on the parkland dedication issue. Matt, can you fill us in on the decision? Mihalovec: Yes, as they mentioned, the Parks Board did recommend money in lieu on this project. Some of the reasons behind that were the location of Red Oak Park to the west. This graphic shows circles. What we look at is 'h mile radius, which is the national standard for walking distance and the goal is to have a park within walking distance of all neighborhoods. As you can see on the graphic, Red Oak park is within that circle and additionally, Bryce Davis park to the southeast is on this plan to have an expansion of 19 acres to have a total of 28 acres of parkland in that location, which is on the fringe of that 'A mile radius that I mentioned. For those reasons, and I would also like to add that the developer submitted a letter recommending in the beginning that they wanted to pay money in lieu. That is another issue. We went with the developer's recommendation on this. Anthes: Is there anything about this piece of property, the topography or the way it is configured or anything like that that weighs in that decision? Mihalovec: It can. Especially when we find that we really needed a park in that area, it would especially start to come into play there. Primarily, we already established that we didn't really need one in this area so we didn't go Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 35 Vaught: Mihalovec: Pate: Vaught: Pate: further looking at topography as much. I think it might be suitable. Also, we did agree with Planning condition one for access, we felt like that should be part of the PZD as far as open space but not as much park. You work together with a developer if you are going to have parkland on a piece of property don't you usually work together to identify the portion that you want or do they normally call out sections? When I am looking at this, the portion called out here is basically a big ditch. I don't know that that would be ideal for a parkland if most of the park is ditch. Is that something you guys specified you thought would be the best portion for open space or is that something that maybe the developer working for tree preservation looked toward specifying? It was considered as tree preservation area. That is a primary area. There are 40" to 50" oaks in this area and we felt that it was very high priority specimen trees in this location and it is a high priority to save those where possible and this is a design alternative presented by the developer to have an open space not necessarily utilized for anything except for detention purposes and to establish the preexisting drainage to allow these trees to continue to exist in the environment that they are. Staff, typically with a PZD and a RPZD we see covenants. How come we don't see covenants with this? There have been a couple of RPZDs we made them identify the footprints of the different structures on the lot. This one is too big for that but I would have expected to at least see covenants specifying building materials. By Final Plat those will definitely need to be addressed. The City Attorney's office actually reviews those for legal matters. At the time of Final Plat when we see those covenants in their final form. At times we do see a preliminary form at this juncture. We are really trying to get away from a lot of that because the zoning issues that the Planning Commission and City Council need to deal with really need to be on the plat as opposed to some covenants that are difficult to enforce. That is why we, as staff, in our staff report, identified the building height, the lot widths, minimum areas, everything of that nature with regard to zoning and development of the property. You see the development plan before you so that is really what we are trying to tie this down to. The same thing with the new PZD ordinances that will hopefully get approved, it will help to more conveniently locate everything on the plans and with the documents submitted so that we won't have to rely on the covenants so much. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 36 Vaught: The information provided reminds me more of the new ordinance just in building setbacks, some of the hard facts and not typically what we have seen so that is why I was curious at that point. Anthes: I have a couple of follow ups to the parks presentation. How do you propose to treat the backs of Lots 39 through 68 that face that tree preservation area? Milholland: That gets into the development of the house and yard area. Mr. Hoskins could more adequately address that. Anthes: I am referring to a couple of other RPZDs that we have seen in the past that face onto significant stands of either creeks or tree preservation areas that we have asked to maintain vision to those areas by not erecting full board fences to the backs of those properties. Springwoods is one that comes to mind where the residential properties will have an iron fence that have a lot of view from the back property lines so that area that is so special can actually be enjoyed by those residents. Milholland: I understand. There again, those are the covenants of the subdivision and I'm not sure what he is going to do. I do know that we have taken the utilities out of the rear and put them in the front to give the homeowners preservation on this lot. In this case it is a big lot. We are trying to preserve what is there on the home lots as well as the large lot. I am not sure what he has in the covenants for the rear yard. Anthes: Mr. Hoskins, have you thought about what you plan to do there? Hoskins: I'm Tracy Hoskins, the developer. Please restate your question to me, I am not sure I understood it. Anthes: The back property lines of lots 39 through 68 face the open tree preservation area. My question is do you intend to erect a barrier at the fence lines of those properties that would prohibit the view of that beautiful open space or do you plan to do something more open so that people may actually enjoy those spaces? Hoskins: I, the developer, have no intention of erecting anything. The individual home owners may erect their fences, which they have the right to do so. We have not called out in our covenants whether it is going to be a privacy fence or a wrought iron fence. We would assume that would be up to the home owners. We are going to call out some restrictions as far as height, but as far as the visibility through the fence we are going to leave it up to the home owners. I would like to give you a little history on the tree preservation area and would like to make some comments on that. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 37 Anthes: Obviously, the issue here is you would like to leave as green space but the issue here is whether there is going to be a park fee or whether this would be a tree preservation area. Hoskins: My issue is whether we are going to get double dipped or not. Anthes: We say that if you are paying money in lieu which allows you to use this as your tree mitigation landscape preservation area, that totals a payment of $37,740 for Parks fees. Have you calculated what it would cost if that was a city park and you could now no longer use that as a tree preservation area and you would have to plant the mitigation trees or pay money in lieu of those. Have you calculated what that would cost you on this property? Hoskins: We have been through this very issue with administration, etc. We believe that this is part of the ordinance that needs to be worked on. The only thing that we have calculated at this time is if we no longer called it a tree preservation area and just made it one of the residential lots. It would no longer be a tree preservation area, but a very large lot. Our issue is if the city would like to have it as a park take it as a park. We have no problem paying parks fees. In fact, as was said earlier, we actually advocated that to begin with. At the time that we advocated that we didn't have any idea that staff was going to ask us to provide access owned by myself or the POA and incur that liability incase anybody go back there and got hurt, etc. If the property is dedicated to the city as a park then it is the city's problem if somebody gets back there and gets hurt. Anthes: Wouldn't the POA want to provide access to it's own residents to that green space? If it is everything you are saying it to be, I cannot imagine that the people who live on this property would not want access to it and that you would want to inhibit views into it by erecting a barrier. Hoskins: We agree with you. We believe that the city should take it as a park. It is a passive park, you aren't going to play soccer or baseball, but there are passive parks in this town. I believe there is one in Bridgeport to the west. This right here mimics the same type of situation. It is not our intention to close it up, etc., but it is also not our intention to keep home owners from doing what they want with their homes or limiting them in what they do with their homes. We are not saying that people can't have access to this treed area. We are saying that we do not want to provide access, put down a sidewalk and invite the general public to this area. Anthes: I would think that the fact that that land exists it is going to certainly increase the value of lots in that area, particularly 39 through 68. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 38 Hoskins: Anthes: Jefcoat: Anthes: Jefcoat: Anthes: Jefcoat: Anthes: Jefcoat: Anthes: Jefcoat: I don't argue that point at all. We designed the subdivision and dodged that three to four acres of trees purposefully. The city staff did not ask us to do that. I guess if I lived in Lot 10 and I knew that was part of this development, I would really want to get over there. I would think that would be a selling point for the other lots in your development. Therefore, providing some sort of access is bound to be something favorable to help your development to provide that access. I guess I don't see what the big hang- up is about allowing those things in. You are asking a very difficult question to answer. I think that all Mr. Hoskins is looking for is that the access should not be dictated by paved surface or a trail that permits the general public to go in there. If this is going to be a passive recreational area for use of the residents within the subdivision and open space area for residents within this subdivision. I think simply we are asking to leave the access for the people who build there and the POA to decide. There are easements there, drainage easements, give the POA an opportunity to decide how the access will be, how they are going to use this area instead of dictating it to the entire public. It is a piece of property that is going to be owned by the POA so let the POA make those decisions. You are saying that the access points where the drainage structures go are the dedicated easements on this plat? I think the drainage easements, utility easements, are the same access points that city staff is recommending. Those are underground? He just doesn't want paved surface areas to invite anybody to stop and have access to that area. It is one thing for the property owners to have access to that land but it is something else for the entire public. The structures are underground in that area? Yes. The issues are paved surface verses unpaved surface verses a gate? Liability issues. I would think any individual home owner that built with a backyard that faced that area would certainly want to preserve his view and keep it open for his own benefit to some extent. You will notice that those lots are on steep grades. You would be looking right over a 6' fence in any case anyway. If the house develops on the front of those lots, Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 39 which is a build to line, you will be in access of 8' looking into those backyards. Even if there was a privacy fence, you are going to be looking above it. These aren't level lots. I think Mr. Hoskins is saying that he is being double penalized for tree preservation and parks. The tree preservation is entirely much more expensive than the parks fees. That is one reason why he opted for the parks fees. To be double penalized for both trees and parks, neither one of them work together, it is an issue that the city needs to face and address, some way that the two can go into combination. When you have a property of this nature where you have a potential large tree mitigation we are not talking about $33,000. We are talking about $150,000 or $200,000 for developing property of this nature for tree mitigation. That is double penalizing the developer. He is preserving the trees. He is setting this property aside. The only thing he is saying is he is making a point that he is being double penalized. If you are going to make the general public have access to it then take it as a park and don't penalize me for the trees. That issues needs to be addressed. That is an issue beyond this Commission. It is a greater issue than staff can address but he is making the point that it does need to be addressed. He is simply saying that if this is open space it should be for the use of the POA for the residents that live in the subdivision, not the entire general public. Anthes: A question for the City Attorney. What can you say about the liability issue about the city requesting access to a space that would be owned not by the city? Whitaker: I have to tell you that I am a little curious of where in the development ordinance this concept of providing access came from. I haven't been able to find any notations to this effect. Is there any kind of law as a source for this requirement or is it something that you felt was a logical extension of previous policy? Pate: Primarily it is part of the overall PZD goals and objectives to provide open space to be utilized by residents of the City of Fayetteville. It is called out on the plat as open space and tree preservation area so we felt it was important that pedestrian access be granted to that area. I would agree that staff could back off of having a paved access and look at just an access easement because it is not paved anywhere on site obviously, but that is allowing someone other lots 39 through 80 to have the opportunity to visit that site is important. Whitaker: Are you saying that you would limit your requirement to requiring that the POA provide access for the other property owners at Oak Brooke and not the general public? Pate: That is one potential. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 40 Whitaker: It goes beyond liability. I am uncomfortable with the concept that we could require someone to invite the general public onto their private property and then say we don't have any liability because we have sovereign immunity. If the POA owns it, and that is the plan, then the POA should be able to procure an umbrella policy in the entire POA's name or require some sort of legal release from residents to use the common areas as part of the covenants to buy property there. To just say you have to own it and bear the burden of ownership but you have to have the general public on it. I'm uncomfortable going back to traditional notions of private property. On one other note, there has been a good deal of discussion about why we don't just take that as a park and pay the money, it would cost too much to do the tree escrow fund. That was by design. I can speak from experience on having worked on that for two years of my life, even before I came to work for the city. The first priority should be to preserve existing trees. As proposed that is what this does. After that, you get to on site mitigation, off site forestation and then the very last thing is to pay money in lieu of for trees. The folks that worked on this and the Council was briefed on it before the revisions of the tree ordinance came, wanted it clear that preservation of existing canopy was the highest priority. That meant that it could not also be counted as parkland. There is some realities and some real politics going on there. The language excluding parkland dedication being used to satisfy tree mitigation numbers was intentional because it is absolutely a fact that the Parks and Recreation Division doesn't want a bunch of trees. They want wide open fields that they can put ball parks on. The difficulty is unless you call it tree preservation, even our Parks Department can cut the trees down unless our Urban Forester declares that it is diseased or otherwise in need of removal. It is difficult. It is my understanding that this is a ravine. This is not necessarily what the Parks and Recreation Board has in mind when they are trying to set up parks. To wrap it up, the committee specifically designed this not to count as both. There was a worry that Parks didn't want a bunch of trees and if they got them somewhere down the road trees might be sacrificed for ballparks or tennis courts or whatever. The idea was to have them separate, tree preservation and parks. As this is presented it meets exactly what the Council thought they were doing when they approved the ordinance which puts existing canopy first. Vaught: I have some comments and thoughts on this argument. To me it is two separate parts of the code and I think Mr. Whitaker did a good job about outlining the differences and why we have them separate. To me it is all part of a PZD. When you come in with a PZD you are going to be held to a little higher standard. In trade off, you get some advantages such as higher density, I believe a lot of these lots are narrower than our code would allow, setting up a unique type of development as well as mixing Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 41 Allen: some multi -family with the single family or the potential for some townhouses, which I like. I like the mix of uses in this area. I think you can create a great feeling in the neighborhood I think townhouses and condos can be done in a way that is extremely nice, as we have seen in the downtown area of Fayetteville. That is something that we have all talked about is creating a mix of uses throughout an area, not just a standard swath as we saw in the R -O ordinance trying to get away from strip zoning commercial. To me if you are going to have private open space for a neighborhood or a PZD it would make sense for that to have access. We have seen that in a number of projects. I would just like it to be called an access easement or part of that lot so that this isn't just something that is the back of the neighborhood and then it just gets grown up. A large portion of this four acres is detention which will be graded and trees will be removed along that northwest corner. Really it is just the southern 1/2 to 2/3 that we are dealing with. I know that there are a lot of property owners of PZDs that could come in and make an argument or even make an argument. They have done things like donate conservation easements, those are things that the POA may not necessarily get advantage from but it could be done. I have a hard time with that argument. The parks dedication is different than the tree preservation section of the ordinance. I don't view it as double dipping, especially when it comes in as a PZD and that is called out specifically in the goals of a PZD. I do believe that it shouldn't be completely walled off from the residents of the neighborhood. I think that is part of the idea of it. I have heard lots of discussion of you don't know what you want to do with it, keep it as one big lot, the PZD ordinances state the developer shall create an entity for ownership of all common areas. I think that is something that we need to go back to. If this is going to be tree preservation or common area there will be a common owner that owns it. I know that was something that was batted around, at least in Subdivision minutes and when we talked about it during our agenda tour. I don't view it as double dipping. That is the way our code is. I think it is fair, especially in a PZD setting. You have the right to develop that out and take those trees down, but as Mr. Whitaker said, we don't want that and that's why we wrote our code to try to prevent it. I would agree with a lot of what Commissioner Vaught said. I just want some clarification about the access to this. If you do not live in Lots 39 through 68 then in order to get to the green space you would have to walk behind their house if they didn't have a fence and you weren't trespassing to access it? I just have the feeling that if I lived in any other lot that I would look at it lustfully and feel like it was off of my radar screen. I just want a better understanding about access to this lot for the people that live within the PZD. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 42 Hoskins: Commissioner Allen, our opinion is still the same. That is that we are not inviting access to this lot because if we own it we accept the liability by doing that. I know at the north end of the subdivision at Lot 69 there is already some utility easement there to get into that area. As far as whether we are inviting the general public or just the neighborhood, I don't know of anybody that is going to be out there at 1:00 in the morning getting people's ids to find out if they live in the neighborhood or not as far as who accesses that area. I want to clarify a few things as well. The reason that this came in as a PZD was for one purpose only. We are still below the RSF-4 zoning. The reason we brought this through as a PZD was for architectural considerations only. When we first designed it all of the lots met the minimum width of a typical RSF-4 neighborhood, they were 70' wide, etc. As this plan developed and we made the attempt to save more and more trees losing more and more lots we did redesign a few of the lots a little more narrow to regain some of what we were losing. The primary reason this came in as a PZD was for setback purposes so that we could detach the garages of the homes, move them closer to the rear property line so that people didn't have garages 25' off the rear property line throwing a bunch of junk between them and their neighbors. We are trying to push the garages closer back to back for the people behind. It is to have a build to line closer to the road to mimic an old time neighborhood. It is to have a little bit narrower lot because these are narrower homes. When we first came through these were 70'. Once we went through all of the tree preservation we started feeling the pain and needed to add a few lots back to recover some of our loss. There is no multi -family in this neighborhood. This is designed for folks that can afford the 2,500 sq.ft. homes and the 1,200 sq.ft. homes. Some are attached, some are detached. As far as the percentage of the entire neighborhood, the ones that are potentially attached, I don't consider them triplexes, duplexes, etc., these are row houses much like the project we were going to do on Joyce Street, Cambridge Crossing. This is a neighborhood where folks making $50,000 a year can live with the folks making $200,000 a year. Whether that happens or not we will wait and see. That is the primary reason that it came in as a PZD. Not because we are trying to get extra density or trying to put multi -family on the project, because we are not. Back to the park thing. Again, we are adamant that we do not want to invite the general public into an area that we have the liability of. Ostner: I am ok with the tree preservation area being locked off from the public. It is not fair for a property owner to have to invite the public of Fayetteville. They can control that as they will. That seems fair. If we can put that aside for a minute, part of my issue with this subdivision is that there are so many different things going on. Like Mr. Hoskins mentioned, the 60' lots, the detached garages, so many of these unique things that could turn out to be terrific but they are not flushed out here tonight. I understand Mr. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 43 Pate's point that the time to flush those out with the covenants that we usually see tonight might seem more appropriate to do at the time of Final Plat but I think I disagree with that. After this is approved here and at the City Council contracts can be let on these lots. They can't close, no one can purchase any of these lots but contracts can be let on every single lot. My employer does it all the time. We get preliminary plat and we start selling contracts. You sell a contract on a lot the guy buying it says what do I have to do? Where are the covenants? I say wait a minute, we aren't going to have Final Plat for nine more months, you are just going to have to come back. He says he is buying a lot today and wants to know what he can build. The time for design regulations is now, not at Final Plat. I understand it is a vague area because of the fact that we are talking about a zoning but the way things look impact zoning. These multi -family lots, single family lots with zero lot lines, attached. A triplex is still a triplex even if they are three differently owned lots. It is one building and it is three different units. We are calling it different things. That look impacts the neighborhood differently. I'm ok with that, I'm glad it is in here. My only concern is the look. I believe that is what the neighbors are concerned about too. I am not agreeing with them that multi -family is bad. The look concerns me. These photos along here are awesome but they are all single family detached. Show me what those buildings are going to look like at that block and I will feel a lot more secure. Not only that, but all of the other details that you all have flushed out. A few of them are referred to like the split driveway, the granny driveways, they are a great look and they fit with everything but the lack of the covenants or even a statement of intent, which is what the PZD ordinance used to talk about, that helps tremendously. Hoskins: We have submitted a preliminary set of covenants. I don't know why we don't have them. They have been emailed to the city. I will be happy to go on record tonight telling you whatever you want to know about the architecture, the setbacks, anything that you want to know and you can make sure that they are in my covenants later. Ostner: If you could get that in my hot little hands tonight I might vote for this. The proof is in the pudding. Hoskins: Are you saying that you are going to vote against this? Ostner: I'm not certain. I would love to see those in writing. We can't talk about it and lock it in legally tonight. Hoskins: When we were at Subdivision level Ms. Clark asked us to get her some renderings of some homes, the type of architecture and the feel that we are going for. That is what is before you at the bottom of the page. We didn't think of absolutely every house that we could build in there and we failed Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 44 to put one of a single family attached home. Duplexes and triplexes, this is where I'm going to disagree with you a little bit, duplexes and triplexes are typically for rent. These homes are not for rent. These homes are for sale. It is also the intention that Paradigm will build all of the houses in Phase I and Phase II. The lots at this time are not going to be for sale. It is our intention to build the subdivision out completely ourselves so that we can control the architecture. As far as the build to lines, we designated that build to line for a purpose. The only time that we may not be able to achieve that purpose is on something that has a tight radius such as around where Lot 16 and 17 is. I don't know that we can't either. We just haven't gotten that far with the design for the homes on those lots. Ostner: You just have to understand that our control or our "reach" into that is limited. You can say that tonight and heaven forbid, something happens and you have to sell, the next guy that buys it buys what we agree to. He doesn't have to follow the agreements that you make tonight. That is part of the concern that if we had it here it would follow with the land. Hoskins: I just heard tonight that you did not have a preliminary copy of the covenants. I just heard that in the audience. I know that they have been forwarded. It is to my surprise that you don't have them. That is typically one of the first things that we do when we are designing a subdivision. The covenants state what we want the thing to be and what we want it to look like, who we expect to buy there. Just like a lot of Bill of Assurances, we can go on record right now with architectural elements, setbacks or anything you want to ask me. Vaught: On the private open space I am not saying build a sidewalk or anything. I would just like to have an access easement so that the POA, who will ultimately own that piece of property, has the ability if they want to allow access with a vote of the neighborhood association, they could do it. I am not saying I want sidewalks built in there and a big sign that says come in. I am just saying that it would be nice if you have a private open space that the POA controls, if they have the opportunity to open it to the residents or whoever may wonder in. As with anything, we can't ever control anything 100%. It would be nice for the POA to have that decision. We wouldn't allow a land locked lot, a lot with no street frontage anywhere, and that is basically what we are doing here. Some of it is a detention pond, which is a different deal but a private open space lot at least needs an easement for the owners to access. Hoskins: That we agree with. As long as we are not putting something out there that says we are inviting the general public in this area we don't have a problem with it. We will pick a spot and provide an easement for the POA to decide later on exactly what they want to do with the area. That we Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 45 have no problems with. To allow two or three easements and start putting sidewalks through it, etc., that is not something that we want to do. Vaught: I do think that staff's recommendations on the two locations might be a good recommendation as they go over typical easements. I feel like that is fair. I don't think we are intruding on the personal property rights to allow the POA to decide what they want to do with it. Ostner: I think it is a good solution. Anthes: We have seen the PZD ordinance and we have talked about revisions to it and right now there is another one up at Council so right now I'm remembering other PZDs that we looked at and what we have had in front of us at the time. We have had illustrations of building types, we have had a plan that said very clearly that this is this kind of development and this kind of density and very clearly what we could expect. I guess I'm a little concerned that I don't understand. We have this section in the middle that we are talking about being row houses but it seems to be a moving target right now. I thought that with the PZD what we saw is what we permitted is what goes into it, is what we are going to get. How can those be either or at this point? Pate: Essentially because the flexibility is both on the city's part and the developer's part. If the developer asks to include Use Unit 8, which is single family detached or Use Unit 26, which is multi -family or town homes with more than three attached units, or Use Unit 17 which is less than three attached town homes. That would allow the market, which has the real impact on how the development goes. If you establish one, say they could establish four units, they would have no choice to either decrease that or do single family detached without rezoning the entire project. With the new ordinance we would like to see more conceptual drawings. With this ordinance we really tried to stay away from any residential design standards. We have no standards by which to judge anything residentially. As long as the zoning criteria that we have on the books is met and the Planning Commission and City Council feels that it meets those criteria that you have about 20 pages of finding on. If those criteria are met, open space, flexibility, harmony with surrounding properties. These are single family, most of which are detached, some of which are attached, but they are interior to the overall project, I think that is probably the best way to have a single family home within a development. No one will really see those from outside of this development built with the rest of the development. I think it has to go both ways. It allows that flexibility on the part of the developer to develop something that is unique and have 62' wide lots and 47' wide lots and to allow a different type of development that would not conform to our current zoning. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 46 Anthes: Pate: Anthes: Pate: Anthes: Vaught: Anthes: Pate: Anthes: Hoskins: Anthes: Vaught: When we see those things those have been offered by the other people. You feel confident that we have a complete packet that has everything in it that we need. The items that we have seen before, architectural elevations for single family homes and footprints, those have been offered by the applicant. Those have not been required by staff, not been required as per our ordinance. The land currently is zoned RSF-1 and RSF-4 for a total of 20.82 acres. Do you know how much is in each of those zonings? It looks like it is about half and half. I'm just trying to test the density units per acre of this development. It is a little above three units per acre. Right, but they are saying half of the land is currently zoned RSF-1. I was just wanting to test the use by right, what kind of density we have on this property verses what we are granting with this PZD. Probably use by right you are close to 50 units just looking at RSF-4 and RSF-1 here. The majority is RSF-4. So you think we would be allowed about 50 units and so we have an additional 18 units that we are allowing as a PZD and we are gaining this tree preservation area which is significant. Very little of the property is RSF-1 now. It is just a small tail on the north end. I think it would probably encompass Lots 39, 40, 41, 42 and 43 and the rest of it has been zoned as RSF-4. Ok, I just didn't have any graphic that showed us that. On 7.9 B.1. it goes through that the Planning Commission shall determine specific project features including project density, building locations, common usable space, vehicular circulation, parking areas, landscaping and perimeter treatments shall be combined in such a way to further the health, safety and welfare of the community. PZDs are still fairly new for us and every one is different and sometimes it is difficult for us to tell what people have offered and what we require. That kind of goes through a RPZD. I do feel the character and I think the feel of the neighborhood with the reduced setbacks and things are tradeoffs as we look at curb cuts and sidewalks with the split driveways and how that helps lessen the effect Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 47 of that on the reduced lot widths. As far as aesthetics, I guess we need to look at use units more than anything. On the town home section, I like the idea of town homes. What bothers me is the two attached, I would rather see at least three or more attached on the single family attached dwellings rather than just two. That is just a different feeling. I understand we do let the market to determine a lot of it. I like leaving the ability to build a single unit on there as an option. They would obviously be different with rear alleyways and garages but I'm ok with that and having the flexibility with the developer. PZDs are supposed to be flexible and allow them to do some stuff that they normally wouldn't. I do feel like we have a complete package. Even though we are used to seeing covenants. In this situation as a R-PZD I don't know if it is as important as a commercial PZD where we do look at commercial design standards for the neighborhood as a whole and as a development as a whole. Ostner: I think you point out some very good points. In that same paragraph, the fourth line from the top, primary emphasis shall be placed upon achieving compatibility between the proposed development and surrounding areas so as to preserve and enhance the neighborhood. That is where I'm getting hung up. The town homes I think are questionably compatible unless I see what I am talking about. That is really my stopping point on that issue. Everything else, as you mentioned, is being looked at and thoroughly flushed out about the development features, project density, building locations, etc. Vaught: On 17 I think one of the findings goes into that part of the idea of a PZD is to encourage a mix of housing types and that is one of those defining community characters. Encouraging residential development to incorporate grade, lot size, home prices and types of dwellings. I feel like that is what it does. We don't have commercial design standards for single family dwellings at all so I don't know how we can blame that on top of these. Ostner: There is a desire to have those standards although we do not have them tonight. The PZD is a flexible tool and it refers to things like that. I don't believe it is open and shut. Clark: I recognize what both of you are saying. Jeremy, if I'm not mistaken we see this development Part II Thursday at Subdivision is that true? Pate: I'm not sure. MOTION: Clark: I am fairly confident it is. We will see the other half of the row houses Thursday. I would recommend that Mr. Hoskins come prepared with Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 48 covenants, with more conceptual information, especially on the town home section and anything else that you can pull out from our discussion. I'm betting that if we have problems in Phase II that is going to trip you up on Phase I. We still will have leverage with that. I would like to see those covenants. We talked about that at Subdivision as well. I seem to remember you weren't sure what the POA was going to do. I am uncomfortable with condition number one and I think that I am not prepared to do something with it. I will make a motion that we approve RPZD 05-1463 with the following 26 conditions. I would like to strike condition one and leave it to the discretion of the POA, access to the open tree preservation area. Vaught: But to not require access easements to the property? Clark: I am going to leave access easements up to the will of the POA. Vaught: That is set out on the plat. If you want access easements to the property you have to put it on the plat. They would have to come in and buy that right of way from individual owners. Clark: Ok. The developer shall provide two easements that access the tree preservation/open space area within the subdivision. This access shall be provided between Lots 48 and 49 and 61 and 62. Coordinate detention exit over storm sewer. We will also find with staff on all other findings of fact including all waivers for street design and assessment of other fees in lieu. Vaught: On condition thirteen, they were trying on all lots to meet the build to lines but there were a few on the tighter lots with the corners around the fronts that we might change our language to say something like "expect when design permits" to leave that open. Ostner: How about just call out those lots? Clark: Lot 16 and 17. Vaught: Are those the lots that were in question by the developer? Hoskins: I just saw this for the first time tonight. It has been in my covenants. In fact, that is where it came from. I just saw tonight that it was actually written into the ordinance as mandatory that the houses were on the build to line and called it to the engineer's attention that in some cases we might not be able to do that with lots with tighter radiuses, I could see that being 16 and 17, possibly 15 but I don't know. I am looking at a graphic that we produce out of our office. Off hand, those look like the only ones but there is probably the potential on Lot 26 and maybe 25, that is in Phase II Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 49 though. Again, it is part of our covenants to get the houses to the build to line. As the developers, we are going to be looking for that as well. I don't know that that is something that necessarily needs to be in the ordinance. It can be, if you would like. I would just like it to read "whenever possible". Clark: I will be comfortable inserting Lots 16 and 17 at the end of condition 13. Vaught: I will second. Jefcoat: We would like some discussion on Item 5. Vaught: From my perspective it is something that I would like to see. I think it is important that the road doesn't cinch off and widen. We aren't dealing with a huge stretch of property. Do we know how many linear feet that is? Pate: It is approximately 70' to the curb and gutter along New Bridge Road. Vaught: The sidewalks are built in the proper location so it is just really relocating the curb and gutter and adding a little bit of asphalt. They are not going to rip up the whole road, it is just doing a widening, is that correct? Pate: Correct. Vaught: I definitely think that is in the rational nexus and I think that is an important connection to make, not only for this development, but for New Bridge for Bridgeport, that will provide them with more access points to Rupple. I am in support of staff's findings on that item. I don't think it is going to be a huge cost to the developer from what I know of some of these costs, especially since there is pretty limited road improvements because the frontage on Rupple Road in both phases is minimal. I think that is something important. That is a big complaint of people that live in areas where roads pinch in areas where we are developing where there is a nice road built and then it cinches down to an unimproved road. I definitely support staff with that finding. I understand that there is an argument from the developer, and it is something that I don't like to see. I hate to see us require someone to build a street. Unfortunately, that Phase of Bridgeport was platted a year ago and we didn't know what was going to develop here and we didn't know the load of traffic that it would carry. If this was a mile long section then definitely no. It is just a very short section and I don't think it is out of the rational nexus for the project. Hoskins: I guess my opinion on that is that I am being assessed for a bridge, trees, parks fees, Rupple Road improvements, etc. Again, we have stated that we don't mind doing the repairs or the widening of that road that was just finished being constructed less than '/2 a year ago. We don't mind taking Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 50 care of that during the construction of our subdivision. We just don't believe that it is right for the city to charge us for widening that road. I don't think it is as simple as adding a little pavement. It is ripping out curb and gutter on both sides of the street, base underneath the road, pavement, putting in new curb and gutter and attaching it all back to New Bridge Road, etc I think it is going to be a little more costly than what is being let on, probably the sidewalks as well. Vaught: The sidewalks I believe staff has stated shouldn't have to be moved. They should be at the right of way line and so they shouldn't have to be touched. That is the way that they are on the plat. It looks like they connect directly onto yours. Those are always built at the right of way line and a 28' street and a 24' street have the same right of way, they are both within a 50' right of way so sidewalks don't have to be discussed. Milholland: I've been an engineer for 35 or 40 years and I don't know if I can get that sidewalk to stay there tonight without getting broken or cracked running backhoes over it, pulling out the dirt, putting base in. I don't know what it is going to cost. I don't think I have the ability to say how much it is going to cost or what it is going to take. I think my client's request is pretty similar. He doesn't feel like he should pay for something that just got approved. We will have to leave it with you and maybe you can vote what you think and then the Council will decide. Vaught: I was going to say that exact thing. A cost share has to be approved by the City Council as a RPZD you have to go to the Council anyway. It is definitely something that you can ask them. As for us, and our ordinances, I feel that we are doing the correct thing. That is a decision that they can easily make. We can't make decisions as to how to spend the city's funds, we don't have that power. It is definitely something when you go there to talk about it. Allen: I would like to call for the question of the motion as stated. Anthes: Second. Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to call the question was approved by a vote of 9-0-0. Ostner: The motion has been made and seconded, is everyone clear on the motion? Are there any questions about that? There is no more discussion so now we shall vote on the motion. Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll all the motion to recommend approval of RPZD 05-1463 was approved by a vote of 8-0-1. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 51 Ostner: The next item on our agenda is RZN 05-1546 for Mathias Shopping Centers, Inc. Pate: This request is to rezone a piece of land located south of the corner of Hwy. 265 and Hwy. 45 from RSF-4, Residential Single Family, four units per acre to R -O, Residential Office. The lots were originally platted in the 1960s as a single family subdivision. Out of the lots that were platted, only about three or four homes have actually ever developed on those lots and it is essentially sitting as an empty subdivision currently with the exception of four lots. As I mentioned, it is south of the bank and shopping center and is zoned C-2 to the east. Property directly adjacent to it is zoned RSF-4 and vacant but directly adjacent to that is P-1 and that is the location of the school. Then to the west is a gas station zoned C-1, Neighborhood Commercial. As you know, on the Future Land Use Map and with our current zoning this intersection does represent a major node of commercial activity for the City of Fayetteville at the intersection of two highways, Crossover Road and Mission Boulevard. Currently on the Future Land Use Plan that node does not extend what is currently zoned in this location. It simply stops along a drainage structure to the east of the gas station. This property is shown as residential on the Future Land Use Plan. The request is to rezone the property to R -O, Residential Office. The applicant has indicated a desire to construct a bank in this location. Although, any of the uses within the R -O zoning district would be allowed should it be rezoned to that. Staff is recommending approval of the rezoning request. As I mentioned, the Land Use Plan does designate this site as residential. R -O would still allow by right residential uses so we find it is consistent to that regard. Obviously, the indication that a bank is going to be constructed is not necessarily residential in nature. However, we do feel that this location fronting onto Hwy. 45 would be an appropriate location for this type of institution and would be consistent with the Future Land Use Plan and other uses already located here. The Planning commission and City Council have reviewed other zoning applications on this site to the north. There were applications to rezone that property to C-1 and staff was not supportive of that in the past two years. Additionally, property zoned further to the north within the subdivision were requested to rezone the property to R -O and as of yet staff has not been supportive of that either. At this particular time however, this location with an access onto Box Avenue and fronting onto Mission Blvd., we do feel that this would meet with the intents and spirit of the R -O, Residential Office zoning district and therefore, find in favor of the rezoning. In part of your comments there are some very explicit concerns from the Police Department regarding access. Evidently they have worked a number of accidents in this general location and traffic patterns are very much a concern with the zoning and use of this property in any manner They do recommend that access be limited to Box Avenue when looking at what develops on this property with potentially restricted Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 52 access onto Mission Blvd. I would mention that, staff has had some concerns as well about traffic exiting this manner since there is a hill. There is limited sight distance. Those are things that we would expect to see, if not with a full blown traffic report, but some information presented with the Large Scale Development for this property. Ostner: Is the applicant present? If you would introduce yourself. Hennelly: I'm Tom Hennelly with H2 Engineering representing Mathias Shopping Centers, Inc., the owners of the property. We are requesting a R -O zoning. I think everybody would agree that that parcel that is immediately on Hwy 45 being zoned RSF-4, the chances of selling that piece of property and somebody building a residence on it are slim to none. We felt like this was a nice transitional area from the RSF-4 to the commercial south of it. What has precipitated this is the First State Bank of Huntsville that is currently owned at Starr Drive and Hwy. 45 owned by Mr. Mathias, there has been a proposal by another bank to buy that building and use it and he would like to relocate his bank here. I read through the Police Department's comments and concerns and just from what I saw in that brief narrative it doesn't look like there would be any problem in incorporating that into a Large Scale Development. I know that is not what you all are discussing here, but it doesn't look like it would be a tremendous difficulty. Ostner: At this point I will open it up to the public. If anyone would like to speak to RZN 05-1546 please step forward. Seeing no public comment, I will close the public comment session and bring it back to the Commission for discussion. Allen: Pate: I would like some clarification from the staff. I have never seen this strong of language from the Police Depailment about their concern about safety. Some clarification as to why you would go ahead and recommend this project. I don't think necessarily, we are not looking at the project, just the zoning of the property. It still could become a single family residence, I doubt it, we are probably going to see it become a bank location. However, the Police Department's comments state potential solutions that would mitigate any potential conflicts of traffic movement in this area. They are recommending that if it is developed with a bank they would request access to Hwy. 45 be limited to entrance only with an entrance/exit located on Box Avenue. That way traffic would continue moving the way it does gaining access onto Hwy. 45. Some options for restricted access include right in, right out only. That way you can't turn left into the property, you can't turn left out of the property. You restrict that access movement to the near lane and that helps with those situations sometimes. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 53 We will take a look at those at the time of Large Scale Development. As you know, Large Scale Developments and Preliminary Plats may be denied on their own merit if it compounds a dangerous traffic situation. That is why I mentioned that there are some sight distance issues that we are aware of and we know that everyone is aware of and that is why we will provide that information to you at the time of development. Ostner: This is almost a legal question but I will ask staff and maybe Mr. Whitaker can help. What controls or what power do we have down the line at the development phase to say we don't want to allow you any curb cuts on Mission, we want you to do it on Box. Does that ever happen or do we even have that power? Pate: It certainly does. If it were to create or compound a dangerous traffic situation, and you could find in favor of that concern, then I would recommend that you vote against the project and recommend denial of that project, with any project. Again, I think that there are solutions potentially to allow a curb cut. However, we are going to have to take a very close look at it and the applicant is very much aware of that as well. Ostner: When you say allowing a curb cut, you mean a second one on Hwy. 45 as well? Pate: Correct, and one on Box. MOTION: Anthes: I believe I've seen this once, maybe twice already in different versions. I think this is the best that we have seen for the rezoning of this property. It makes a lot of sense in this location. Obviously, we are all concerned about the access, curb cuts and sight distances, and we will be looking at that very carefully during project review. At this point it is a rezoning and I would like to move for approval and a recommendation to the City Council for approval of RZN 05-1546. Allen: I will second. Ostner: Is there further discussion? Could you call the roll? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to recommend approval of RZN 05-1546 to the City Council was approved by a vote of 9-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 54 Ostner: The next items on our agenda are Rezoning requests for one large piece of property or many pieces of property conjoined. We will talk about them as one item and vote on theme independently. RZN 05-1560, Mountain Ranch Al; RZN 05-1561, Mountain Ranch A2; RZN 05-1562 Mountain Ranch B; RZN 05-1563, Mountain Ranch C; RZN 05-1564, Mountain Ranch D, F, H, I, J; RZN 05-1565, Mountain Ranch E; RZN 05-1566, Mountain Ranch G. These are all of the items that Jeremy is going to cover in his staff report. Pate: First, I would like to mention that you don't have to make a motion separately on each one of these. Some of those that are recommended for approval you can make a motion for that and the ordinances will reflect that that go to City Council. If you recommend denial I would recommend that you specifically call out that rezoning to recommend denial on that one. Just as an option here for these rezonings, because there are so many, I would like to keep them together when recommending for approval. Whoever makes that motion for or against or modified keep that in mind Actually, staff is recommending three different things on this so you might get to make three different motions. This property is located within Fayetteville. It is west of I-540, south of Persimmon Street, north of 66 Street. It covers a lot of property there. There are a number of different zoning requests with five different zoning districts requested on this particular piece of property. You may remember this most recently by the approval of the subdivision directly to the west, Mountain Ranch Phase I. That is a single family residential subdivision that was approved at the last Planning Commission meeting with some pretty unique design features that this Commission saw. Additionally, in August, 2004 the area to the west of this, 80 acres was approved for Annexation and Rezoning to RSF-4 to allow for single family development in that location. This is approximately 450 acres of development that will be under the Mountain Ranch name in some point or another. On page 15.3 there is a chart detailing the zoning districts. They are called out in letters, Al, A2, B, C and all the way through J indicating what zoning districts are requested. Those include C-2 with a Bill of Assurance that is offered by the applicant. I have included in your report what those offerings are to limit the uses to prohibit some of the more objectionable within that district. C-1, Neighborhood Commercial and all of the uses located within the C-1 district would be allowed. That is a more neighborhood oriented commercial type of development. Area B would be RMF -24, Area C is requested as RSF-4, Residential Single Family, four units per acre. D, F, H, I and J is requested to RSF-2, Residential Single Family, two units per acre. That is the majority of the property with 52.3% requested for RSF-2. Area E, RMF -24. As noted, staff is recommending modifications to this request. I believe in speaking with the applicant after this report was published that he does have some comments regarding that as well. Area G, RSF-4 containing 41.48 acres Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 55 for a total of approximately 370 acres give or take. With regard to access, some of these tracts have extremely adequate access and some will have to be built into the property. Access to Shiloh, a collector, Persimmon Street, which is also a collector, to the north. Improvements will be required to both Shiloh and Persimmon as needed and as indicated by the Planning Commission based on the development plans submitted. Those may include right of way dedication, sidewalks per the Master Street Plan, widening of streets, etc., the typical things that you do see with Preliminary Plats and Large Scale Development. Additionally, there is access to Old Farmington Road with potential access to 6th Street. Those will be evaluated as well by potential off site improvements. Public water is adjacent to or near most of the area in question, not readily available without additional extensions, but as development occurs with the school to the west and Phase I of the applicant's property those become more readily available. There are some long range water distribution improvements planned in the area along Rupple Road with upsizing the water lines as well as along Persimmon, some of which is cost sharing with the developers in the area. Currently the site does not have immediate access to sanitary sewer but, much like water, access will be provided adjacent to or nearby with development that is continuing at this time. There is an 18" sewer force main along Shiloh Drive and several points of discharge to which the applicant and developer could connect for the sewer discharge. A study of the downstream system will be conducted as part of the development process. The Fayetteville Fire Department has reviewed the request and estimated fire response time from the Fire Station #7 on Rupple Road would be about three to five minutes. However, at this time Rupple Road south of Persimmon and Persimmon is not constructed so therefore, they have no means right now to understand what the timing would be. They actually went around and so that is the longest time that they could access this property. Those times would be shortened by direct access to Rupple and Persimmon. The Fayetteville Police Department responds that with a substantial increase in population that they will have more service calls. That is a logical conclusion and something that we've discussed several times at Planning Commission and at City Council. Obviously, it is an increase over the R -A zoning district that it is now with one unit per two acres. There is some comparison that the Police Department compared these developments to. One being Barrington Parke and another in this area, those were similarly developed densities, one of which was about 2.2 dwelling units per acre and one that was a little higher, those are the two units per acre and four units per acre that are requested. The Future Land Use Plan designates this site for residential use and a majority of the rezoning request for the Mountain Ranch project staff finds is consistent with the Land Use Plan for future residential uses and is compatible with surrounding properties that are developed residentially or commercially. There are zoning districts directly adjacent to some of these properties that are zoned C-2 and RMF- Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 56 24 and R -A and RSF-4 and RMF -24. Obviously, the size of the property will dictate some of that. There are some commercial zoning requests near Persimmon and Shiloh. Those are not necessarily consistent with the Future Land Use Plan that was adopted in 2001. However, things have changed in this area since 2001. At that time we did not have a Boys and Girls Club, we did not have a Fire Station and we did not have a School. With the development that we are seeing, I don't believe that Rupple Road was even constructed in 2000. Things have changed dramatically in this area. We typically look for small node commercial development to supplement and support residential development nearby. Staff finds that these two collector streets are ideal for that location directly adjacent to multi -family development. It would allow for ingress and egress currently with existing infrastructure. Persimmon is currently built at a 36' wide cross section and Shiloh is also developed as an arterial in that area. With regard to findings, they are extremely long in this case. This is a very big Rezoning application. It is the biggest that I'm aware of in the last 11 years since CMN was rezoned to C-2. It is a big decision and that is why we have taken a lot of time and looked at these individually. With the findings, staff finds that the rezoning requests are justified in order to promote orderly and consistent development patterns meeting our development standards that the Planning Commission and City Council have adopted. We do not feel that the Rezonings would create or appreciably increase traffic danger and congestion if the improvements required of the developer are consistent with the improvements typically required of development. The proposed zoning would substantially alter the population density above what is allowed by the R -A zoning district. However, RSF-2 is extremely low density. That is 52.3% of the property, almost 200 acres would yield a maximum of 400 units developed at it's entire maximum allowed density. With those findings staff does support Rezonings A2; B;C;D;F;G;H;I and J listed in your staff report based on the findings included as part of this report. With regard to the second recommendation, staff is also recommending approval of the requested Rezoning of the Al tract from R -A to C-2 subject to the offered Bill of Assurance that the applicant has offered verbally and with some written documents, but it is not signed yet, limiting the potentially incompatible uses located within the C-2 zoning district but allowing uses that are located for convenience and accessibility along major thoroughfares and do not present a threat to the integrity or compatibility of adjoining neighborhoods. If you will note on page 9, I have stricken the uses that are currently offered as being removed. I believe the applicant has concerns with Use Unit 17 and Use Unit 19 so we will deal with that in more detail with the applicant's discussion with the Commission. Additionally, staff is recommending denial of one of the requests in it's current configuration. We have spoken with the applicant about this as well. Our primary concern is with Area E rezoning that to RMF -24 on the slope area. While we understand that this was an area that was sparred by Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 57 fill and excavation materials from the creation of I-540 and some of the interchanges here, it does still present a challenge with regard to our slope in this area. As you know, the city is looking at some development ordinances that would help protect hillsides so that staff could confidently recommend RMF -24 because it would have those hillside protection ordinances in place. We do not have that however and simply rezoning that straight out to RMF -24 is something that staff feels that the Planning Commission nor the City Council is looking for in this case. Our findings do not support that. We would recommend that multi -family zoning is appropriate in some of these locations. Density is perfectly appropriate next to schools, next to public centers like the Boys and Girls Club, close to infrastructure that is adequate currently to meet the needs as well as infrastructure that is being improved to the west. Potentially, it is our finding that multi -family development zoned RMF -24 is appropriate, not necessarily though on those hillsides. We would respectfully request that that zoning line be moved to the east currently to about the DOD boundary. With the development we could look at a PZD potentially to allow for appropriate development on the hillside sometime in the future. With those three different recommendations, I am available to answer questions. Ostner: Thank you. Is the applicant present? Terminella: I am Tom Terminella with Terminella & Associates here in Fayetteville at 24 E. Meadow. It is a big project, there is a lot of history behind it. There are a lot of things that we need to move forward with and get done for the welfare of everybody that adjoins and owns property out that way pertaining to the Persimmon and the Rupple improvements that need to be done in order to deal with the mass amount of development going on in that part of the world. I do want to step aside. There are a few neighbors here that I have not had an opportunity to visit with. I want to make sure that we hear their concerns if any. There are four or five people that did contact me that adjoin our farm, the ranch out there. Either through Council or our staff at the office they were able to explain and overcome any concerns that they had over the last week or ten days. I'm not sure if my neighbors want to voice their concerns but I sure want to give them the opportunity before we jump in the middle of this. With that, I will step aside and you can open it up to public comment. Ostner: We will hear public comment. Please introduce yourself and share your comments. Marinoni: My name is Paula Marinoni. We sold a large portion of that property to Tom Terminella. My family owns a lot of property on the west side of town and with that comes the responsibility of stewardship. We are not developers. Many of you know that I have been to thousands of city Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 58 planning meetings over the years laboriously trying to figure out what to do with the property. How to help the family transition it into something that would benefit our community. We have asked for help from the city and we haven't gotten it. We have asked for direction and so we tried to do this ourselves. With this property we offered it to Mr. Terminella under the requirement that it must be a Planned Zoning District. That was in our contract with him. It went on and on and on and on and on of dragging it out for almost a year. Finally, it looked like it is going to take a long time. There is nothing in place right now, it is going to have to be staged, the city is going to have to figure this out. We had him put that in writing to us that he would promise us that that would be a Planned Zoning District and we closed on it. All of this time since last November I have been told and lead to believe that that is going to be a Planned Zoning District. Needless to say, I was very disappointed, shocked and upset to read about this in the paper yesterday of cutting it up like a piece of pie. We sold this to him at a good price and we looked him in the eye as an old family friend of some of the family and told him "We have faith in you. You have the ability to do this right. You take this to the city. You plan this whole big piece and make it beautiful and make my father proud. Make it make sense and be good to the community." We put it into the hands of the city under the Planned Zoning District that the city would then have the ability to scrutinize and make sure that it came within the Fayetteville Vision 2020 Guiding Principals #1, a Naturally Beautiful City, our Mountains and Hills. I cannot believe that the city staff is recommending approval for this with only the question of that one RMF -24 on a slope. It is only two units per acre on 196 acres of it. That 196 acres is a mountain side! Some of it is so steep that you have to crawl up it. He is going to butcher it! Ostner: We are going to try to talk about this land and not about Mr. Terminella. Stop accusing the land owner. Marinoni: When the PZD process started the city pointed out that the Planning Commission was trying to go outside of their authority in telling people how to develop property. You were trying to design it and what is it going to look like and what are the materials and you didn't have the legal right to do that. All you had the legal right to do was to say does it fit that zoning and to allow it to zone. They could come in with all of the pretty pictures that they wanted and after they left here they could throw them all in the trash. That is why the city went to the PZD which gave the people the opportunity to see what was going to happen. He can still do that. It can still be phased in. Steele Crossing was 305 acres and that was a mistake. At the point that they gave blanket zoning the city lost control and then they came back and they said now we need a four lane, now we need this, no, we aren't going to preserve those trees. You know what happened as a result of that. There was no control anymore. I personally Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 59 do not believe that he is going to do this. I think he will have the ability to get the zoning and then flip it and sell it off to somebody else who doesn't have to follow his plan. This is 368.9 acres. There is no reason on this earth to give him the zoning on all of that at one time, especially that mountain. You will really look back on that and say we messed up if you allow that to happen. There is no way that you can put homes on there 1/4 acre each and it not be a disaster. We wanted this to be unique. You said he is giving a Bill of Assurance. He gave us a Bill of Assurance, he gave us his word multiple, multiple times. Ostner: Ms. Marinoni, you are talking about your relationship with Mr. Terminella, you need to talk about this piece of property. Marinoni: It is a mistake! Nothing like this has ever come through and it is really sad that it is at 9:00 at night. How is it possible that there aren't people to address this here? Is it because they don't understand what this means? I have told people all along you don't have to worry, it is going to be a PZD. They will do it in phases and it will be done nice. Now it is not. If you zone this in the seven chunks like this it will just be sold off and it will come back to you piece by piece and piece by piece you will say that was a mistake. I am sorry. This makes me sick to my stomach to have to stand here, to have to come here tonight and do this and have to potentially watch that mountain be butchered when we were promised something different. I'm sorry, I don't even want to hear the discussion on it. I will leave it in your hands. Hecox: My name is Tom Hecox, I'm with TWH Consulting and I've been asked to speak to you on behalf of Karen Greenway and Phyllis Pope who are unable to attend this meeting. Karen Greenway has lived on a five acre tract at the end of Dinsmore Trail for over 20 years. Her mother owns another five acre tract just to the south of that. The adjoining tracts of land are Tracts I to the west and Tract J to the south. When Karen was first aware that the adjoining property was being purchased she met with the owner and it was her understanding that this was going to be developed in five acre tracts. Now we are here at a rezoning to make this '/2 acre lots open for development there. Karen wasn't notified. She did not know about this rezoning, even though her property was adjacent to Tract I, she found out through a letter that her mother had received on this. Obviously, this is not the type of adjacent development that one desires when you move out to the country. You expect to be in the country, to have a lot of wooded area, green space, open space. Also, the sole access to Tract I is going to be Dinsmore Trail at this point. That is pretty much a single lane from the last route up to the mountain. It has a single lane low water bridge on it and there is going to have to be extensive infrastructure work done for this to work. It is not going to adequately handle a large subdivision development with 72 acre lots at the end of it. It doesn't have Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 60 that kind of capacity. The low water bridge is right as Dinsmore Trail exits Hwy. 62. As you head up the mountain the trail becomes more winding and more narrow. The last turn on it is actually a hair pin turn to get up to the property that you are talking about there. There will be some issues on it. We are not suggesting that no type of development be done here. As has already been pointed out, there is a lot of wildlife habitat up there. It is going to be impacted. This is a very natural area, a very beautiful area there on the mountain. Naturally, they would like to see it remain that way. At this point all we are asking is to keep the zoning as R -A for now. The main tract that is adjoining their property is Tract I. Tract J is a huge piece of property that has access off of other roads. Tract I is accessed off of Dinsmore Trail. We would like to see that zoning remain as R -A. Ostner: Is there anyone else from the public who would like to speak? Bottoms: I am Bill Bottoms, I live at 2828 Old Farmington Road. My main concern is the traffic problems. As we all know, Fayetteville has a traffic problem. We got Wal-Mart and Lowe's and it has become a bottle neck out here for people coming into Fayetteville and going out of Fayetteville. To try to get into town from 7:30 is almost impossible. There is a wreck out there everyday. They use Old Farmington Road as a cut through. This is a very narrow road. There are elderly people who walk on it. There are no sidewalks, no shoulders, it is just black top and ditch. That is my main concern. If this development is going to use this road for access, make this road wider and get some sidewalks there. They are going to use that as a cut through because that is the only way they can get to the motels and stuff out there. Sloan: I am Charlie Sloan, one of the land owners and I live out by this project just to the west of it. I admire Mr. Terminella for taking on such a large project. It does take a lot of vision to decide where you want to put things. We looked it over, I represent the McBride's next to them. Looking at this layout, it is very logical for what we had once looked at this property too potentially. I think you have to do some multi -family and you need some commercial there at Persimmon That is a growing area out there, as you all know. I know some of the traffic problems exist, we are working with Mr. Terminella about Rupple Road extensions and things like that. I know he is working on Persimmon extension to the east now. We are for the project. I know it takes multiple facets of zoning up there. I don't know what projects or promises were made as far as whether it should be a PZD or whatever, but in order to design something this big he needs to know what zonings he can use, where he can have zonings at. I know we are working on a conceptual PZD with the city, but once again, I think that is still in committee so we can't bring a PZD to you to let you see a concept. To fully engineer a project of this size he would be forever designing Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 61 every road and every path and everything in place like it needs to be. Before he goes to that expense I understand that he needs to know what he can do with this project and what is your vision I think tonight is sort of where you will hash out the zoning by breaking it up whether or not you agree with what his vision is. Ostner: Would anyone else like to speak to this issue? I am going to close it to public comment and bring it back to the Commission. Terminella: For those of you who have followed this process for the last 19 months since we acquired this property, put it under contract and brought it to the city as a PZD and spent in excess of nine months and six figures doing the overall master plan for this particular subdivision and land use plan. We attempted to move it forward under that understanding. As you are aware, our current PZD vehicle to do that level of planning requires me, as the developer, to civilly go to the point of unknown. When you have 200, 300 or 400 acres of ground and civilly do land planning, land use and then walk back into this chamber with no assurance of approval, you can see why we have taken our preliminary road design, which is totally preliminary, with the exception of our first phase RSF-4 site that was approved through this body. We have to have an understanding of land use and it's density in order to do the civil aspect. I will use Phase I as an example. We have RSF-4 zoning there. We have 2.17 units per acre. It is the flattest part of the development. We could have got four units per acre with 70' lots. We could have land harvested the ground and got maximum density with no consideration to anybody but the almighty dollar. We chose not to do that. We came up with what we feel is a community driven development. Ms. Marinoni's comments, I'm saddened and disappointed at her behavior and how she handled herself this evening. Paul Marinoni III works in my firm. He represents this project. He has no issues with it. I am sorry that others are uninformed and working from bad information. We are simply doing as the city asked and requested of us. This would not fit the R-PZD under the current plan that is in place as an ordinance. With regard to Dinsmore, there is no access from this preliminary plan off of Dinsmore. The only thing that Dinsmore serves is my home at 3425 Dinsmore on the top of the mountain. In regard to the gentleman that just spoke, Ms. Pope has been up there a long time. I would have reservations on any plan of anybody that owned land on all three sides of me. I have gotten along with her. I can assure you our intended use for the lion's share of this farm is half the density that Mt. Sequoyah is today. Our desire is simply to provide the necessary commercial services and the RMF density that has been requested by the members of this Commission in what we feel makes sense with RMF areas in the areas of schools and minor and major road arteries. Pertaining to Old Farmington Road, it is under improved, it is a cut through, there is tremendous traffic. There are things that will be done to that road with the Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 62 LSDs on Hwy. 62 and all of that land that has gone under contract. Some of that land adjoins Old Farmington Road. Old Farmington Road in the very southern end of the project on the bottom of the page will be 4-6 years out as far as this development. Certain things will happen. Collectively city staff, which has done an excellent job of meeting with me, we understand the need for connectivity between the Hwy. 16 and Hwy. 62 valley. Mr. Sloan spoke positively on it. We are working with the city. We are dealing with cost share. We are providing right of way. We are gifting of land. We are doing all of those things with the common goal of working in tandem and solving the problems that we see coming on line for the western part of this city. I grew up in this part of town on Hall Street. Paul Marinoni III works for me. He has a vested interest in this farm. We think we have done what has been asked of us. This is what we can make the best sense of and respectfully, as far as staff is concerned, the one issue that they cannot fully agree with and agree at this point, we respectfully withdraw that rezoning request on the 16 acres of RMF to leave it as R -A until we are able to civilly make a clear understanding of where that road right of way is going to go and how it would visually impact 1-540 and the DOD. With that, I will be happy to answer any and all of your questions. Thank you. Myres: Are you talking about E? Terminella: It would be RZN 05-1565 the request to go from R -A to RMF -24 with 16.88 acres. That particular parcel, my issue with this, this is C-2 and this is RMF -24, you tell me what needs to be done there. I'm only trying to make some sense of it. I am already surrounded by some intense development there. I will work with staff on that issue. I respectfully pull that one and leave it as R -A, when we get our civil work done to that point then we will make some sense of it. Anthes: We do not have the Bill of Assurance before us but we have the intent of it. You said that there were some questions on Use Unit 17 and Use Unit 19. Staff, what sorts of things are included under Use Unit 17 Trades and Services and Use Unit 19 Commercial Recreation Small Site? Then could I hear from Mr. Terminella about why you might want to be leaving those in now? Pate: Certainly. Use Unit 17 carries a lot of our trades and services that you typically see in commercial districts, especially retail districts. It includes things such as medical, orthopedic appliances, everything from rug repair, re -upholstery, auctioneers, auto washes, motor repair. Some uses that are not necessarily that impact in the area. It does include things such as automotive sales, service and repair shops, manufactured home sales, truck sales including service and repair, used car lots and things at that nature that at these arterials at a very visible location within the I-540 Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 63 Anthes: Terminella: Anthes: Whitaker: Anthes: Design Overlay District. We believe with the applicant, who is looking more for uses that would support the project that he is looking for. With the Bill of Assurance that Mr. Terminella has offered initially he had indicated that Use Units 17 and 19 might not be something that he would be utilizing any uses in. I think that has changed somewhat. Especially looking at specific uses that could be located within those Use Units. Use Unit 19, Commercial Recreation Small Site includes things such as billiard and pool parlors, bowling alleys, skating rinks, video arcades, indoor theaters. Some of those things are included in a lot of your "lifestyle centers", if you will, that you see across the country and they are going in now so I don't think that is necessarily objectionable either, specifically Use Unit 19. Some of the ones in Use Unit 17 however, I think will need to be looked over with a little more detail. Mr. Terminella, can you speak to those two items? Yes Jill. There are certain things based on my upbringing that I wouldn't have anywhere on the property. That would be adult entertainment, adult bookstores and things of that nature that I feel are offensive to me and my family and my beliefs. Some of the things that we got into after review it with Council. In the C-2 pod we have a motel group from out of state that is wanting to build a Class A or Class B facility. In that they could have an arcade or something of that nature that if we just agree to it carte blanche, wide open, it is going to create some problems for some potential franchisees in the future. Before we have a definitive game plan in place I will get with staff and strike the usages that I feel are offensive and would be offensive and detrimental for our overall land plan. It has a whole list of them here and I don't perceive a need for an auctioneer or a tattoo service. Some of this stuff is woven into the fabric of the overall guideline for usage and we just respectfully are asking for a little bit of time to sift through those and find the ones that don't make good sense to us. We don't see any car dealerships or repair shops. The price of the ground has gotten to the point out there where those things don't work. Topography doesn't lend itself to a bunch of that stuff being built and constructed. Mr. Whitaker, how would we act on this item without that list being developed to see it? I am talking about Tract Al which is the one from R- A to C-2. How can we make a recommendation to City Council without a full understanding of what is being offered in the Bill of Assurance. If you don't believe that at this point saying approve it now we'll work on it later, you don't want to make that leap of faith then you probably should vote against recommending it. Is tabling appropriate in that case? I would think that we would just be looking for that clarification. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 64 Whitaker: Tabling is certainly an option if you believe that they are within days or a couple of weeks of having this document but I don't know how close they are. Terminella: I can identify all of the ones that Jeremy handed to me before the meeting if you want to put it in the motion, I can identify the ones that I would strike and wouldn't allow within that area if that would be acceptable. Anthes: Can we do that verbally or do we need the written Bill of Assurance? Whitaker: You don't have to have the written Bill of Assurance but you can make it a condition of approval or of your recommendation based on that condition and then it goes to the Council with that in it. Anthes: I am confused because we are not talking about omitting whole Use Units. We are talking about going line item by line item within a Use Unit. I have never seen us do that before so I don't know how to handle it. Pate: We have done that in the past. Again, Bill of Assurance is offered by the applicant and not requested or required. The applicant has offered a Bill of Assurance to ensure C-2 zoning in this parcel. Currently the one that we have staff is supportive of and I believe that with a little more detailed look at the things in trades and services and things in commercial recreation small site, those are things that we could potentially look at tonight and forward with a recommendation. I think you have a number of options. You can recommend for denial, you can recommend for tabling, you can recommend for approval based on what the applicant is offering verbally, which is to include Use Units 17 and 19 if you feel that is appropriate and of course, it would exclude everything else that has been eliminated from Use Unit 17 and 19. It is about your comfort level and how you feel. Anthes: Mr. Terminella, can you verbally list what you would strike from Use Units 17 and 19? Terminella: Use Unit 17 the things that we would be striking would be auctioneer, linen supply and industry laundries, tattoo services, taxidermist, motor repair, tool sharpening and repair services, I don't believe we will have any cabinet makers on the interstate. The rest of them seem reasonable for a community or a residential area as far as services. Use Unit 19, I don't believe we are going to have another skating rink on the property. I feel certain that there won't be a spot car track and there are only about six items there that fall within that Use Unit category. One would be billiards and a pool parlor, I think I would leave that in primarily for the hotel user who has identified this property for a development. I'm not sure what their Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 65 intent is for the amenities of the hotel so I am operating cautiously on that. Bowling alley, I don't see there ever needs to be a bowling alley. Skating rink, I don't see that happening. Video arcade and indoor theater, possibly inside something of a resort type property. I would request that those stay in there. Skating, Slot Car, Bowling Alley would be extracted from that. MOTION: Anthes: I would like to move that we recommend approval of the requested rezoning, Al, from R -A to C-2 subject to the offered Bill of Assurance omitting Use Units as stated, permitted Uses 20, 33 and those portions of 17 and 19 offered by the applicant and Conditional Uses 21, 28, 32 and 36. Myres: Second. Ostner: You excluded Use Unit 21, 28, 32 and 36? Anthes: Yes. Ostner: My question is on Use Unit 17 you mentioned the items that you wanted removed. Would you mind going over the items that remain because we don't have that list in front of us. Terminella: The ones that could potentially remain would be these, a lot of which I don't see happening, but I wouldn't feel comfortable striking them tonight without further dialogue and thought. Automotive sales, service and a body shop, that kind of goes with a car dealership like Landers or anything else there on 1-540. Busses, I don't see that happening and I'm not even sure what that means. Manufactured Home Sales, I don't believe there is any of that area that would yield itself for manufactured home sales. Motorcycle sales, I think we just rezoned Mr. Bill Eddy's property in the old Hank's location to allow that happen, which is I-540 frontage in the Overlay so that is a possibility but doubtful. Truck Sales, Service and Repair, Trailer Sales, Camping, Hauling, Travel. Here again, I never see that happening, especially for my intended use for Mountain Ranch but here again, that is something that could happen. Farm supply equipment and repair. I don't think the property yields itself as far as price point, for that. Direct selling (general merchandising established) I'm not sure the intent of that but I don't think that is going to be happening. Then it goes on to say Animal Hospital, Packing and Crating, Rug Cleaning, Tool Sharpening, Auto Wash, Electrical Repair, Radio and Television Repair, Rug Repair. I can see some simple retail. I can see some R -O, Residential Office or physician base, whether it is dentistry or whether it is services geared toward a community driven planned area. I can't see to the end Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 66 game but I can visualize a 30 acre or 40 acre pod along I-540 that has services like that that would compliment the residential aspect of it. Ostner: Thank you. We have a motion and a second, is there any further discussion? This is a big project. Call the roll. Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to recommend approval of the request to rezone from R -A to C-2 was approved by a vote of 9-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries. MOTION: Anthes: I would move to recommend approval of requested Rezonings A2, B and C based on staff findings. Trumbo: Second. Ostner: We have a motion and a second on Tract A2, B and C. Is there further discussion? Call the roll please. Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to recommend approval of the Rezoning requests included for Tracts A2, B and C was approved by a vote of 9-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries. Anthes: On the items that the applicant chose to withdraw do we need to take any action? Whitaker: No, his request is gone since he withdrew. Anthes: The reason I stopped here is this deals with property adjacent to the highway and to Persimmon Street and to the development that has currently been passed and cleared that off the table for discussion about the rest of the pieces and I think that there may be some comments that we need to hear related to the neighbor's comments and about density and hillsides and things like that that we want to discuss so I thought we could clean out the easy ones and then we could work on this. Vaught: I like RSF-2 here. Granted, I don't think it will develop to that due to the terrain. It is very steep. I didn't like leaving it R -A before when we left it here. For instance, someone could put a mobile home park in here by right now. Rezoning it to something to a RSF-1 or RSF-2 zoning would definitely be more favorable to me. RSF-2, I think it is nice to see someone bringing that forward so I'm in support of RSF-2. I think Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 67 anything above that would have been out of line but I think RSF-2 is a good place for this to fall. I doubt that it will develop to two full units per acre after parkland dedications and roadway right of ways and tree preservation and things are counted. Ostner: Mr. Terminella, since we are talking about vision, how do you envision this parcel being developed? We are talking about the steeper areas in RZN 05-1564 encompassing areas D, F, H, I, J. Terminella: After looking at the overall topography of the property one must keep in mind that Mt. Sequoyah, Skyline, Oklahoma Way, all of the roads on top of Mt. Sequoyah in years past were developed with density greater than RSF-4. It can be done. Is it the highest and best use of that particular challenged topography? I don't think so. I currently live on top of the mountain. I have walked or drove all of this land at one time or the other over the past few years. Why you see so many lines moving and jagging and pieces and pods, that was taken into consideration when we came before you asking for our zoning and entitlement process. Things we put forward are, in my eyes as a land planner and a developer, realistic. Those yields would have the least impact on the land mass. Could we do more? Yes. Could we have done more in Phase I with four unit per acre density? Yes. At this point I think my actions speak louder than anything that I can say at this microphone tonight. The intended use of this farm is to create the next regional mountainous area called Mountain Ranch which will be equivalent to what we have seen develop on Rockwood Trail and the other mountainous areas off of Hwy. 45. The density that we are requesting approval for is less than what was constructed and developed and built in the areas that I just referenced. We feel like we have a good handle on it. I'm the one that lives on top of the mountain in the middle of it. I see some of my other neighbors here that didn't have a comment. They may be asking themselves about density and things of that nature but the city right now doesn't have an RSF-2.2 or RSF-1.5, RSF-2.6. I am simply asking for approval on the tools that I was given to work with and as you can see, we have developed 2.2 units per acre in a RSF-4 zone. I think my actions speak louder than my words. That is our intent in the mountainous area we can get two units per acre. Do I think for a minute that we are going to have two units per acre in those RSF-2? No. I think it is more like one unit per every acre or acre and a half ground. Do we have the tools for me to articulate that under our current zoning classifications? I would say not. The request is for greater density with an understanding that lesser density will come through. I am only working within the guidelines of what I have to work with right now. Vaught: Several of these phases will be years off unless the developer hurries. Hopefully our hillside ordinance won't take as long as these developments and we will have some more definition for the developer in designing it Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 68 also as we pass these things on what will happen on some of these steep portions of the property. I guess my hope is that the hillside ordinance is only months away instead of years. Ostner: I hope so too. On that note, for Mr. Whitaker, with the current draft proposal, how might that affect some of these steep areas or are you even familiar with that? Whitaker: I have not seen the draft of that. Trumbo: I don't believe there is one. Terminella: I can speak to the issues that jump out as far as my concerns. A lot of the things that Design Workshop, Staff, and the group have championed in the preliminary draft ordinance, a lot of things that make sense to me are moving the utilities to the front of the lots along street ways so we don't disturb the canopy on the backside of lots for simply putting in a line. The other things that make a great deal of sense to me is the street widths of some streets in mountainous areas. The thing that probably made the most sense to me is variations in setbacks in steep areas to where we are not creating the need to go in and bench and remove a bunch of canopy and basically layer the mountain. There are all sorts of bad examples around town of that. I am encouraged about the process we have made on that. I have been there at every meeting. It is very important to me. I think I'm one of less than a handful of people that own 500 acres of mountainous area within the city limits of Fayetteville, Arkansas. Growing up on that side of town, playing on Markham Mountain, running around on this farm, riding motorcycles, living on Hall Street, going up and down Cleveland, Sang, Hassle, I have vested interest. I am a green developer. This is where I've grown up. Those things are important to me and I feel like I've been in and out of several committees and several failed attempts to get something past but I'm as encouraged as I've ever been with the collective spirit of trying to get something that works both for the city, the residents and the development community. I think we are well on the way. In saying that, I think there are steps being made that would minimize the impact on our mountainous area and they are making sense to me. Ostner: I appreciate that. MOTION: Myres: I move that we approve the remaining items which I believe are D, F, G, H, I and J. Trumbo: I will second. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 69 Ostner: Is there discussion? Anthes: I believe your intent for this property is right. Don't question that I'm questioning that. I am just having some trouble with the order these things are happening in. We are all saying that this makes sense with the hillside ordinance, this makes sense with what we are working on. This makes sense if we do it this way. But we don't have that ordinance in place yet. We don't have the thing that protects this hundreds of acres of hillside. I don't know what phases you plan to do first and next and next. I know what you are doing first, that is the one that went through a few weeks ago. Can you tell us about the timing of this and what is the urgency to rezone these last sections right now before we have the other pending legislation with the PZD ordinance and the hillside ordinance that could inform us about how these would develop on this other piece of property? I am going back to a rather heart felt and passionate plea to us this evening by the previous land owner and I'm trying to figure out how we can go through this in a way that is beneficial to everybody. Terminella: I'm the gentleman that collectively purchased the land with the intent of bringing it through this body as a PZD. Due to certain things well out of my control that couldn't happen. I spent the time, I've spent the money, I've spent one year of debt servicing 474 acres sitting in neutral trying to navigate through these ordinances that the city has. In order for me, Tom Terminella, the Reserve, LLC, the Ranch, to move the project forward there have been certain things asked of me to cost share one mile of road running east and west, to cost share ''4 mile road running north and south. To take into consideration of giving the land that I purchased, some six acres, for right of way for all of this to happen. I understand that. I do it in seven different cities, three counties and some 2,000 acres of it in this community. The thing that I have to have as the guy that put it on the line, the risk taker, the gambler, the poker player, whatever you want to call me, I have to have the reassurance that I can do what I need to do to recapture my investment. I can't stand here tonight and agree to anything other than absolute understanding of my entitlement and zoning. Others are asking me to pay, wait, give, donate, pay for certain things in order for all to benefit from. I simply ask this body and the Council to give me my entitled powers, zoning, and the entitlements that I need to move my project forward. It has to be a two way street. There has to be consideration given for development. A developer has to have consideration for the city. I have went beyond the call of duty sitting in neutral patiently and working with staff and others to achieve the things that needed to be achieved in order to move it forward. I don't feel good about leaving this body with part of my business done. I have agreed to do certain things with the city and the school district so they can achieve their goals. I would simply ask for the Planning Commission and the City Council to give me the same consideration. Give me the reassurance that I Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 70 Allen: can land plan and develop my property in a civilly, educated manner and without the entitlement I can't do that. Without an understanding of the land use I can't do that. I have got almost all of the pieces but not all of them. That is how I would speak to that. Regarding the same thing that Commissioner Anthes said, you have almost all of the pieces and we, as Planners, have concerns about what might happen in the future. That is the point of Planning. I am not clear as to why you need it all when we feel like we are close to being able to have an ordinance in place that would make us feel better about development of the last part of the property. Terminella: The last part of the property is RSF-2 and the flat spots on top of the mountain are RSF-4. I have backed away from density and vertical development and things of that nature that was offensive to staff on the top of that mountain. In R -A, what it is currently zoned, I can do one house per acre right now as it exists. Most of this area is topography challenged, it has one way in and out. There is going to have to be some concessions and understanding of street widths. I don't look at it as offensive. I look at it as something other. I concur with Mr. Vaught that leaving it R -A and the things that could be put on it at that level of zoning would be far more worrisome to me than an RSF-2 or RSF-4 zone. That is me personally. Why is it so important for me to understand it? There again, I am the fellow that has been here for a year in neutral wanting an understanding that I can do something with my farm other than run cattle on it. It has become real expensive to run cattle on that amount of real estate and sit in neutral. I am not willing to come back and back and listen to public abuse and under educated people slam me in this public forum that don't fully understand the development plan. I have taken that up with the city staff, with the mayor of the city, I have taken it up with the folks that have all the vested interest in making this happen out there. I simply want the reassurance that I can develop my farm. There are others in the city that want the reassurance that I am going to cost share, donate, build, pay for and give right of way and money to make that happen. I don't think it is an unreasonable request for everybody to win. That is the number one rule in my company is everybody wins that is involved in a particular deal. That is all that I am asking for. I don't think any of it is intrusive. I don't think there is zoning that is offensive on top of that mountain that would destroy view shed. If I could make it pretty and put all the streets in there and there was 100% certainty I would. In order to do that on 474 acres, that is a large amount of civil investment for no reassurance on anything. I have been there and done that and this is what our city staff, the Planning Department, asked me to do. If I can't get an RPZD approved because of the technical aspects of the ordinance, then bring it through in pods of your intended zoning. That is what I have done. Through this whole process I wouldn't say it has gone as smooth as silk but it hasn't been Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 71 Allen: Terminella: burlap. I have done what I said I would do. I am continuing to do that. The main issue comes down to me being able to fund and finance the project. I can fund and finance a piece of real estate that has the entitlement and the zoning in place. I can't fund and finance a 474 acre cattle farm with no reassurance in this city that I can do anything other than put one house per acre or run cattle on it. That is why I'm asking. That is why it is important. As far as the evolution of development, where it goes from A to B Jill, it starts on Persimmon and goes south through multiple phases over eight years. Absorption will tell us the real pace and time line on this thing. Based on what I'm seeing out in the valley and other subdivisions, the absorption rate of Mr. Sloan and Mr. Nock and Mr. Walker and the other folks that are developing within that community, the absorption is good. The demand is there. The need is there. What is lacking is infrastructure. I've spent weeks, days, months and hours talking with others planning and collectively gifting paying for and cost sharing in order for this city to achieve it's goals. I don't think it is out of the realm of reality for me to leave here tonight knowing what I can do with my property. That is why I'm asking for the mass zonings. That is how it got here. I wish I could've got my PZD approved a year ago and then I wouldn't be here tonight. I'm not willing to go back through this another dozen times. As you can tell, the young lady that was here earlier was one of seven heirs. The other heirs talk to me on a daily basis and still run cattle on my farm. I am disappointed, I'm saddened by her behavior. It is what it is and hopefully you are seeing everything. Did you talk with her and the other neighbors that were unhappy? She is not a neighbor. She owns no real estate on the west side of I-540 to my knowledge. I have talked to three neighbors that adjoined some portion of the farm this week that have called me. I noticed my neighbors that live closest to me are here in this chamber tonight that had no comment. I noticed the ones that had no financial risks or responsibility or reliability were speaking the loudest. The one that I just wrote the check to. It is real easy to sit on the side lines and call somebody a land harvester or butcher when it is not you. I don't go for that for a New York minute. I don't believe anything that was conveyed. She obviously does not have a clear understanding of the evolution and the responsibilities that the city put on me to get to this point. I did agree to buy it as a PZD but staff is recommending that the way that I need to bring this through because of the massive size is individual zoned pods then that is what I'm going to do. I'm going to go along with what staff recommends and hopefully get approval based on their recommendations. Here again, I'm not going to beat the drum. It is what it is. Those are my reasons. That is why I requested it. That is why we switched gears after I was tabled on a simple 21 acre rezone for Phase I. At that point I made the decision if we are going to participate at the level that the city wants us to on cost shares Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 72 and miles of roads, I simply need my reassurance before I voluntarily gift my land and participate in these cost shares. I respectively ask you to move it forward and approve my request tonight and I'll be here until the questions stop coming. Allen: Can you calculate how many acres we have already rezoned? Ostner: Remaining if D, J, H, I, J, and G. I believe we have more than remaining. Pate: You have 235 acres remaining. Ostner: We have rezoned 140 and another 235 are before me. Anthes: I think Commissioner Allen and I were getting at the same thing. With what Mr. Terminella was saying about his timing, he is going to work from Persimmon and go down over eight years. We just looked at 120+ acres that exactly fit that development pattern that we recommended approval on to City Council. When I look at the rest of the acreage I'm excited about the fact that the way you have zoned this is not just by putting a grid on the map but by looking at the topography. I have a GIS generated file here that shows your parcels laid over slopes and it is very clear that you have been responsive to that in laying this out and I really appreciate that. It is not just a bubble diagram. That is why my comment was I believe your intent is exactly right. We are just haggling because we would love to have this in a logical order where we know that these things that we know are in the pipeline are in place. I think that that will happen with the development taking the amount of time that it will to develop the property. I just know that we have looked at other pieces of property and said we are going to hold off on that because there is not development pressure on that parcel right now that says we have to take action before something else that is in the pipeline is finished. I appreciate that the clearing on the top of the mountain is being held down. I am comfortable with G in that respect and I'm probably pretty comfortable with the rest of it as RSF-2. I just wish we had a different order that these things were happening in. Staff, with the RSF-2 in what you have seen coming through with the ordinances, are you thinking that these are highly compatible? /2 Pate: Very much so. I guess in response, there has been a lot of discussion about the hillside ordinance tonight, but the initial impression from Council when we first looked at anything about hillside protection was to downzone the multi -family to something conducive to hillside development which would be RSF-2 or RSF-4. That is what we initially looked at doing is rezoning to exactly what this rezoning request is requesting. Clearing an entire 1/4 acre is not the intent of this developer. It Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 73 would not meet our grading ordinances currently that we have. We have grading and tree preservation ordinances in place right now for RSF-2 zoning districts without the hillside development that I feel would protect that hillside whether we had that ordinance in place now or in two years. Those are things that we took into consideration when we made our recommendation. The fact that the city is going to look at development of this very nature on Mt. Sequoyah which is zoned at a much higher density and would not be appropriate. That is the very reason that we had the discussion about the RMF -24 on the hillside tonight. There are ways that you could do that inappropriately very easily. The density proposed at two units per acre is extremely low density for this Commission and Council to look at. To my knowledge, there has only been one or two other rezoning requests to RSF-2 since it was created two years. It is just not utilized very often. The '/2 acre lot and 100' width minimum are inherently things that protect that property. We expect Mr. Terminella would comply with our city ordinances just as anyone else would. That is what it came down to in our evaluation of that RSF-2 on the hillside. Ostner: I would like to agree with Mr. Pate. I am on the hillside taskforce and need to stick up for it. I think I am sticking up for the hillside taskforce because one of the first things that we deliberated was let's rezone the hillsides to RSF-2. In fact, we talked about RSF-4 which is twice what he is proposing. That proposal is off the table. Right off the bat, one of the quickest methods to protect hillsides he is already addressing. All of the design regulations that we are getting embroiled in with the hillside taskforce are important and I would love them to be implemented. But the number one method municipalities have used to protect hillsides is density. The second thing is that big tracts of land are good. They are scary and it is hard to look at it and think about it at once but our services can look at that and say we know what is going to happen for the next eight years. We do have a budget to promote to the Council because we know that this will happen and when. I do think this is good and would like to see this happen tonight. Clark: I call the question. Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to call the question was approved by a vote of 9-0-0. Ostner: There is no more discussion and the motion was to forward the rest of the items and was seconded. Call the roll. Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to recommend approval of the remaining rezoning request for Mountain Ranch was approved by a vote of 9-0-0. Planning Commission June 27, 2005 Page 74 Thomas: The motion carries.