HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006-09-14 - MinutesSubdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 1
MINUTES OF A MEETING OF THE
SUBDIVISION COMMITTEE
A regular meeting of the Fayetteville Subdivision Committee was held on September 14,
2006 at 9:00 a.m. in Room 219 of the City Administration Building, 113 W. Mountain,
Fayetteville, Arkansas.
ITEMS DISCUSSED ACTION TAKEN
R-PZD 06-2196: (WEST FORK PLACE, 565/566) Forwarded
Page 3
R-PZD 06-2169: (6TH & WOOD, 524) Forwarded
Page 17
FPL 06-2104: (THE COMMONS @ WALNUT Approved
CROSSING, 555)
Page 25
FPL 06-2232: (MOUNTAIN RANCH I, 478) Approved
Page 30
FPL 06-2211: (CLABBER CREEK IV, 244) Forwarded
Page 33
LSD 06-2237: (BANK OF THE OZARKS 6TH Forwarded
ST, 558)
Page 41
PZD 06-1884: (WESTSIDE VILLAGE CONDOS, Tabled
439)
Page 46
R-PZD 06-2212: (STADIUM CENTRE TOWN- Forwarded
HOMES, 557)
Page 57
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 2
James Graves
Andy Lack
Sean Trumbo
STAFFPRESENT
Jeremy Pate
Andrew Garner
Suzanne Morgan
Jesse Fulcher
Matt Casey/Engineering
Sarah Patterson/Urban Forester
Glenn Newman/Engineering
MEMBERS ABSENT
Candy Clark
Christine Myres
Lois Bryant
Alan Ostner
Jill Anthes
Hillary Harris
STAFF ABSENT
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
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R-PZD 06-2196: Planned Zoning District (WEST FORK PLACE, 565/566):
Submitted by PROJECT DESIGN CONSULTANTS, INC., for property located at THE
END OF RAY AVENUE, S. OF HUNTSVILLE ROAD. The property is zoned RSF- 4,
SINGLE FAMILY- 4 UNITS/ACRE and contains approximately 13.92 acres. The
request is for a Master Development Plan of a Residential Planned Zoning District with
58 single-family dwellings: 28 attached and 30 detached.
Lack: Welcome to this Thursday, September 14th, convening of the Subdivision
Committee. The first item on our agenda today in old business is R-PZD
06-2196 Planned Zoning District for West Fork Place. May I have the
staff report, please?
Fulcher: You bet. This item was heard at the previous Subdivision Committee
meeting on August 31 st. At that time it was tabled to allow time for the
applicants to rework some items for the Urban Forester on the tree
preservation reports and also to make some minor changes for the
planning staff regarding the booklets and plats. Those changes have been
made. The Urban Forester can address those issues that have been
corrected and responded to since that time. The request is for a planned
zoning district, large-scale development approval, on 14 acres south of
Huntsville Road and south of Helen Street. It's bounded on the south by
the White River. It would be an extension of the Watson Addition, which
has been developed for probably over 30 years. They're requesting 29
single-family units and 32 family or multifamily units, resulting in a
density of approximately 4.2 units per acre. There are five planning areas
in this planned zoning district. Planning Areas 1 through 3 will have all
the residential uses. Planning Area 4 will be the greenspace, which will be
maintained by the property owners association. Then Planning Area 5 will
be dedicated as parkland. Since the last time we reviewed this there are
some changes to the parkland numbers. They had to rework one of their
street sections where it required them to move the units around a little bit,
so the original proposal was for dedication of 6.48 acres of parkland, now
it's 6.08. However, based on the number of units that they have, they're
actually only required to dedicate 1.39, so they're dedicating above what
they're required, but I just wanted to note that minor change in that
dedication amount. Staff did review this project for connectivity for future
development; however, the east side is fairly limited. Obviously the
properties to the north are already developed and that's what it will be
connecting to. The property to the south and east is bound by the White
River, so that pretty much leaves the connections to the west. There is a
right-of-way along the west property line, so if in the future property to the
west along Happy Hollow and 13th Street be redeveloped, there will be an
opportunity for connectivity at that time. Based on the changes that were
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September 14, 2006
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made since the last Subdivision Committee meeting, staff has
recommended that this item be forwarded to the Planning Commission
with some items to address, again, some minor revisions to the plats and to
the booklet, which is itemized in Condition of Approval Number 13.
There are also some comments from the Urban Forester itemizing Item 4.
A few determinations: Condition Number 1, determination of street
improvements. Staff is recommending an asphalt overlay of Ray Avenue
from the intersection of Huntsville to the interior street where they will be
picking up the extension of Ray Avenue. Also that a 4 -foot sidewalk be
constructed on the north side of the private alley which is shown in
Planning Areas 1 and 2. That alley will be private, although staff is
recommending that a sidewalk be constructed there for more pedestrian
connectivity between the parkland and the sidewalk that will be
constructed in the public right-of-way. All other public streets, including
the public alley -- or the private alley, shall be constructed to city
standards and be maintained by the property owners association -- that is
for the private alley. Condition Number 3 is determination of waivers
from the street design standards. There is a waiver of the street radius at
the northwest part of the property. They're requesting a hundred -foot
radius where 150 feet is required. Engineering can explain that a little bit
more. There's also -- based on looking at the revised drawings, they've
shown where Jerry Avenue will be, which is to the northeast of this
property. The existing Jerry Avenue, to where their easternmost street is
about 130 feet from, that does not meet the minimum jog standards
between those two streets. We will need to review a waiver for that. We
did not get that information reviewed in time to request that waiver, so
we're just requesting that they submit that and having Karen review that. I
believe that all the other conditions of approval are fairly straightforward.
If you have any questions, just ask.
Lack: Thank you. Engineering?
Casey: I'll just expand on the waiver as requested for the minimum radius. On
the west side where the street comes in, Ray Avenue, and curves to the
east, there are some large gas main appurtenances in the way, and if we
lay that out as 150 -foot radius it would require the location of all that
infrastructure. With the configuration that's shown, we feel comfortable
supporting that waiver request. Another one, and I don't believe it is
mentioned, with this reconfiguration over on the east side, from what we
saw last time, it's quite a bit different. The public street is actually the
through portion of this odd intersection, and if you could see, the street
actually falls where the sidewalk is shown and that creates considerably
less radius than what is required. This, like I said, has changed
considerably since the last time. I spoke with our City Engineer yesterday
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September 14, 2006
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about this configuration and we're not in support of what is shown. We
don't feel that that meets the intent of what we need to see there. I feel
that the traffic is going to tend to not follow the public street. It will go
forward on down the private alley, and if that's the case, we probably need
to look at making that a public street down through there if it's going to be
configured in this way. So right now we do not support the plan as shown.
That's all I have.
Lack: Thank you. Tree and Landscape?
Patterson: Yes. Many of the revisions that I had during the last submittal have been
addressed. There was an error on the tree preservation plan that you are
looking at, a computer error, and they submitted an older version, so that
will need to be updated for the next submittal. They did give me a copy --
several copies -- if you would like to see those. There is one revision still
needed for significant tree number 40. The grading still needs to be pulled
back in order to preserve that tree. There's quite a bit of grading within it.
And then just some other statements. Tree canopy shared by landowners
is found to be a high priority. All canopy along the northern property line
should have every measure taken to ensure the health and longevity of the
tree. Mitigation is going to be required for the site in the amount of 50
2 -inch caliper large species trees. The applicant will be utilizing the
residential onsite mitigation option. A three-year maintenance and
monitoring bond, a letter of credit, or a check will be due in the amount of
$12,500.00 for the mitigation trees before the last certificate of occupancy
in this development or as each lot develops. That's all.
Lack: Thank you. Are there any member of the public that would like to speak
to this item? Yes. Please step forward.
Madison: I'm Sue Madison and I believe you all have a letter from us about this
development. Of course we knew there was vacant property behind Helen
Street and that something would happen to it, but we also knew that it was
zoned residential single-family, four units per acre. And frankly, this
proposal would seem to conflict with that, as far as I can tell. I mean, it
certainly is not what neighbors would have been led to believe would
happen with the property. Because rather than a neighborhood of single-
family homes, it is indeed multifamily in places, or attached, as they're
choosing to call it. I would particularly object to the access at the east end
of Helen, because there was absolutely no warning to neighbors that there
would ever be a street there. Originally, Jerry was platted and more or less
stubbed to go to the south. The city chose to vacate that at the request of
an owner, which, to me, would imply that the city therefore gave up any
access south of Helen at that east end. This is a platted residential lot.
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September 14, 2006
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There's no indication that it would ever be a street. Helen is basically one
block long. It is quiet. There is good connectivity to Huntsville Road
from both Ray and Jerry. I don't see that adding the access at that east end
is going to improve anything as far as traffic flow or connectivity. It
merely provides a loop. If we were going to have connectivity, that cul-
de-sac would be stubbed out to the east or there would be some provision
to access Happy Hollow Road right there by where the city recycling
facilities are through there. You have my letters, so I've enumerated our
other issues with the project in that letter, but I would ask that you please
consider this neighborhood that's small and quiet. We've had some fairly
well-to-do neighborhoods in Fayetteville that didn't end up having access
into those neighborhoods even when it had been platted, whereas this
modest neighborhood, there was never even a platted street there. Do you
need my address or anything else?
Lack: No. Thank you.
Madison: Okay. Thank you.
Lack: Are there any other members of the public who would like to speak to this
item? Seeing none, I will ask the developer for their presentation.
Scott: Good morning. My name is Art Scott with Project Design Consultants,
and with me is Mike McDonald, the developer on the project. I think
we're in agreement with virtually all the comments from staff. On this
east access, we were just discussing we could slide these units a little bit,
keeping the same number of units and adjust that to make it satisfactory to
engineering staff in just that location. So we're okay with -- I agree with
Mr. Casey's assessment on this here, that probably would lend itself to
people coming down the alley rather than staying on the main public
street.
McDonald: Probably just these units to allow some access through here. If Parks
decides to put a parkway down into the park down in there, we would
have a way to come between these units when we slide these units
together as well.
Lack: I'm not sure that I understand how you're thinking about modifying those
units.
McDonald: Attach --
Scott: Oh, probably attach two here and make it two 4s instead of four 2s. Like
similar to this -- or actually probably similar to this. And that way we
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
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would gain a little space over here that we could move this over and also
provide an access easement through to this -- this is six acres. I don't
know if that was mentioned. There's six acres of parkland dedication here
along the river. And so I think that will work out good for both of those
situations.
Lack: Okay.
Scott: I think the only other thing we're probably in disagreement on is the
overlay of Ray Street. The pavement itself is in good shape structurally, it
just has some places where there's been a lot of utilities crossed through
there that weren't done real well. So we feel like that there's no problem
with the structural integrity of it or safety of the traffic. It's just some -- a
few bumps in there where the utilities weren't covered up well.
McDonald: And we think the traffic we're generating wouldn't necessarily be going
up and down Ray, it would be coming straight out to Happy Hollow.
Lack: Okay. Would you point out to me on a plan here someplace where your --
where Ray --
Scott: This is Ray Street here and this is the back of that subdivision.
Lack: Right.
McDonald: Ray runs right there where the fences are at.
Scott: No, it runs straight out.
McDonald: Okay. What is it you're asking us to overlay?
Scott: That's it. All the way up to Huntsville Road.
McDonald: Okay. And this is Jerry over here?
Scott: Uh-huh.
Lack: Is that it?
Scott: Yes.
Lack: Mr. Casey, would you mind to address the overlay of Ray Street and the
need for that.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
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Casey: We feel like the path that the majority of these vehicle trips are going to be
taking is up Ray to Happy Hollow, and in our opinion it is in need of
overlay, and that that impact that this development is going to have on it
would warrant the addition of that pavement -- or the improvement of that
pavement.
Lack: Okay. Does the road appear to be structurally adequate at this time? It's
just a matter of the paving is not adequate at this time or it's deteriorated?
Casey: I believe just an overlay would be sufficient to make that improvement, to
bring that up to standards, if that's what you're asking.
Lack: Yes, sir. And did you understand from the applicant's description how
they were proposing to modify the cul-de-sac location?
Casey: No, sir. I couldn't see what they were pointing at to get an idea of what
they had in mind.
Scott: What we intend to do there, Matt, is to take those four two -unit buildings
there around that cul-de-sac and turn them into two four -unit ones.
Casey: I heard that.
Scott: And give me space to move that road over one way or the other.
Lack: If I may, I think what I'm understanding is that you're planning to realign
the alley to --
Scott: Exactly.
Lack: -- attach to the cul-de-sac and not align with the in road.
Scott: Yes, sir. I think we can work that out with staff before we even resubmit.
We can talk to Mr. Casey about that and make sure he's okay with that.
Pate: Mr. Chair.
Lack: Yes.
Pate: Am I under the understanding that would essentially create a "T"
intersection, basically a stop sign, on that short area right there of the
extension to Helen Street and then might likely go right on the public
street; is that correct?
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
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Scott: A stop sign coming into the development?
Pate: Correct.
Scott: Yeah, that's probably the best idea.
Lack: Commissioners?
Trumbo: Mr. Casey, now do you kind of get what he's wanting to do there? Would
that be something you would be amenable to after taking a further look at
it later?
Casey: It's going to be difficult to say without seeing it on paper. I hate to leave it
up in the air like that, but without seeing something in front of me, it's
really hard to comment. I think that would be a little bit closer to what we
have in mind. Just sketching here on my plan, I think we can come up
with a way to eliminate that little cul-de-sac altogether if you're open to
suggestions --
Scott: Certainly.
Casey: -- that might -- and I know this is not the time and the place to be
redesigning, but I do have a suggestion if we could cover that at some
point that might make the whole situation better.
Scott: We'll do that before the re -submittal.
Lack: And is staff comfortable with that? If we get through all the other items
and get through density and the other issues today with this one item of the
alignment of those streets, would staff be comfortable to have that
modification if we choose to forward this?
Casey: Yes, sir.
Lack: Thank you.
Trumbo: Mr. Chair.
Lack: Yes, sir.
Trumbo: I have a question regarding density. I guess it's for Mr. Fulcher. In the
vacation of Helen Street that Ms. Madison brought up, are you
comfortable with the density proposed here? Do you think it's
appropriate?
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
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Fulcher: It's very consistent with what you would see with an RSF-4. It's
approximately 4.2 units per acre. RSF- 4 is four units per acre. There are
actually small areas of C-2, I-2, and R -A also on this property, so it's not
exclusively RSF-4, but the density proposed is consistent with that zoning
classification.
Trumbo: Thank you.
Graves: Mr. Chair.
Lack: Yes, Commissioner Graves.
Graves: Question for staff as well. Are there in this neighborhood any other
duplexes or attached dwellings like those that are being proposed in this
particular application?
Fulcher: There are duplexes actually on Helen Street. I can't remember the specific
number. I believe there's -- if you look on your close-up maps in the
packet, there are at least three there on the south side of Helen Street and
closer to the Jerry Avenue intersection.
Graves: What about these four-plexes like are being proposed, where there's
actually four dwelling units attached together? Is there anything else like
that out there?
Fulcher: No. I believe the highest density use would be a duplex in this area.
Graves: My other question is on this connection to Helen Street. We've had
situations arise in the past in some other neighborhoods, most recently one
right off of Mission, where there was a space between two homes that the
city had right-of-way to construct a street, but it looked like just a wide,
you know, yard or park -type area in the neighborhood and there wasn't
any signage or anything unless you had gone to the county and looked at
the plat to advise the neighbors that a street would be constructed there.
Are we talking about the same situation here?
Fulcher: Probably a little bit of a difference in that had you looked at the plat for
Glenbrook Subdivision, the one off of Mission, it actually stated that this
was a street easement on that lot, a 50 -foot wide street easement, whereas
this one was just a platted lot. As the citizen said, if you had gone and
looked at the plat for Watson Addition you would have seen -- depending
on when you looked, you would have seen two stub -outs, one for Ray and
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page I1
one for Jerry, but you would not have seen a street easement or right-of-
way across that platted lot.
Graves: Which gives me even more pause about connecting right there. We have
both in Candlewood, I think, and in the Glenwood area we hesitated at
pulling the trigger on constructing a street somewhere, even though we
had the right-of-way to do so, where the neighbors didn't really have a
way of being advised that the street was going to go through there without
going down and looking at the plat. And it sounds like here, even if they
had looked at the plat, they wouldn't necessarily have been put on notice
that a street might be constructed there, and I have a real problem with
that. I'm also curious as to why staff isn't requiring a stub -out to the west
towards Happy Hollow or having the applicant check into somehow
connecting through the C-2 lot, the C-2 area, to the west. We've had other
developments where we've, even if there wasn't a street there, we've
required them to look into the feasibility of being able to work through a
parking area for a neighbor or something of that nature to connect to
another thoroughfare. Here we've got a C-2 lot to the west that bounds on
Happy Hollow Road. I don't know what the layout of that C-2 lot is at
this point, but I'm just curious why staff hasn't recommended some kind
of a stub -out or connection to the west or an attempted connection to the
west.
Fulcher: The right-of-way for Ray Avenue is actually adjacent to the west property
line, so there's really not necessarily the need to stub -out. The right-of-
way will be available for the connection since it is adjacent to the property
line. Simply someone stubbing out from the west to the east could "T"
into the Ray Avenue extension, so it is available for a connection. In most
cases you need a stub -out because the right-of-way isn't adjacent to your
property line; in this case it is. When you get further to the south of Ray
Avenue you get into more -- there's topography changes. It starts to slope
into the White River floodplain area and there's also a drainage area at
that point, but the ability to connect to the west is there.
Graves: Well, I guess whenever I look at the way they've got the street planned
here, with the curve that's there, I don't necessarily see much of an
opportunity without some kind of reconstruction there at a later date to
really connect to the west. The way they've got it drawn right now, you're
going to have to do a lot of tearing out if you were ever to connect to the
west. There's not really an opportunity just to go in and lay a street down
to the west without doing a lot of modification, it doesn't look like to me
,anyway. I guess I would be interested in staff and/or the applicant's
comments about that.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
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Pate: In our opinion it's much like a connection to a street that's adjacent to
your property. If you have a larger piece of property and a street is in
front of you, you will obviously have to make that street cut. But anything
adjacent to that property -- obviously when it starts curving back to the
east, if there is not right-of-way dedicated in that location, that would not
occur. But all the way -- the length -- that C-2 property to the west covers
from halfway between Lee and Helen Street all the way down to where
this street begins to curve east because of the topography and because of
the gas appurtenances there. So anywhere along that connection,
assuming they can meet the 150 -foot jog in street location, would be
available for a developer to construct to that street or connect to that street.
Graves: The other thing is, without stubbing anything out over there, you may be
getting yourself in the same situation we were just talking about to the
west, where someone developing that property to the west doesn't have
notice that there might be a street that comes through there connecting to
Happy Hollow at some point. I mean, if you don't actually have a stub -
out there or any signage and it's just a street that curves over towards the
east like it's drawn right now, then there's not really anything that advises
anybody that there might be some intention later on to go through to the
west over to Happy Hollow.
Pate: I think we have that challenge with every property that's adjacent to a
street that's not developed, though. Every property that has a right-of-way
adjacent to them, highway on 16, frontage on 16, or frontage onto Ray, or
any other street in the City of Fayetteville, ultimately has a right to be able
to connect to that public right-of-way. Obviously, we do look at street
stub -outs oftentimes, especially those that are not constructed, and this is a
unique situation, but anyone adjacent on the west side of Ray Avenue, if
the -- if any of those properties there adjacent to that were to redevelop,
such as the Tyson complex, they would have the ability to connect to that
street as long as they met our requirements for street design. Our
recommendation for another connection at this point in time was based on
the number of units proposed -- I believe it's 58 total dwelling units -- and
to provide for a secondary means of ingress and egress. There is very
little ability to connect to the east. We believe that the ability is there to
connect to the west and eventually to Happy Hollow Street in the future
with a redevelopment of that commercially zoned property, but it is
ultimately the Planning Commission and City Council decision whether
you feel that that connection to Helen is appropriate.
Graves: Well, I'm not going to support this project for the reasons that I've already
outlined. I think there needs to be a connection to the west or at least a
planned -- an actual planned connection to the west. I don't think it's
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 13
appropriate. I do think with the number of units there needs to be more
than one way out, but I don't think that the way out that's planned right
now, going through a platted lot, is the way to do it, and therefore, either
the number of units should be reduced or the -- or another connection and
a different way out needs to be planned. And I don't think that four-
plexes are consistent with what's already out there. And I don't think I'm
going to vote to forward it today because of the issue concerning the
alleyway and the cul-de-sac. My fellow commissioners, they may want to
go ahead and forward it and allow that redrawing to come forward at the
full Planning Commission and let us consider a new drawing for the first
time at the full Planning Commission. I don't like to do that. I never vote
for that. So that will be my vote today on that, on whether it gets
forwarded, but even at the full Planning Commission with the way -- just
the general plan of this, I won't support it.
Lack: And I wonder about on the west and the idea of stub -out or the idea of
connectivity. When Ray was platted previously, it extended directly north
and south, and basically "T"-intersectioned or connected in a 90 -degree
manner so that there was a full connection along the property line of the
road so if somebody wanted to tie in from an adjacent property line they
could tie in along that full property. I wonder if that would be possible
here as opposed to the curve.
Scott: I think it was the gas appurtenances that are on both sides of that curve
,actually. We kind of went between them and that's the reason why it's
configured that way and then we just lined up with the Ray right-of-way
on the north. It actually stubs a little bit into our property there. And then
actually there's a dirt road that goes down through there to that junkyard
in the back over there. It's kind of been used as an extension of Ray
Street.
McDonald: You know, we tried to work with what we had there. You know, we're
sort of proud of this project. We believed it met with the long-term goals
of infill and revitalization. It's low-income housing. Obviously, we
talked to some local bankers about setting up some housing fairs and so
forth and pre -qualifying folks for these homes, and we believed this
project met the overall goals of the city. It has a nice area of parkland, and
we have tried to work with what we have there. So, you know, I'm
disappointed that the stub -out causes you that much concern. I understand
your concern, but we certainly think it's a good project.
Lack: I had wondered about the potential to stub -out to the east. I know that the
terrain -- I can see the grading -- I know that the terrain is somewhat more
severe to the east off of the Planning Area 2 section from where the cul-
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September 14, 2006
Page 14
de -sac is, but I don't know that it's not possible to do that. Is that a
potential?
Pate: I believe that one of the reasons is Jerry Avenue used to extend just as far
as Ray does past Helen. That's all existing right-of-way south of Helen
Street currently. Jerry Avenue used to do that when this was platted in the
`60s and was vacated in 1996 per the construction of that home you see
there on your map. I believe that's one of the reasons it was vacated,
because of the proximity of that lot to the actual floodplain and slope
down to the river. The river is heading generally north in that direction and
comes very close to that area. It would be a very tight squeeze to get any
kind of connection in. We can re -look at that. We have -- I believe at the
last meeting we provided some maps showing the topography -- we may
have that with us today -- but it was showing the topography of that -- in
the floodplain and floodway of that area.
Fulcher: I think this is the topography change we're talking about, where it drops
off on this east side of the property, and the river actually bends up
following somewhat the property line at that point.
Trumbo: That's into Jerry?
Fulcher: That's Jerry right there, yes.
Trumbo: And there's a house --
Fulcher: Yes.
Trumbo: -- south of Jerry, so they can't go through there?
Fulcher: That's where the right-of-way used to go, approximately just on the east
side of this house, before it was constructed.
Lack: I think I would probably have a little less concern about that connection,
but certainly it's never a palatable idea or a first choice to take a platted lot
and make a cut -through to another district or another section of a
subdivision, but I'm not sure that it would kill the idea for me.
Trumbo: Mr. Chair. I'd concur with you, too. I'm not crazy about the idea, but I
would go ahead and be in favor of letting the full Planning Commission
hear it. I'm not excited about the idea of forwarding this without the
changes that Mr. Casey needs, either. If he's comfortable with that,
getting that done between now and the Planning Commission, that's
probably going to sway which way I'm going to vote. Do you have an --
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 15
Casey: Well, I've got something drawn here if you all would like to see what I
have in mind. I'm sure --
Trumbo: Well, I guess my question is, are you comfortable with getting this
redrawn in time if we do forward it to the Planning Commission and
you're comfortable with --
Casey: If I'm not comfortable with it, I would like to hold off putting it on the
agenda until we get it worked out -- on the agenda for the full Planning
Commission.
Scott: That's fine with us.
McDonald: We'll have it done in time for the turn -in.
Lack: What is the re -submittal deadline?
Pate: It's Monday morning at 10:00 a.m., and assuming those revisions don't
come in, we could simply not put it on the agenda.
Motion:
Trumbo: Well, I'm going to make a motion to go ahead and forward this to the
Planning Commission. Can we do it without a recommendation of
approval, Jeremy, just for a forward?
Pate: You can.
Lack: Are you going to make determinations on them?
Trumbo: I'm okay with the waiver for the 150 to 100 -- or the radius, I believe it
was. The 4 -foot sidewalk, that's ADA minimum; is that right? Yes?
Casey: Yes, sir.
Trumbo: Okay.
Lack: The overlay?
Trumbo: Yes, I'm in support of the overlay, if engineering recommends that be
done, of Ray Avenue. And in agreement with the other 19 conditions of
approval.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 16
Lack: I'll second that motion.
Graves: I'm opposed to the motion for the reason stated, that I don't like to
consider new drawings for the first time at Planning Commission level.
On the recommendation that was mentioned in the motion on street
improvements, I'm in favor of the overlay, although I'm not in favor of
the layout or the design of the street as indicated on the west. And I'm
also -- on the waiver, I'm just not in favor in general of the way that the
loop was constructed, so my vote is no.
Lack: Thank you.
Scott: Thank you all.
Graves: Thanks.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 17
R-PZD 06-2169: Planned Zoning District (6th & WOOD, 524): Submitted by N.
ARTHUR SCOTT for property located at 6th & WOOD. The property is zoned C-2,
THOROUGHFARE COMMERCIAL and contains approximately 1.80 acres. The
request is for rezoning and development approval for a Residential Planned Zoning
District with 20 multifamily units.
Lack: The next item on the agenda today is R-PZD 06-2169, 6th Street and
Wood. May I have the staff report?
Garner: Yes, sir. This item was tabled at the August 31st Subdivision Committee
meeting mainly to address concerns of our Engineering Staff and Urban
Forester regarding onsite detention and tree preservation. The Subdivision
Committee also expressed concern regarding lack of internal connectivity
between the quad-plexes that were proposed. And since that meeting the
applicant has revised their site plans substantially. They've added a loop
driveway through the lot and they have increased their tree preservation
numbers. Our engineering division is -- when we were publishing this
report last night they were still reviewing it, so we'll give you an update
on where they are with their detention and drainage here in a minute. The
property contains just under two acres. It's located on the south side of
6th Street. It's about 300 feet east of Wood Avenue. It is zoned C-2 and
it's generally flat with the exception of a significant slope directly adjacent
to 6th Street, which was -- that slope was constructed as part of -- when
6th Street was improved, and so for the right-of-way for 6th Street in that
section is very large. It varies from about 72 feet to 82 feet from
centerline. The surrounding land use consists of residential development
on the north side of 6th Street and to the south it's rural residential. There
is some mixed commercial directly east of the site, and single-family
residential to the west. The applicant requests rezoning and large-scale
development approval for a residential development. The proposed use is
for 20 multifamily units and five buildings. They're proposing Planning
Area 1, which is the five buildings over 1.37 acres, and greenspace over
.33 acres. The greenspace is located within a 40 -foot drainage easement
through the central portion of the site. Access, as mentioned, would be
provided with two driveways directly off of 6th Street that provide a loop
through the property. The density over the whole site would be 11 units
per acre approximately. Staff has expressed reservations about this project
and we discussed this at the previous Subdivision Committee meeting.
Our reservations are just that this project may not really meet the intent of
the planned zoning district ordinance. It is just a single use. It's a rather
typical multifamily development that's not providing for many of the
provisions within our PZD ordinance. The primary reason the applicant is
processing a PZD is because of the excessive right-of-way along 6th
Street. They would like to push their building setbacks closer to the street
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 18
and they also want to present elevations of the structures for the decision -
makers on this project. We are recommending -- Well, I'll also note
public comment. We did receive comments from adjacent property
owners that were objecting to this project, discussing such issues as
increased traffic, reducing the tree cover, increased noise, loss of the
neighborhood character, increased crime and decrease in property value,
and we did have public comment stating those issues at the previous
Subdivision Committee meeting. We are recommending forwarding this
item to the full Planning Commission meeting. Condition Number 1, I
just included in there that "The revised drainage report shall meet approval
of the Engineering Division." We were in the process of looking at that
last night when we were printing this out. We did have -- Condition
Number 4, "Revisions to be completed prior to Planning Commission."
Some of these are pretty minor. Condition 4(b), we wanted to see a cross-
section showing how the buildings would lie in relation to 6th Street.
We're recommending this just because of the slope coming off of 6th
Street. 4(c), we feel like the fire department and the solid waste division
need to take a closer look at this revised site plan for the layout of
emergency access and trash service prior to Planning Commission. And I
did talk to our solid waste division last night and showed them quickly this
concept and they were okay with it. I haven't gotten a chance to talk to
the fire department about it, but our concern was just some of the really
steep slopes in these driveways going down in there. One of the issues,
4(e), with this revised layout, some of their parking spaces from the
driveway are dimensioned at only 18 feet and when you would park a car
behind the driveway some of the spaces would actually stick out into the
drive isle and we don't feel like that's safe, so we feel like some of spaces
should be increased. And 4(f), I just noted that the grade on some of the
private drives and some of the parking spaces is very steep, but I think our
engineering division wilt expound on that. Those are the main issues I
wanted to cover.
Lack: Thank you. Matt, do you have anything to add?
Newman: Yes. Glenn Newman, staff engineer. I do have a little bit to add to that. I
have written up comments. I was able to compile them later last night and
I would just like to pass these up to you if you don't mind. You can look
over those. Andrew went over most of our concerns. The largest concern
that we have is the detention. We've gone back and forth a few times with
detention on this project. They have shown detention. The situation is,
we're using the access between -- or connectivity between the
development as a weir. Evaluating the submittal they presented, when we
do have a load flow, load storm event, we're getting 10 inches of water
over that roadway, a 10 -year event, about 13 inches, and the 100 -year
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 19
event is about a foot and a half. We feel that's not a safe condition to have
access, people walking through that at that time. So our biggest concern
is the detention. If another method is able to be determined and to be
evaluated, we would reconsider that. The other issue mentioned is the
grading overall. I believe retaining walls in a few areas would fix the
parking problems that I see on the grading plans. Some places they have it
three to one for the secondary vehicle parking. It seems extremely steep
and sometimes that's not perpendicular to the vehicle, so it's on a crawl
slope also. So just for convenience of the public that will be using this
facility, I feel that may need to be reevaluated. And the other major item I
have is Item 14, water lines, to extend an 8 -inch water line on the
drawings as we've discussed previously, but with the new layout they
have shown a little different method. If you have any questions on those
items, I'll be happy to explain them further.
Lack: Thank you. Do we have any public comment on this R-PZD 06-2169?
Seeing none, I will bring it back to the developer.
McDonald: I'm Mike McDonald, again, with Hometown. Of course, Art Scott, again,
with PDC. I guess at the last meeting the general consensus were we were
pretty close to being technically correct, but the project didn't meet the
spirit of the community and so we took some input from staff and redrew
this thing. We did show the weir that was described to you to actually
access rather than having two driveways, show some connectivity between
the units, and added a -- well, we're going to put an arched pedestrian
bridge and put some river rock in there and we were trying to show a
sidewalk out, you know, to somehow connect this development to the
community around it, which was, as I understood it, one of the
overwhelming messages of the last meeting and that's the reason that we
made these changes. Art would have to address some of the specifics that
have been brought up, but that's the reason we are where we are.
Anything, Art?
Scott: I think the driveway on the east side that enters 6th Street is around 6 to 7
percent. It's not optimum, of course, you know, but it's certainly safe and
typical, I think, of a lot of driveways in Fayetteville. There is some
steepness to some parking for that one -- the two units on the southeast
corner that should we add a retaining wall would take that away as a
concern. I think the flow over that low-water crossing here could only
really be addressed with a culvert, box culvert, through there. The
situation with this site is is that it's near the bottom of a drainage area that
extends all the way up to Mount Sequoyah, so there's a lot of offsite flow
that comes through there. So to do detention is -- I think we've been --
we've disagreed with staff over even the need for detention, but we added
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 20
it because they requested us to do so. I think that we can -- you know, if
they don't like the low-water crossing we'll just culvert it so that it passes
underneath the drive, at least for the 10 -year storms. So that's something
we can easily address, I think.
McDonald: We thought up to a two-year storm would go through. Did you agree with
that, up to a two-year storm would go through without covering the road,
or did you have different --
Newman: No, sir. The drainage report indicates that it is topping the road on the
two-year storm.
McDonald: On the two-year storm?
Newman: Yes, sir. So it was 10 inches above the road.
McDonald: Okay.
Newman: The road elevation is 65, I believe, is what they have for the roadway.
McDonald: Okay.
Newman: But I did review that last night and it is topping the road at the two-year
storm also. And we -- I believe recently we've had some issues in the city
with that type situation and we want to avoid that with the weir.
McDonald: Well, we may have erred on the side of trying to be less technical and
trying to create too aesthetically pretty of something there with the low-
water crossings, so if we need to redo something there, I guess we can.
Lack: Is there -- Before I go on, is that the extent of your presentation?
McDonald: Yes. I might say that staff is correct. The reason we primarily used the
PZD process was because of the 70 -foot one side of the right-of-way, our
side of the street only 70 feet. This certainly is a downzoning. It's zoned
C-2, and so we don't feel like we're doing anything extraordinary the
other way, but that is the primary reason for the PZD was that with regard
to the water we did add a fire hydrant and then proposed to bring the water
to our buildings. We have private service. There is another fire hydrant
directly across the street, I believe, and so we felt like that the water was
taken care of and I think that would be the extent of our --
Lack: I realized as I was going to public comment that I did not ask Tree and
Landscape Committee for a specific report, so, Sarah, if you would --
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 21
Patterson: All my revisions that I currently needed with the previous submittal have
been addressed. There is just one: if you would remove the note stating
that right-of-way trees will be relocated at the developers' expense. That's
not needed. Mitigation is going to be required on the site to bring the
canopy back up to the required 15 percent. They have requested and been
approved to utilize the residential onsite option. With the current canopy
calculations we're only looking at two 2 -inch -caliper large species trees
and those trees should be bonded for $500.00 or a letter of credit or check
at the time of certificate of occupancy.
Lack: Thank you. Fellow commissioners? I guess I have a couple of questions
about one . Glenn, when you say that you notice that there's an alternate
method of satisfying your Item Number 14 to extend an 8 -inch water line,
are you satisfied with that alternate method?
Newman: No, sir. They have extended a 4 -inch instead of the 8 -inch that we have
requested. When they changed the layout it was -- each time that they've
addressed the layout we've had different changes in there, but we've
requested an 8 -inch, I believe, from the initial reviews consistently.
McDonald: And that's basically an 8 -inch looped all the way through. You know, of
course, we're going along a right-of-way and we feel like the primary
purpose of the 8 -inch is to provide fire protection, and we're adding a plug
along the right-of-way, is that correct, Art, and there is a plug across the
street from this development, and, therefore, we felt like all we had to do
was get our residential water to our units since we had fire protection at
the street here. And so that's been the issue with looping the 8 -inch water
all the way through the development.
Newman: If I can clarify that a little bit. We're not asking for the entire loop.
McDonald: Okay.
Newman: We're asking for the 8 -inch -- basically, to follow the path would be fine
-- of what you have presented, and terminating just on the west side of the
crossing or the ditch --
McDonald: Okay.
Newman: -- and placing a fire plug in that location. We're not requesting to tie back
in across 6th Street to tie it in in another tap.
McDonald: Okay. That makes sense, doesn't it?
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 22
Scott: Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah.
Newman: Thank you.
McDonald: Thanks, Glenn.
Lack: And the other question that I had from your presentation was, if we
installed a box culvert to handle the 10 -year storm, will you then provide a
drainage structure, a weir, at the other end of that so that we are
maintaining that detention?
Scott: Yes. We'll stay with the concept of detention and just cross a larger storm
through that area.
McDonald: We want it to be dry detention.
Scott: Yeah, dry pond.
Lack: And is Engineering satisfied with the 10 -year storm being maintained
underneath and anything more than a 10 -year storm going over that?
Casey: I think that's something we're going to have to discuss with our City
Engineer before we can get you an answer on that.
Lack; And you mentioned -- And I may have missed the grade at the west drive.
You mentioned the east drive was 6 to 7 percent. Did you mention what
the grade is at the west drive?
Scott: The steepest section there, it gets to approximately 12 percent, which I
think is the maximum for asphalt, but this is -- you know, cigar *** streets
are constructed that steep all over town.
Lack: Okay.
Tntmbo: Mr. Chair.
Lack: Yes.
Trumbo: A question about the drives. What's the -- it sounds like we're going to be
coming straight up. Are we going to be on a plateau --
Scott: Yes.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 23
Trumbo: -- at the top there to have line of site of traffic?
Scott: And that's why it is -- I'm sorry to interrupt you, but that is why it's a little
steeper than it could be, is because we flatten it out at the top, too.
Trumbo: Come up and you can sit there?
Scott: Yeah. And there is very good site distance in both directions here, so I
feel comfortable with the safety of it.
Trumbo: Can you talk to us about the retaining walls?
Scott: I think staff is recommending a retaining wall at the southeast portion of
the site where that driveway going there is steep. That's something that --
that's a concept that I think we can do and it will work fine.
McDonald: We plan on owning these buildings. We're keeping them. We're not
trying to sell something to somebody else here. We plan on maintaining
these ourselves. Obviously, if we determine we need a retaining wall
there, we're fine with that.
Scott: That is fairly steep in there.
Trumbo: I guess Item Number 11 on your list, what would you recommend? If
you're not happy with three to one or five to one, what did you have in
mind there?
Newman: Part of the situation is also the crawl slope. If a vehicle is not, you know,
in one direction we're kind of leaning on part of it. Matt may be able to
give a better acceptable answer for what's being allowed when we get in
these conditions.
Casey: Typically on a large-scale development we don't like to see any driveways
steeper than 10 percent, and that's something that the fire department has
been consistent on as well if it's something that they're going to be
accessing. Now, I think what we're talking is from the main driveway up
to the garages, so we may have some working room there to be able to go
steeper, but three to one is a very excessive slope for a driveway pad. But
I would say no greater than 15 would be something that I'd be comfortable
with.
Trumbo: Is that a possibility?
Scott: Yes, it is. We can add a wall that will make it less than 15 percent.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 24
Lack: Commissioner Graves.
Motion:
Graves: Well, it sounds like they've answered most of the questions I had in the
affirmative, that they're agreeing to do these things, so I'll move that we
forward R-PZD 06-2169 to the full Planning Commission with the stated
conditions of approval and including the changes that have been requested
by the staff, including engineering and Tree and Landscape.
Trumbo: I'll concur.
Lack: And I will concur as well.
Scott: Thank you.
Trumbo: I'll second.
Lack: Thank you, gentlemen.
McDonald: Thank you.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 25
FPL 06-2104: Final Plat (THE COMMONS @ WALNUT CROSSING, 555):
Submitted by PATRICK HARGUS ENGINEERING DESIGN ASSOCIATES for
property located N. OF HWY 62W. The property is zoned R-PZD, RESIDENTIAL
PLANNED ZONING DIST., and contains approximately 6.45 acres. The request is to
approve the final plat of a residential subdivision with 58 single-family lots.
Lack: The next item on the agenda this morning is Final Plat 06-2104 for The
Commons at Walnut Crossing. May I have the staff report, please?
Garner: Yes. This item was tabled at the applicant's request at the August 31,
2006, Subdivision Committee meeting to address Condition of Approval
Number 5(b) regarding the width of the driveways. And on September 11,
2006, the Planning Commission approved an administrative item to allow
for 16 -foot driveways in the overall Walnut Crossing Subdivision. The
staff has changed Condition of Approval Number 5(b) for this final plat to
reflect the 16 -foot driveways as the Planning Commission approved for
the overall Walnut Crossing development. This property is identified as
Lots 137 and 138 of the Walnut Crossing R-PZD and these lots were
rezoned and subdivided separately into 58 single-family lots by a separate
PZD called The Commons at Walnut Crossing. It's just the northernmost
portion of that overall subdivision. They're requesting final plat approval
and they have met every -- the main issues, inspections, and so forth. We
are recommending approval of this final plat. The only condition I wanted
to point out was that Condition Number 5(b) has been changed to reflect
that driveways shall be allowed to be 16 feet per city codes. I would be
happy to answer any questions you might have about this.
Lack: Thank you. Engineering?
Casey: No comments.
Lack: Tree and Landscape?
Patterson: No comments.
Lack: Thank you. Is there any member of the public who would like to speak to
Final Plat 06-2104? Seeing none, I will ask the applicant for a
presentation.
Hesse: I'm Kim Hesse with Rausch Coleman.
Hargus: And Patrick Hargus of Engineering Design Associates.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 26
Hesse: I think everything is pretty clear. I was working with the staff on those
comments on Item Number 5 and I guess I still need a little bit of
clarification on those. If you remember when we brought this through,
these are private drives and the homes were really tailored to fit the size
and the shape of the lot. It is very tight. Most of the homes are within 10
foot of the back of the curb of the private drive, and so the grading and the
configuration of the way the house sits on the lot is very specific. The
comment states that the -- any home that is adjacent to the public street
shall face the public street. What I wanted to point out is that a few of
these are adjacent to a public street, but do not face the public street. And
I don't know if the staff had a chance to look at the original submittal.
What we're looking at are some sides of the homes on corner lots. I mean,
they are actually facing, and I'm talking about this particular lot. This one
is not facing the public street. This one is facing the inside, the drives
going out the back, so that we could get a full two cars parked outside the
garage. We've got a few other side -facing. And then the comment also
states that other than the three lots they all access the public drive. I
believe that's correct. I just wanted to point out that we do have a shared
drive here. I do believe all these homes face the public street. Yeah,
ultimately they access the public street versus the private, and that's these
shared drives. I didn't mention that to you, Andrew. I was looking at the
individual homes. So I would request that we have a side adjustment to
that one note for those specific situations.
Garner: That's fine with me (inaudible).
Hesse: And the only other item I'd like to subject, or request I should say, there's
a statement, 5(e), it's says prior to signing the final plat they want us to
place the street signs that specify no parking. What we would like to do is
-- it will be take two to three weeks to order all of these signs. I wonder if
it's not too much to keep up with if we could have that note state that the
signs be installed prior to occupancy permit. I know that's harder for you
keep up with.
Garner: I'm not sure about that. Our solid -waste division requested that
specifically, and so I'm not sure if we can authorize that at this point. I
don't know. Mr. Pate, do you have an opinion on that?
Pate: I think probably we can confer with our solid -waste division, but
obviously occupancy is when that's going to be utilized. The issue is that
none of us sign off on occupancy permits, so it is very difficult for us to
keep up with that. That's a building safety function. But I think in house
we can work out something. It may take an extra step to get your
occupancy permit so that solid waste will have to be able to sign off on
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 27
that and ensure that everything is done, so the timing may just be delayed
until that point. But I think we probably could go along with that at this
point. So prior to issue of certificate of occupancy being issued for any of
these, even the first single-family home in that subdivision. So that will
give you ample time to get those installed.
Hesse: Uh-huh. And I will note just for clarification, we will be putting "No
Parking" signs, period. It won't specify any specific day. We will not
allow any parking on the private drives. It's too difficult to -- you know,
they park one day and they leave it there for five and you can't really
control it unless you just totally remove all parking, so that's what we
chose to do. That's all. Thank you.
Lack: Fellow commissioners?
Trumbo: Mr. Chair, a question for staff. Do we need to -- on 5(a), do we need to go
through and specify the exceptions that Ms. Hesse pointed out to us?
Garner: Yeah, if we could have her expand upon those, you know, and have it for
the record. Can you provide -- I mean, right now, or do you want to --
Hesse: We could. Now, this plan was submitted -- I don't know if you just want
to state that the homes are configured the way we submitted them.
Graves: Weren't there some we made where it looked like it was the front of the
house from either side in that one?
Trumbo: We have some numbered exceptions, so --
Hesse: 137 and 141? -- 147 and --
Trumbo: Did you say 137 also?
Hesse: Yes.
Graves: 137 and 147.
Trumbo: And 147?
?: 164.
Hesse: 164, 172, and 183. And I think we've -- this one right here, 171. Maybe I
need to -- 171 will have kind of two facades, but the actual front will be on
the private drive.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 28
Graves: So it was 137, 147, 164, 171, 172, and 183?
Hesse: Yes.
Graves: It was not 141? I think somebody said 141, but it's not?
Garner: Right.
Graves: Okay.
Garner: And did you say 154 as well?
Graves: 164.
Hesse: No, 154 is fine. It will face the front.
Garner:
Okay, okay.
Trumbo:
We have 154 written in the conditions.
Hesse:
And that was for the --
Graves:
That's on the access --
Hesse:
That's for the access, yes.
Trumbo:
Is staff okay with the verbiage on the "No Parking" signs?
Pate: I guess we can just change that to "prior to issuance of a certificate of
occupancy" and strike "signing the final plat."
Trumbo: But the condition states that "no parking allowed on the street on trash
days," and I believe they want it changed it to "No Parking." Is staff okay
with that?
Garner: That's fine.
Trumbo: Okay. I don't have any other comments.
Lack: Comments? Motions?
Motion:
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 29
Trumbo: I'll make a motion to approve Final Plat 06-2104, The Commons at
Walnut Crossing, in agreement with the stated conditions, adding the
changes that we have made here.
Graves: And I'll second.
Lack: I will concur.
Hesse: Thank you.
Lack: Thank you.
Trumbo: Thank you.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 30
FPL 06-2232: Final Plat (MOUNTAIN RANCH 1, 478): Submitted by CRAFTON,
TULL & ASSOCIATES INC. - ROGERS for property located at SE OF RUPPLE AND
PERSIMMON INTERSECTION. The property is zoned RSF- 4, SINGLE FAMILY- 4
UNITS/ACRE and contains approximately 59.88 acres. The request is for a final plat of
a residential subdivision with 118 single-family dwelling units proposed.
Lack: The next item on our agenda this morning is Final Plat 06-2232, Mountain
Ranch L May I have the staff report, please?
Fulcher: This is the final plat request for Mountain Ranch Phase L It's
approximately 60 acres with 118 single-family dwellings proposed. This
is just south of the Boys & Girls Club, and actually the southern extension
of Rupple Road bounds the west property line and extends up to
Permission Street, bounds the north property line. Those were
improvements that were to be made during the preliminary plat of this
development. Sufficient right-of-way has been dedicated for Persimmon
and Rupple to meet Master Street Plan requirements. Obviously, all
infrastructure is in at this time. Park fees in the amount of $65,490.00 are
due prior to signing the final plat as outlined in Condition Number 5.
Staff is recommending approval of this final plat at this level with
approximately 18 conditions of approval. Condition Number 1 is an
assessment for future traffic signal at Rupple Road and Persimmon Street
in the amount of $4,729.73 prior to signing the final plat. Item 3 is just
some minor revisions to make to the plat that staff needs to look at prior to
applying signatures to it. Then Item Number 8, including a note as far as
access for Lots 79 through 80 and lots 11, 22, 33 and 34 not accessing
directly to Persimmon Street or Rupple Road, but rather assessing to the
interior streets. All the other conditions of approval are fairly
straightforward. If you have any questions, please ask.
Lack: Thank you. Engineering department?
Newman: No comment.
Lack: Tree and Landscape?
Patterson: Yes. I would just add a -- request a note to be added to the final plat that
states "The developer has chosen to utilize the residential onsite mitigation
option and will be responsible for 351 large -species trees to be planted
onsite. A tree mitigation planting plan has been approved by the Urban
Forester." That could be added to the signature. Based on the revised
submitted calculations, the developer is responsible for planting trees, 351
2 -inch caliper, on the site. A three-year bond, letter of credit, and/or check
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 31
in the amount of $87,750.00 shall be deposited with the city before the
signature of the final plat. That's all.
Lack: Thank you. Is there any member of the public who would like to speak to
Final Plat 06-2232, Mountain Ranch Phase I? Seeing none, I will close
the public comment and ask the applicant for a presentation.
Hopper: Tom Hopper with Crafton, Tull & Associates. I have two comments that I
would ask the engineering staff if they would allow me to sit down with
them. In Item 3(e), 39-44, the "finished floor elevation of 1247 or
higher," I will agree with that if I can't convince them that it should be
1244, which is shown on the plat. I think once we look at the contours
that they'll see that 1244 would be sufficient, but if they don't agree with
that then I'll accept the 1247. And as far as Item 6, the chart on the back
of the third page of the final plat does show we've got 6,000 square feet of
buildable area and we are in the process of going ahead and filing the
letter of map amendment. The conditional letter of map amendment has
been met, but the final letter of map amendment along the Owl Creek that
runs along the north side is in the process of being filed and that will be
done immediately.
Lack: Okay. Fellow commissioners?
Graves: Mr. Chair.
Lack: Commissioner Graves.
Graves: I'm inclined to move to approve this. I just have a question for staff if
they have any suggestions on 3(e) on how we would go about
accommodating the request if we were inclined to do so.
Pate: We would restate that "Elevation of Lots 39 through 44 shall be approved
by the City Engineering Division prior to recordation of final plat." That
1247 number, I know, is stated in our staff report at this time. That's what
our storm water engineer stated as well, and that very well may be the
requirement, so I just want to make sure that Mr. Hopper is aware of that,
but if it's something that be discussed at engineering level, that's fine to
change that. But it does have to meet with our city ordinances, obviously.
Motion:
Graves: Okay. Otherwise I believe that the plat complies with what we approved
at preliminary plat and so I'll move to approve Final Plat 06-2232 for
Mountain Ranch with the stated conditions of approval, including the
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 32
change on 3(e), and I believe Tree and Landscape's comments were
encompassed in Condition 14.
Trumbo: I'll second.
Lack: And for clarity, the change on 3(e) would be?
Graves: That it must be approved by Engineering staff prior to recordation of the
final plat.
Lack: Thank you, and I will concur.
Hopper: Thank you.
Lack: Thank you.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 33
FPL 06-2211 Final Plat (CLABBER CREEK IV, 244): Submitted by H2
ENGINEERING, INC. for property located at N OF CLABBER CREEK III, W OF
RUPPLE AND SALEM VILLAGE. The property is zoned RSF- 4, SINGLE FAMILY -
4 UNITS/ACRE and contains approximately 34.78 acres. The request is to approve the
final plat of a residential subdivision with 83 single-family dwellings proposed.
Lack: The next on the agenda this morning is Final Plat 06-2211, Clabber Creek
IV. May I have the staff report, please?
Morgan: Yes. This phase of Clabber Creek is north of Phase 3, which was
approved. The final plat for that phase was approved in March of this
year. The applicant requests final plat approval for this phase, which
contains 22.25 acres and would allow for the construction of 83 single-
family dwellings. The road improvements for Rupple Road adjacent to
this phase have been completed and the applicant is currently working on
Phase 5. I believe streets have been cut in, though not paved at this time.
Staff is recommending forwarding this item to the Planning Commission
due to a phase change. With the approval of the preliminary plat, phase
lines were shown on the whole subdivision and that was what was
approved. With Phase 3, some -- Phase 3 was approved slightly different
than as shown on the preliminary plat, but all of the street connections that
were approved within that original phase were being shown as Phase 3.
As approved with the preliminary plat, Phase 4 had a street connection
north to Lierly Lane and a street stub -out to vacant property to the west.
With this revision for this proposed phasing, they will provide those two
street connections within Phase 5, and so staff felt it appropriate to take
this to the full Planning Commission so that they can decide whether it's
appropriate to approve this portion of the entire subdivision without those
two connections at this time. Staff is in approval of this modification, are
in favor of this modification, seeing that the streets are already cut in in
Phase 5 and we don't anticipate any significant delays which would
prevent the street connections to Lierly and a stub -out to the west. So we
are recommending forwarding it with conditions. And I do have
additional comment sheet from the engineering division that I'll hand the
developer, if you wouldn't mind. So with the Planning Commission
consideration, we'll just be looking for a revised plat that will address
those comments as well as the planning comments in your packet. That's
all.
Lack: Thank you. Engineering division?
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 34
Newman: My comments you have in front of you. They're very minor. They're
mainly drafting and easement comments. If you have any questions, I'll
be glad to go over those with you.
Lack: Thank you. Tree and Landscape?
Patterson: Yes. I have a few conditions of approval. There was a drafting error on
the tree mitigation plan which I've already spoken to the engineering firm
about. The mitigation trees are shown along the east side of Rupple Road.
They need to be shown within the boulevard section in the west side. The
east side is not their property. If they could revise that. If you would add
a note onto the mitigation plan also stating that "Phase 4 is required 169
trees." I don't think that's stated anywhere on that plat. The original
approval for this plan was for Phases 3 through 5. A total of 691 2 -inch
caliper large species trees are required for the mitigation. As each phase
finalizes, a separate planting plan will be submitted for approval. At the
final plat of Phase 5 any remaining trees that were not able to be located
on the site will be paid as money -in -lieu into the city's tree escrow
account. The developer has chosen to use the residential onsite mitigation
option for Phase 4. 169 2 -inch caliper large species trees will be planted
within the street right-of-way and on the interior of the lots. This will
require a three year maintenance and monitoring bond in the amount of
$42,250.00 to be deposited with the city before the signature of final plat.
That's it.
Lack: Thank you. Would any member of the public like to speak to this item?
Seeing none, I will ask the applicant for a presentation.
Hennelly: I'm Tom Hennelly with H2 Engineering, and Bleaux Barnes, the owner.
The only comment I'd like to make is, we would -- well, we understand
that the phasing on this is slightly different than what it was at the
preliminary plat. The timing of Phase 5 coming through, I mean, there's
already -- there's curb poured out there. It's well on its way. It's about 45
days out from being final and it will probably be coming through in the
November meeting. We would like to see if we could get approval at this
level rather than going forward to a full Planning Commission. All the
punch list items with the exception of cleaning out some of the storm drain
boxes from the final inspection have been addressed and taken care of, so
really would prefer to get this approved at this level if we could.
Lack: Thank you. Fellow commissioners?
Graves: Mr. Chair. I have a question for engineering staff. There's a number of
items listed in Condition 12 in our packet for suggested revisions to the
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 35
final plat before a Planning Commission consideration. Was the handout
that we just received with six more items, should that just be -- are these
just additions to that list, I guess?
Morgan: Yes, those are just additions.
Graves: Okay.
Morgan: Condition Number 12 is just the items that I found for planning.
Graves: Okay. And then on the Tree and Landscape, you mentioned an error that
was on the plat. I think most of the things you mentioned were in stated
Conditions 3 through 6, but I'm not sure I saw anything addressing maybe
that first item you addressed about an error on the plat.
Patterson: Number 3 is addressing the error.
Graves: Okay. I wanted to make sure. And then just a question about the
applicant's request about the ability of subdivision to approve waivers on
phasing at this level.
Pate: We would prefer it be approved at this level, as most final plats are. Also,
we happily put it on consent. However, the phasing lines are determined
by the Planning Commission at the time of preliminary plat. So to modify
that, it does need to go back to the Planning Commission. We are happy
to put this on consent as long as all the other conditions there are met at
the time of Planning Commission.
Graves: Okay. That's all my questions. I'll make a motion unless anybody else
has questions.
Lack: I guess the only question that I would have is, it seems -- and I'm trying to
make sure that I'm clear on which street it is that we're not
accommodating at this point within Phase 4.
Barnes: Lierly that comes from the north that has connectivity through Phase 5.
Morgan: There are two -- I don't know if you saw, but in your staff report there's
an approved phase line map and a proposed phasing. And you can see on
the proposed phasing with the large Phase 3 and Phase 4, and Phase 5
identified up on the northwest corner where it says "Phase 5," that street to
the north and west is what was originally in Phase 4.
Lack: Okay.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 36
Barnes: Of course, the development north of us, too, where current conditions
onsite for their construction is similar to our current conditions. They
have curb down. They're prepping for final paving. We're in the same
process: Curb and gutter down. Prepping base for final paving. I feel like
with the problems they've had north of us, we'll beat them to a final plat
phase. We feel like we'll have asphalt down and we'll have approval --
construction approval onsite prior to them having approval.
Lack: So on the phasing plan, the original approved phase lines, this connection
is supposed to meet up? You're bringing it to the property line --
Hennelly: That's right.
Lack: -- for it to meet up with the adjacent --
Barnes: There was a smaller number of lots in the original preliminary plat, I
believe, in Phase 5. Rather than having 60 lots in Phase 5, there was a
smaller number of lots. Maybe that number was 43 lots and the phasing
just allowed a more numerical number going through from three to five.
Lack: Okay. Suzanne, do you know the status just for -- I guess, just for a
feeling, do you know the status of the development to the north?
Morgan: I know only what they told you. I haven't personally been out there. But I
know that maybe --
Pate: A final plat was submitted this morning for that Lierly Lane Subdivision.
I'm not sure if they're ready for that final inspection yet. So that
application may not be accepted, but we're checking into that right now.
Hennelly: I think maybe engineering could help us with the status of that project.
Casey: There has been many -- have been many construction issues out there.
They've not paved yet. They're required to construct the north half of
Lierly, as the Planning Commission determined Monday night. So there
are many issues yet to be resolved before that final plat can be processed.
Morgan: There is a condition, at least on Phase 3, we conditioned any construction
traffic to go through Lierly Lane even back in March, through the
subdivision to the north. And so at least the road was cut in enough that
we were directing traffic through there until Rupple Road was finished.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 37
Barnes: Yeah. And full intentions for us is to complete Phase 5. I mean, again,
it's priority at this point now that the -- you know, the construction process
has been completed on Phase 4. It's priority for us to complete Phase 5
and bring it back before this body for a final plat approval.
Lack: I think my concern with that is just that we never know what's going to
happen from day to day, and we can't always predict that, and I think
that's a very important connection for the city. I'm uncomfortable with
adding any kind of flux on when that would happen or that ability to
happen in a timely manner.
Hennelly: I think that the time issue is going to be a wash anyway. If staff is willing
to put it on the consent agenda for Planning Commission, the revisions
that we need to make, we'll be close to having the plat ready for signatures
the day after Planning Commission anyway. So it's probably no problem
if it's going to be put on consent agenda.
Lack: I guess what I would be speaking to would be more the waiver as opposed
to whether we -- which certainly would temper what we do at this
juncture, but I wouldn't want to pass it, which we can't do, but I'm not
sure that I would be in favor of a waiver to hold off on the stub -out.
Barnes: I mean, I guess what I might add is -- I mean, we have spent the last seven
or eight months, you know, what we feel like what's been a good
relationship between the City of Fayetteville and staff and engineering,
helping construct Rupple and providing that access into Phase 4. We have
a large investment in Rupple and, of course, obviously the reason we want
the phasing of 4 is so we can sell lots, you know, to recoup that
investment. There were several items as far as access through Clabber
Phase 4, through Clabber Phase 5 that we did. We did remove dirt from
Clabber Phase 5 back during the construction phases of Phase 3. So I feel
like we've -- you know, we feel like we've done a great job and we're
going to continue to proceed with Phase 5. I mean, that's only at our
interest, to be able to sell lots. This is a very marketable neighborhood
still and there are lots of interested buyers for lots. So, I mean, it's in our
interest to complete and make those improvements and have a product we
can sell.
Lack: Sure, and I have every expectation that you will.
Barnes: Sure.
Lack: Please don't think I'm doubting your intent.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 38
Barnes: Sure, sure.
Graves: Mr. Chair.
Lack: Yes, Commissioner Graves.
Motion:
Graves: I think we've -- not on a final plat necessarily, but I believe that we have
accommodated, you know, juggling of timing on some things before. In
fact, recently around the Harp's -- I believe it was around the Harp's area
we had a situation arise where we had required a connection through and
they came in and asked us to sort of juggle when they had to build that.
Of course, that's a situation where conditions could change, but, you
know, we had faith that the applicant was going to do what they
represented they would do and make that connection and just do it at a
little bit later time than what was originally planned. And so for that
reason I'm going to move to forward Final Plat 06-2211 to the full
Planning Commission with a recommendation for approval on the waiver
requiring, though, as a condition -- I think it's stated this way -- but on
Condition 12 requiring that before this gets put on the full Planning
Commission agenda that all those modifications to the final plat would
already be made, incorporating, also, the six items that were handed to us
in memorandum today by the staff engineer as a part of that Condition 12.
That's my motion, and then I would also request that if that's done that
staff consider putting this on the consent agenda.
Trumbo: I'll second.
Lack: And I will concur with the idea of sending it forward. I think when we
talked about the area by Harp's on 16, I remember that, but we did have
faith that that would be completed. We also set regulation into that motion
to ensure that it was completed.
Graves: I don't have a problem amending my motion if you want to put some kind
of a time line on Condition Number 1 on the waiver.
Hennelly: Well, I would like to add in that even the location of that stub -out to the
north was not nailed down when the preliminary plat came through. It
wasn't until after the subdivision to the north was approved that we
adjusted that location, and so it was never really critical to the phasing of
this, but rather just listed as a condition that we coordinate with that
developer to align those two. So, I mean, if the concern is that the
connection or the connectivity is not going to be made, I would suggest
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 39
that in this phase, sure enough. For Phase 4 it was never critical to the
approval of Phase 4 as it was shown on the preliminary plat.
Lack: But it is shown in Phase 4 on the approved phasing plan?
Hennelly: It is.
Barnes: But at that time there was no improvements to the north of us. It was a
stub -out for future connectivity.
Hennelly: And I think the location of it is different than what it was shown., because
one of the conditions was that we coordinate with that developer to the
north and align it with where their location was, so really the location of
that in relationship to the phase lines is arbitrary.
Graves: I take it that you're less concerned about where it's located so long as it's
aligned and more concerned that it actually happen. I mean, I take that
from your comments. And I'm open to an amendment on the motion. I
can't remember how long we gave the folks at Harp's to -- at the Harp's
area. I don't remember the name of that particular application other than it
was around Harp's. But that particular one, I think we gave them six
months or a year or something like that to either get the phase done that
they were -- get the project done that they were doing or go ahead and
build that connection. So if you want to do something similar to that, I'm
open to an amendment on the motion.
Lack: If I recall correctly, it was tied to another activity. So it was tied to
another approval, and that might be the catalyst here. You feel like --
you've stated that you would be able to have this into place before the
adjacent or the property to the north has Lierly Lane to the border. Would
that be a palatable amendment? Ask Jeremy, even, if that's --
Barnes: Well, one of the things I might add, Lierly comes through a final plat
phasing and then they have a construction period to go through too of, you
know, 120 days, 160 days of construction, and the current conditions
onsite now allows construction traffic. I mean, it allows for each and
everyone of us to drive through there today. It's a gravel -base road, curb
and gutter is down. So, I mean, and we're not prohibiting traffic through
our development to Lierly. I mean, they can drive through there today.
Currently we do, and inspections does, engineering does. So over a period
of four months that they're going to have construction in there of homes,
they have the ability to drive through there. We will not prohibit that. I
mean, they currently do now. Once Rupple was completed, they choose to
use Rupple.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 40
Pate: I think probably rather than trying to craft a condition here, we can -- if
there's one member uncomfortable with what the Planning Commission
did, we typically take it off the agenda -- so we could probably -- take it
off the consent agenda. We could probably just put this on the regular
agenda and potentially put a condition of approval and work with the
applicants to find out what best works with their time frame as well, rather
than going -- hashing through that right now.
Lack: Okay. And I wouldn't be opposed to seeing it on consent if that condition
were added through that packet.
Pate: Okay. We will try to come up with something then.
Hennelly: I would agree.
Lack: So I will concur.
Hennelly: Thank you.
Barnes: Thank you.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 41
LSD 06-2237: Large Scale Development (BANK OF THE OZARKS 6TH ST., 558):
Submitted by CRAFTON, TULL & ASSOCIATES/RUSSELLVILLE for property
located at NE CORNER HWY 62W AND FINGER RD. The property is zoned C-2,
THOROUGHFARE COMMERCIAL and contains approximately 1.96 acres. The
request is to approve a 4,352 s.f. branch bank with associated parking.
Lack: The next item on the agenda this morning is Large Scale Development 06-
2237, Bank of the Ozarks, 6th Street.
Garner: This property is located at the northeast corner of One Mile Road and 6th
Street. It's zoned C-2, Thoroughfare Commercial. The owners are
proposing a 4,362 -square -foot bank building with 23 parking spaces. The
property would be accessed through a curb -cut on the southeastern corner
of the site onto 6th Street and a curb -cut on the northwest corner off One
Mile Road. The property was previously developed for use a gas station
that is not currently in use. The surrounding zoning consists of Wal-Mart
to the south on the other side of 6th Street, commercial development to the
east, another bank to the west, and then residential development to the
north. Right-of-way being dedicated with this development is 55 feet
from centerline for 6th Street, a principal arterial, and 25 feet from
centerline for One Mile Road. Staff recommends forwarding this large-
scale development to the full Planning Commission. We typically would
recommend approval at this level, but there's some numbers that need to
be worked out with tree preservation, so we don't feel like we should
approve it until we have those numbers in place. We are recommending
forwarding this with a recommendation for approval. Conditions, Number
1 are determination of Commercial Design Standards. We find that the
elevations comply with Commercial Design Standards. This is essentially
the same bank building that they have had approved, I believe, two times
already in the city. Condition Number 4 is related to cross -access. That
just describes in that condition that access easements shall be provided
along the eastern property line and along the entrance driveway to allow
for future cross -access when development takes place to the north and
east. Those are the main issues I wanted to highlight, and please let me
know if you have any questions.
Lack: Thank you. Engineering?
Newman: Yes, sir, I have a few comments, if you would. I apologize, I have a few
written ones here. Overall, my comments are generally addressing
drainage. Property to the east, I believe we need to -- the applicant needs
to take that drainage into the system. Their driveway entering 6th Street
appears to be blocking offsite drainage, so they need to review the
drainage in that area. The intersection of One Mile Road and 6th Street
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 42
needs to be changed to a 30 -foot. They're showing 20 right now. And the
other items to be looked at on there is an increase in the utility servitude or
utility easement on the south side of the property to 30 foot to
accommodate the new water line. If you have any other questions, I'll be
happy to go over any comments that are on that list.
Lack: Thank you. Sarah, do you have comments?
Patterson: I do have some comments. On the -- you know, this project has attempted
to preserve all canopy on the site, which I commend them for.
Unfortunately, the utility company asked for a 20 -foot utility easement
along the northern property line. The trees are still considered preserved,
looking at their canopy calculations. By ordinance, any trees, canopy, that
falls within proposed utility easements has to be counted as removed. The
questionable part of this for me is, kind of running up the eastern side and
a portion of the northern side, there is a statement that there was a possible
15 -foot easement. I'm just going to need some clarification. If there is an
existing -- the way our ordinance reads, if there is an existing utility
easement on the site, the trees do not count against the developer. So
that's where I'm really kind of dumbfounded. The word "possible" makes
me need to look into that further to see if that isn't an actual platted
easement. If so, this may be only a minor detail. If not, I did some very
rough calculations that they would be removing, you know, possibly about
6,500 square feet of canopy, which would drop them below the required
15 percent, which would then, again, require mitigation. So I just felt
uncomfortable with these questions, moving this forward. That's
something that I think we can easily work out before, you know -- and
maybe the applicant can help, once they do come up here -- but I think
that's something we can easily work out. And really, the rest of my
comments kind of fall upon that. You know, if mitigation is going to be
required we'll need the tree canopy calculation revisions, and then we'll
also need to see mitigation trees on their landscape plan. So that's kind of
the gist of my concerns.
Lack: Thank you. Would any member of the public like to address this item?
Seeing none, I will close public comment and ask the developer for a
presentation.
Krenz: Good morning. My name is John Krenz. I'm with Crafton, Tull &
Associates. I guess I could start out by addressing what engineering had
said about the problem with the possible drainage from the east. We've
been out there since then and I think we tend to agree that something
might need to be done. When it's built it may or may not have a problem,
but I think there is a possibility it would, so we're going to add an area
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 43
inlet right on the -- well, inside the property line as far as we need to to
take care of that. And the main other comment was with landscaping
things. I wasn't aware that anything in an easement could not be included
for canopy. That would remain, so --
Patterson: The canopy would maybe remain temporarily. I mean, once you put in an
easement, it's up to those utility companies. You know, even if this didn't
have anything to do with your project, if they needed to come in there to
extend services they would remove all of those trees to get what they
needed. So that's the way the ordinance is written and that's why.
Krenz: Okay. Will that --
Patterson: Do you know about that possible 15 -foot?
Krenz: I don't. I guess that needs to be looked into further to see. You had said
on that, even if it is an existing easement that is there, that would still not
count against us because it's existing?
Patterson: It doesn't count -- if there's an existing easement on your project site, it
does not count -- any trees found within it does not count against you.
You know, you bought that property with those easements on there. Any
that you are proposing for this project you have to count the canopy
removed for those. So, you know, if that 15 -foot easement does exist and
we can find that platted, then the majority of those trees to the east are
within that and would not count against you to be removed. Those to the
far west, those 2 16 -inch silver maple and 14 -inch hickory, would still
have to be counted as removed, but in my opinion would not drop your
percentage below the 15 percent and would not require you to mitigate.
So we're going to just need to look into that 15 -foot easement. I know
that probably there's no way we can get that entire easement removed. I
know the utility company was pretty adamant about wanting that for
future connection. Also I'll mention there's a discrepancy on my site
analysis tree preservation page. It's stating that that's a 20 -foot proposed
utility easement along the north and east, but apparently on all other pages
that's a 25.
Krenz: Yeah. That's our fault. We --
Patterson: So it's a 25?
Krenz: Yeah -- well, it will be a 30 now.
?: The 30 that I'm looking for, is that on the southern property line?
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 44
Krenz: So that there will be a 30 there and the rest of them will be a 25.
Patterson: 25?
Krenz: Yes.
Patterson: Okay.
Lack: Fellow Commissioners?
Trumbo: Question for staff. On the cross -access agreement, you're not
recommending a stub -out to the east?
Garner: Not at this time. We're just recommending that they have an access
easement which would extend all the way to the eastern property line.
That way if the property to the east develops they would have right to tie
into the bank's driveway on the eastern portion and then as well on the
northwest corner. We recommend that whole driveway being an access
easement, extending into their property, you know, so we don't feel like a
full -- you know, paving a stub -out is necessary because we're not sure
where they would need it and where the next property would want that.
Trumbo: Okay.
Pate: If I may add, if the applicant is uncomfortable with that and want to
provide that stub -out to assure themselves of where that's going to be at
this point in time, that's certainly something that can be done. Right now,
the way this project is aligned, the parking specifically, the most
preferable place would be directly across from their parking area. But if
you align that directly it's probably not going to work out very well with a
future development simply because the angle of the road does not follow
the angle of the -- it's not parallel to the parking area. So we wanted to
leave that a little bit open and let, obviously, this property owner
understand that there is going to be a connection, because they will file an
access easement on their own property, but to have the ability of that
property to the east which likely will be redeveloped at some point in the
future.
Trumbo: And that's why you're asking for the entire length?
Pate: That's correct.
Trumbo: Okay.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 45
Graves: Mr. Chair.
Lack: Yes, Commissioner Graves.
Motion:
Graves: Given that we've approved this design previously and the layout is also
extremely similar to what's been approved previously and we're kind of
down to something that we could approve at this level, absent some
misuse concerning calculation on the Tree and Landscape side of things,
I'm going to move that we forward Large Scale Development 06-2237 to
the full Planning Commission with the stated conditions of approval, with
a recommendation in favor on Number 1, the Commercial Design
Standards, and on Number 2 for the street improvements, also adding a
Condition 22, incorporating items 1 through 9 as letter -- as number 22(a)
through (i) from the memorandum we received today from engineering.
That's my motion. And then again, as with the last item, I would
recommend that if we can get the tree mitigation issues worked out that
staff consider placing this on our consent agenda for the full Planning
Commission.
Trumbo: I'll second and I agree with the consent agenda if possible.
Lack: I will concur and I also agree with that.
Krenz: Thank you.
Lack: Thank you.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 46
PZD 06-1884: Planned Zoning District (WESTSIDE VILLAGE CONDOS, 439):
Submitted by TODD JACOBS CRITICAL PATH DESIGN for property located at S. OF
WEDINGTON, E. OF RUPPLE ROAD. The property is zoned RMF -24, MULTI-
FAMILY- 24 UNITS/ACRE and contains approximately 23.63 acres. The request is for
a Residential Planned Zoning District with 352 attached dwelling units and 74,255 square
feet of nonresidential space.
Lack: This item on our agenda this morning is R-PZD 06-1884, Westside
Village Condos.
Garner: Yes. This property -- this item was heard at the March 16, 2006
Subdivision Committee meeting. The development proposed at that
meeting consisted of 420 attached dwelling units disbursed in 14
apartment buildings and 128 townhouses. At that meeting the Subdivision
Committee discussed that including nonresidential uses in the project
would be highly desirable for the introduction of so many residential units.
So the applicant has met with staff many times and has substantially
revised the whole site plan, including nonresidential uses, and have now
introduced several new building types and a new layout. The March 16,
2006 Subdivision Committee did recommend forwarding this item to the
full Planning Commission; however, due to the large amount of changes in
the project, staff required this item to come back before the Subdivision
Committee. Additional background on the property is just under 24 acres.
It's located on the east side of Rupple Road, south of Wedington Drive,
and it's north of the Boys & Girls Club. It's zoned RMF -24. It's
generally flat and undeveloped. The applicant is requesting rezoning and
large-scale development approval for a mixed-use development. And all
the land would be under a common ownership or property owners
association. It's not anticipated that they would subdivide the property.
On Page 2 there in your report we have Table 1, which lists the proposed
development number of units and the amount of nonresidential space,
which is a total of 352 residential units. Just under 50,000 square feet of
retail space. Approximately 19,000 square feet of office space. A 5,000 -
square -foot civic building. And then just under an acre of greenspace
throughout the property. The development would be accessed off of
Rupple Road with three mixed-use buildings and there would also be
live/work units disbursed mainly along the main street extending east into
the property. There would be 73 townhouses throughout the development
and then also 168 residential units would be in apartment buildings that
are flat buildings. As mentioned, there would be a civic building, 5,000
square feet, around a greenspace. And the access into the property, as
mentioned, would be off of Rupple Road with one main street,
Meadowlands Drive, extending east and stubbed out at the easternmost
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 47
boundary of the property. Three other public streets would extend north
from Meadowlands Drive to the northernmost boundary of the property.
These streets would feature parallel parking on both sides of the street and
some of the streets would have perpendicular parking on some of the
exterior portions of the development. A pedestrian greenway starts at
Rupple Road and traverses east through the entire project. There are a
number of interior sidewalks around most all of the buildings that provide
well-connected walkways and greenways throughout this development.
The project does propose, as mentioned, one public street stub -out to
undeveloped property to the east and, as mentioned, the Boys & Girls
Club is adjacent to the southern border of the site. Staff does not find that
the proposed connectivity is adequate. We do feel like that without
additional provision of street connections we cannot support this project.
We do recommend stub -outs between units TG -28 and TG -20, as shown
on your plat, stub -out to the east to allow for cross -access. We also
recommend that the three north/south streets be extended to the northern
property line to allow for a more connected web of streets throughout this
development and throughout this area. Street improvements that we are
recommending, there was -- impact fees for Rupple Road are based on a
contractual agreement agreed to by the city as part of the final plat for this
subdivision, and we've listed those in your conditions of approval.
Additionally, they are now proposing nonresidential units and there may
be additional improvements warranted by the traffic generated from the
commercial uses on the site. We do recommend tabling this project to
come back to the Subdivision Committee again. There are just a large
number of revisions that need to take place. We are in agreement with the
concept and so forth proposed, but there's just a large number of, mainly,
items with the booklet and clarification. This is a large-scale
development, so we are having to review it for the detail that we would
typically see on a large-scale development and some of that detail is not in
there at this point. In the conditions, there are issues to address or discuss
today. Condition Number 2 is determination of street improvements and,
as mentioned, we may need to assess or evaluate additional assessment
other than the contractual amount based on the nonresidential use as
proposed. Condition Number 3 is determination of adequate connectivity.
We are, as mentioned, recommending additional connections. Condition
Number 4, you can actually just delete that from your report. That was
just a typo. It's just a duplicate of the previous one, for some reason. We
did add Condition Number 6, that "Due to the very large and complex
nature of this project, a detailed review of all aspects of the site and
landscape plans shall take place prior to issue of building permits." We
are reviewing it, as mentioned, for a large-scale development, but it's just
such a large and complicated project. We do anticipate that we will be
continuing to review it in detail throughout the construction process.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 48
Condition 7 is that pedestrian walkways and sidewalks and landscaping as
shown on the plans are required as part of the development. And let's see.
We have a number of revisions to the PZD booklet listed in Number 11.
Then Condition Number 12, street width shall be modified to a minimum
of 24 feet for two-way access in all instances. And this is based on the
number of units proposed. Multiple uses and design standards found in
our PZD ordinance. Condition Number 14, solid waste service. There are
numerous areas on the site that have not indicated provision of solid waste
or show trash enclosures. We need to make sure that the applicant review
all the buildings and confer with our Solid Waste Division to ensure that
adequate space and turning radii are provided. Condition 15 are plat
revisions that need to be completed. I think that highlights some of the
main things from the Planning Division. Our Engineering Division
wanted to also add a condition of approval basically stating that the review
for grading drainage, water and sewer, were conceptual only and a
detailed review will be performed at the time of the construction plan
submittal. And the conceptual review and approval does not guarantee
that additional infrastructure and easements will not be required. And I'll
let engineering expand on that if they need to. But those are the highlights
that I wanted bring forward to you.
Lack: Thank you. Engineering?
Casey: I think Andrew did a good job of explaining that. I just wanted it known
that this is a very large and very time-consuming review that can't be done
at this time. So when it gets to that point, I just wanted you to be aware
that some revisions may be required as far as layout and infrastructure. So
I didn't want that to be a surprise, if needed. So that's all I have.
Lack: Tree and Landscape?
Patterson: Yes, I have some revisions. We need to identify the location of the
mitigation trees on either the tree preservation plan or the landscape plan.
For bonding requirements I need to know their exact location and to make
sure that they are not found within utility easements. Mitigation is going
to be required on this site in the amount of 19 2 -inch caliper large species
trees. These will be planted back onsite. A three-year maintenance bond,
letter of credit, or check equaling $4,750.00 shall be deposited with the
city. The landscape plan is very busy, so I'm going to continue to review
it as well, but I did see some things -- for parking lots, typically 8 feet is
our minimum for tree planting spaces. I saw some that were 4 and 5.
Also along some of the green spaces were 4 -foot green spaces where some
trees were planted and I think that that would be a bad move and not
supported by staff. 6 feet is kind of small for a tree. 8 feet is best, of
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 49
course. So we may need to look at utilizing more urban tree wells. Of
course, those utilized our structural soil and would be a 4 -by -4 rather than
a linear long greenspace. So if you would just look at that and see how
that will change the configuration of some of your parking areas.
Pate: Mr. Chair.
Lack: Yes.
Pate: Let me add to that as well. You'll see you've got eight pages of
conditions on this project. I think many of those can be removed with
some revisions. I think in concept we're, over all, supportive of this
project. We were supportive of when it first came through. The
applicants with the advice of some the planning commissioners decided to
pull that project and come back with some commercial and more mixed
uses, and I think everyone is supportive of that idea, with the addition of
some street connections for this project, or at least stub -outs. Currently
the only access is Rupple Road. I think that should be alleviated, at least
with some availability for future connections to the north and to the east.
With that, the conditions as stated just went through Number 10, Number
11(a through y), Number 12, 13, 14, 15 (a through h), 17, 18, 23, 26, 27,
28, 29, 30, all really have to do with just plat revisions, both the revisions
and clarifications. A lot of those probably can go away once this comes
back before you. So hopefully we can get to that point. That's ultimately
the reason we're tabling this. I know the applicants are trying to get this
project going forward as well and we're certainly supportive of the overall
concept. We just want to make sure that the Planning Commission has a
full and complete plan in front of them so they can pass it on to the City
Council.
Lack: Thank you, Mr. Pate. Would any member of the public like to address this
Item PZD 06-1884, Westside Village Condos? Seeing none, I will close
the floor to public comment and ask the applicant for a presentation.
Jacobs: Good morning. I'm Todd Jacobs with Critical Path Design.
Nock: John Nock, one of the developers.
Alexander: Rick Alexander, one of the developers.
Jacobs: I think we were here about two or three months ago, maybe longer than
that, with this project, and it looked good. I think everyone thought it was
a good project. One of the planning commissioners asked us to look at
adding some mixed use. With that idea we looked at the entire project as a
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September 14, 2006
Page SO
whole and we went back and looked at this as kind of a new urbanism
project. And John and Richard have hired some top-notch planners to
help us work through this as a new urbanist project and that type of infill
for this area, so with that it is a very, very complex project. I think most
of the comments are, like Mr. Pate said, pretty minor. They're just
booklet stuff. I think John can address the connectivity and the
commercial aspect, as far as the money goes, for the contract. With this
project we're just extremely excited to bring a new type of project to the
City of Fayetteville and it's something we feel very strongly about in our
firm, and the developers do as well. We've spent a great deal of time in
trying to figure out how new urbanism works and how does it work for the
City of Fayetteville. It's new to us and also a lot of people have read
about it, but how do the details work with it? As far as the comments go, I
think there's not a lot on there I see that changes dramatically anything in
here, but we basically tried to set this up as -- with higher density, with the
new school being here, and providing a certain amount of mixed use
commercial where people can use some of their day-to-day uses and not
have to get out onto Wedington and go to your typical strip mall or
something like that. We don't expect it to solve all the problems of
congestion and suburban sprawl we've got, but we've also -- another thing
is, we want to create an environment that is very strong for the people who
live here to give them those amenities. I'll point out a couple of the big
ones that we set up. One is the pedestrian greenway that we've set across
through as an access going through the property and hopefully will
continue to the east as future development infill occurs. So there would be
public access all the way across, through, up to the mixed use, and then
hopefully we'll work out the transit stop with the university and Ozark
Transit providing a place to use mass transit to get places. Another big
one was to set up -- actually have a village green area to provide an area
for people to meet, have block parties, small recreation. Even though we
have the Boys Club to the south, it's a very -- you know, it's not a passive,
it's active recreation, an area just for people to meet, to get together.
Hopefully the civic building will serve as a meeting point for people so
you can get to go meet your neighbors. With the mixed use here we've got
three stories. Typically, what you have at the bottom would be retail, the
second above, what you see in the booklet with the elevations, would be
apartments, condos. They're smaller so people can actually afford them.
That's something that these developers are striving for is to provide some
attainable housing in this area. So density might be a little bit scary
because it's a very complex and busy plan, but to actually provide a good
place for people to live and provide the amenities that go with it that
people should expect. I'll let John address a couple of items and his
thoughts about the project.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 51
Nock: Thanks, Todd. I appreciate the opportunity to come before you guys.
Again, as Todd pointed out, and as Mr. Pate pointed out, we appreciated
the timing when we met last time because it was right after the Dover -
Kohl was here and the 2025 had been presented to the City and there was
this real opportunity to look at what the future of Fayetteville was and we
thought, "Okay. Here we have the Planning Commission buying in, here
we are as developers buying in, and here are the division of the city all
buying into what we can do, so let's make it happen on this project. Let's
not wait for the next one." So it does take time and it does take money,
and we went ahead and spent both of those to redo this. We ran a little bit
of a risk of over -designing and sending, as you've commented, a very
complicated and very structured design, but the idea is that if you're going
to do it right it takes a little extra dollars and a little extra time to get there.
On a couple of the issues, we had some discussions with some various
channels in the city, I think we had also talked to Mr. Pate at one point as
well, that on the Rupple Road we talked about this impact fee that was
already set up under contractual obligation and we certainly understand
there needs to be another look because of the addition of commercial
space. Since that time we have had discussions, as I mentioned before,
about giving right-of-way so that if this road is expanded in order to
incorporate a median across the front of that like the rest of Rupple is
planned, we would be able to help with that, and so that might be in the
consideration of whatever -- some of that impact might be added. The
other thing is on the connectivity. We always want to make connections
everywhere we possibly can. There's a couple of proposals that we would
like the staff to consider as they go forward with this. One is, to the
immediate east we've limited that to just one access point into what is
right now undeveloped acreage. Of course, we don't own that, but a
utility company, Ozark Electric, owns that space and right now their plan
in the future is to have that for their utility trucks for parking, from what I
understand from direct conversations with them, to have their utility trucks
and potentially to have a south access to what is Persimmon today, the
newly built Persimmon. And so we're a little bit leery about putting road
connections that are eventually going to be for a very well designed
residential mixed-use area that's going to be connected to utility trucks for
access. I'm not sure those uses might be the best for the City of
Fayetteville long run, and so we did limit it to one for that reason, and that
would be the extension of Meadowlands Drive, which is a public road.
The property to the north is owned by Airways and it also is for
commercial application. What we did, because we don't know what's
going to happen in the future, is we terminated on these public drives that
are listed, and there are three of them that go to the north. We terminated
them with greenspace. Our hope is is rather than doing an ugly -- just
blacktop and curb that stops, that looks like it was something that was
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 52
forgotten, instead make that greenspace and we might be able to apply
instead some sort of an easement there that if it's ever developed 30 years,
50 years, something like that in the future, they could certainly do that. If
it was a tree that had been planted or shrub that had been planted by us
over that period of time, then that might have to be removed, but we don't
have an ugly outset sitting there. So that would be one of our things to
suggest to staff as they look at some of these recommendations. We
certainly believe in connectivity, but we also have to be aware that some
of the adjoining uses we may have no control over and so the utility trucks
coming through this project might not be what we're really looking for.
But handling that in the form of some sort of an easement issue might be
okay. That way, it doesn't encourage poor connectivity, but instead
allows for something that you then get to look at when it comes before you
and at that point in time and see if it's appropriate. So those are just a
couple of issues there.
Alexander: Rick Alexander, one of the developers. In response to our meeting with
the Planning Commission, however long ago it was, we did go back and
look at putting in some commercial. We really hadn't thought of it before
it was suggested to us. After we did go back and look at it, it seemed to
make sense. What we're trying to do with this site is take advantage of the
fairly large-scale capital improvements that are already there, vis-a-vis,
Rupple Road, new K through 7, and directly adjacent to the Boys & Girls
Club. So when we were discussing this project originally, that seemed
like the perfect site to bring this kind of density to because of all of the
infrastructure that's already in place or going to be in place, and also
because of the proximity to both Wedington and the bypass, so this
seemed like a good place to do this project. We have done a new
urbanism project across the street. You may or may not have seen it,
Rupple Row. We want it to also compliment that and build something
here that would ... on that part of the road and that environment over there.
I agree with John on the connectivity. We're certainly not opposed to it.
What we were trying to do is not have a dead end, so to speak, into a
pasture, that's both ugly, and so if we can handle that by way of an
easement, the city could have its connectivity guaranteed in the event that
you all or the Planning Commission or the city ultimately wants it, but the
project could be more attractive. And I think we wanted to avoid the use
of those streets basically as a thoroughfare for the utility trucks. We've
talked with both the utility company and Airways Freight. Neither of
them have any plans to sell the property. They have been approached by
multiple buyers. They have turned away all comers. They don't plan
anytime in the near or even distant future to develop those properties. I
know personally the chairman of Airways Freight and he's says absolutely
nothing is going on there and John has talked with Ozark Electric. So
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 53
we're not against connectivity, but we think a way to handle it in this
situation might be to give the city or whatever kind of guarantees it needs
by way of easement and that way the city can be satisfied that in the event
that it wanted to do it, it could, but in the event that it didn't want to do it,
it's not just stubbed out. Most of the other issues, we agree with the city.
I think we can resolve all of those. The added impact fees for the
commercial, we're not objecting to that. We understand that. We
welcome an opportunity to work through that and hopefully we can keep
them as low as possible.
Nock: I don't know if we would welcome them, but we certainly understand.
(Laughter)
Alexander: We understand that we're going to get them, and we're not complaining
about that. So we would like to go as fast as we can. I think this was the
first time I saw the list of things, so, obviously, we've got some work to
do, but we would like to do it and get back in front of you.
Nock: If there's one more comment I could make, Mr. Chair, that I forgot a
second ago. In reading the notes there was a particular comment made,
and I don't remember the details of it, and then also, again, there was a
comment about some of the tree layouts. Just to give you a little bit of
background on where this design and how it came from. Todd mentioned
this. Critical Path Design is taking this from where it was to where you
see it, but involved in that process and after the last meeting we had in this
forum, we immediately contacted Dover -Kohl. Of course, we were all on
that emotional high of seeing the 2025 plan and how that was going to
affect the city, and we asked them what they could do to be involved to
oversee our project. They politely declined because they didn't want to
have a conflict there, and we understood that. So then our next question
was, who do you recommend? At that point in time is when they
recommended that we go in and talk to a heavily sought-after firm called
Thomas, Banglor & Walsh, who is one of the premier new -urbanist
development groups in the country, and invited them to come to town and
review the process. We have also gone and toured several of their
projects, and I'll be honest with you, I learned quite a bit in those
processes. If someone had told me that you would use a 4 -foot greenspace
or a 6 -foot separation between buildings, I would say, "Boy, that's awfully
tight and it doesn't work." And then when I saw it and I saw how it did
work, and when you have the natural landscape tied with the vertical
construction and how you use the materials of the environment as well as
some of the opportunities to come in here and really design it
appropriately, it was really breathtaking. And the thing -- It was more
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 54
than it just looked good, the people that live there loved it. And so there
are some things on here. For instance, there is one of our public streets
here that does not meet the current city standards. I would assume that
Dover -Kohl, when they gave us the 2025, we all assumed that there would
be certain city standards that would probably not be the most -- would not
be the perfect cookie cutter in the future to fit all of the new -urbanist style
developments that will come through. And so we appreciate the flexibility
we've had in the past and would encourage it on this project as well,
because there will be some things that don't fit exactly the current city
standards for public streets or greenspace or others. And I'm not an expert
on how they have done it in other areas, but I know there are experts that
we've used and others that can be made available. So I'm learning and I
think it would be great for us to look at some of these opportunities and
see if some of these new proposals that we're seeing out there that are
being used in other areas, if they're appropriate for Fayetteville as well.
We're proposing it because that's what the expert gave us. Ultimately it's
still up to the city and those that are responsible to see if it's something
that's good for Fayetteville as well.
Lack: Thank you. I have one comment before we all share our thoughts. I was
on the Subdivision Committee that saw this the first time and I applaud
your embracing the commercial. I hope that it does what we all think that
it should and enlivens and enhances your development. I believe that it
will certainly enliven and enhance Rupple Road in this area. I think that
this commercial is certainly needed in the area, and so I just wanted to
thank you for embracing that.
Jacobs: Thank you.
Nock: I appreciate that.
Alexander: Thank you for the suggestion.
Lack: Fellow Commissioners?
Graves: Mr. Chair. I would echo. I was not on the Subdivision Committee that
saw this the first time, but I'm appreciative to the developers for
responding to the comments of my fellow commissioners and I'm almost
viewing this sort of like a concept plat at this point, even though I know
you're ready to go forward with an actual plan since we're going to -- I
think it's clear we've got to table it today with all the things that need to
be done to the plat. I just wanted to give you my thoughts, that I do think
it's a good project. Then once we iron out some of those things, I would
be in favor of forwarding it to the full Planning Commission to consider. I
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 55
am in support of staff's concerns with regard to connectivity. I don't
know how you might be able to work that out with staff with creating
something that's attractive, but that also places neighbors on notice that
there might be a street that goes through there someday. We continue to
have problems with that from past situations, past developments from the
`80s and `90s that were developed with just simple easements recorded on
a plat, and then neighbors built on adjoining properties and didn't know
that a street could come through right next to their house. And so the good
thing about a stub -out is that it lets everybody know there might be a street
that comes through there. But I understand the concern that a typical stub -
out might not fit with what you're envisioning here, and so I don't know
what you might be able to work out with staff between now and the next
time we see this. Or I might not see it again at Subdivision, you might get
three different people the next time this is on the agenda. Maybe that's a
good thing. Maybe you'll get a good feel from everybody before you get
in front of the full Planning Commission about how they feel about the
project. But I do think that the connectivity needs to be there or at least a
plan for connectivity and how it's worked out as far as making it
attractive, but yet putting adjoining landowners on notice that there might
be a street there. I'll leave it to more creative minds than mine and will be
happy to look at that and consider it whenever it's done. So other than
that, I don't really have any further comments today on the plan. I think it
looks like a great plan.
Trumbo: Mr. Chair. I would agree with Commissioner Graves, there needs to be
more connectivity other than just the one to the east. I understand your
concerns. I wouldn't want the utility trucks coming through here, either. I
don't know if a stub -out is appropriate, possibly signage of some type, but
an easement definitely. The density I don't have a problem with. Are
these going to be apartments or more of a condo or do we know?
Nock: Both. Just both.
Trumbo: Mixed?
Nock: Uh-huh.
Trumbo: Okay. Well, the project you've done across the street is fabulous.
Nock: Thank you.
Motion:
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 56
Trumbo: And I remember that was one of the first new -urban projects I saw, at least
when we were talking about moving things up to the road and facing the
road, and the row of houses, they look great, and I'm sure this project will
too. So you've just got to get a few of these things worked out and come
back, so I'm going to make a motion to table.
Graves: I'll second. Do we need to put a date on there?
?: That is a good question, how long it would take to do the review. Do we
know that from the city's side, Mr. Chair?
Pate: Most of the review has been done. It simply -- the comments are listed out
here and really we can't go any further with another review until some of
these items are addressed. So once we get revisions back in, we'll go
through this process again and hopefully many of these conditions will
disappear from that.
?: Okay. Very good. Thanks.
Lack: Jeremy, what would you suggest for a time frame?
Pate: I would rather not table a date specific, just because we would have to put
it on the agenda, and if the applicant is not ready for that agenda, simply
put something on the agenda that it's not going to be there. From the
public's perspective, there's no one here at this meeting, so I don't think
that's going to be a big issue. There's really no one affected by this
project currently, as everything around this is under construction, so I
would say just table it and leave the date unspecific and we can go from
there whenever the applicants can get back to us.
Graves: So moved.
Trumbo: I second.
Lack: And I concur.
?: Thank you.
?: Thank you.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 57
R-PZD 06-2212: Planned Zoning District (STADIUM CENTRE TOWNHOMES,
557): Submitted by H2 ENGINEERING, INC. for property located at OLD
FARMINGTON ROAD, W. OF ONE MILE RD. The property is zoned RSF-4,
RESIDENTIAL SINGLE-FAMILY and R -A, RESIDENTIAL AGRICULTURE and
contains approximately 2.45 acres. The request is for Master Development Plan for a
Residential Planned Zoning District with 24 attached and detached residential dwelling
units.
Lack: The next item on the agenda this morning is R-PZD 06-2212, Stadium
Centre Townhomes. May we have the staff report, please?
Fulcher: This is for a residential planned zoning district on approximately two and
a half acres on property that is zoned RSF-4 and R -A. There was an
approved large-scale at the beginning of this year, if I remember correctly,
for Stadium Centre Retail. It consisted of a single large retail building
which shows up on the very south of the site plan for this project, the back
of that building does, (inaudible). Looking at the vicinity map you can see
that this is kind of the back side of commercial zonings along 6th Street,
but this area is fronted on Old Farmington Road and adjacent to Sandra
Street in that existing subdivision there. Surrounding land uses to the
north, east, and west are R -A, RSF-4, whereas the south are C-1 and C-2.
The applicants are requesting this planned zoning district with 24 attached
and detached residential dwelling units on the two and a half acres
resulting in a density of approximately 9.8 units per acre. Included on
Page 2 of the staff report are most of the bulk and area regulations
proposed from the project booklet. The minimum lot width would be 17
feet, minimum lot areas are 1,200 square feet. As you can see by looking
at the plan, these will be townhomes and single-family on individual lots,
would be a preliminary plat for this, creating each of these lots with
attached and detached units. Staff has received quite a few e-mails and
some letters from adjacent property owners, and also this morning from a
few of the neighbors who were in here that could not stay for the meeting,
but also had some comments. We've included those in the staff report.
Most of them have to do with increased traffic on Sandra Street for their
existing neighborhood there, and Old Farmington Road, noise and safety
on some of the unimproved roadways and the additional multifamily units
in this area. Staff has outlined, I think, some -- obviously within our
condition of approval, some minor items within the plat and booklet to
address, but I would really like to just touch on Condition Number 3,
which are some of the larger items which may be typical for a PZD and
specific to this project proposal. First is the use of a private street, Street
A, which connects Old Farmington to Sandra Street. The UDC requires
when you connect two public streets that it should be connected by a
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 58
public street. They're currently proposing a 25 -foot private street. Staff
would recommend that this be revised to a public street to meet the
requirements of the UDC within a typical right-of-way road section.
There may be an opportunity to review something other than that if the
applicants would like to pursue that and provide some justification for a
different right-of-way section. Looking at units 1 through 12, each of
those currently are utilizing an individual 12 -foot drive. We've seen some
different projects in the past where we end up with some of these smaller
lots. Typically we propose some type of shared driveway to reduce the
number of curb -cuts along the street there for safety reasons. If we
recommend the same thing here, which may require flipping some of the
units, so rather than the shared wall being -- the garage is actually being
the shared wall. So you can actually have a shared driveway to reduce
those number of curb -cuts on the street. Sidewalk location currently,
again, is shown on the north side, which would be crossing all of those
curb -cuts. It seems more appropriate that that sidewalk should be located
on the south side, where there's only three or four driveways to cross.
Other than that, there really are no impediments for the sidewalk and it
would be better for pedestrian movement. Another issue would be
parking. When we look at some of these smaller lot developments, this
obviously has single -car garages for each unit. I believe each unit to be
two-bedroom. So you end up with adequate parking for the tenants that
live there, but there's no overflow parking for quests. Any number of
quests that came over for these 23 units really have nowhere to put their
vehicles at. We've requested them to look into maybe some parallel
parking or some just additional parking areas just for quests to be able to
utilize. As far as offsite improvements, the applicants have presented
improvements to Old Farmington Road consistent with what we've seen
with Scottswood Place, which was another PZD just to the east of this,
which is improvements from centerline, curb, gutter, sidewalks, storm
drains. Also looking at improvement to the intersection of Old
Farmington Road and One Mile Road. If you drive out there and you try
to -- if you're going east and turn south onto One Mile, it's not really
conducive to a safe turn across there, so we've asked for some diagrams
and amounts of right-of-way to create a safe traffic movement there. And
really getting into the PZD application, the compatibility and transition of
this development, as I stated, to the south is commercial developments, but
to the north, east, and west are your average RSF-4-type development, 8 -
to 12,000 -square -foot lots, and then some larger -lot residential -agricultural
across the street. This is looking at 10 units per acre, 17- to 25 -foot wide
lots, 30 -foot wide lots. In trying to create more of an appropriate
transition between the uses, they have actually started to show that on lots
1, 23 and 24. They've pulled those units apart, making those single
family. So maybe the uses are getting there as far as compatibility, but
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 59
when you look at lot size and things like that, you're going from an
average 80- to 100 -foot wide lot. Across Sandra, two 17- to 30 -foot -wide
lots. Maybe increasing those lot sizes and increasing the number of
detached dwelling units could increase that transition and compatibility.
And then item "J" in our staff report has to do with cross -access to the
retail center. As a condition of approval with that large-scale
development, cross -access to the north was to be evaluated at the time that
this tract developed. If a few of the commissioners may remember, this
came back as an administrative item, a major modification to the large
scale, where they extended the east part of the building, eliminating the
potential for that cross -access, but providing cross -access potential on the
west side of the building, and that was to be evaluated when this came
through. Right now they're not showing that. They are showing
pedestrian access -ways on either side of the building. But from that
condition of approval that cross -access really should be shown to evaluate
whether that is appropriate with this residential development connecting to
the commercial development and pretty much creating the link between
Old Farmington Road and 6th Street. Those are really the big issues that
staff feels needs to be addressed before this item should proceed forward
to the full Planning Commission. So at this time we are recommending
that this PZD be tabled for the applicants to have time to address those
issues. And also Condition Number 1 talks about re -notification to the
property owners. When we received back the notification forms there was
no information as to the type of project, it merely referenced a location,
and so we don't feel that those neighbors were appropriately notified as to
what the proposal was for and we would request that those neighbors be
re -notified.
Trumbo: Mr. Chair.
Lack: Yes, Commissioner Trumbo.
Trumbo: I apologize. I have what might be perceived as a conflict of interest with
this project, so I'm going to recuse at this point.
Lack: Okay. Thank you.
Trumbo: I apologize to the applicants.
?: Thank you.
Lack: Engineering?
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 60
Casey: I've just got a couple of revisions that I need to see on the re -submittal.
Tom, if you could show a drainage easement that encompasses the storm
sewer system. Since this is not located within public right-of-way, we
would like to see drainage easements and extend that through the
detention pond. Also we need to pull the handicap assess ramps back to
the tangent part of the curb and not have them hit the streets at an angle
like that.
Hennelly: Okay.
Casey: One additional item. The storm sewer, the flow along the ditch on Old
Farmington Road just to the east, there's not any sort of storm sewer
culvert shown under Sandra. I'm just a little concerned that that water is
going to be -- we need to make sure that that water is captured and
conveyed through the side if it is flowing in this direction, which I suspect
it is. That's all I have.
Lack: Tree and Landscape?
Patterson: Yes, I have some revisions. I would ask that you add a tree mitigation
chart to the tree preservation plan to specify what is going to be required.
There is two identical tree canopy calculation tables. If you would just
remove one. When we originally saw this, a lot of the trees along Old
Farmington were shown to -- the sidewalk kind of maneuvered around
them, and now they've all got X's. I know there's the potential that we'll
lose a lot of those, but one of my comments is that you will work with
myself and the sidewalk coordinator to try to preserve those or as many as
we possibly can. I know with the improvements it may not be possible.
The large-scale development for the Stadium Centre was required to plant
24 trees for mitigation and they were originally shown in the this detention
facility. Currently I can only locate 21 of those 24 trees, so if you could
just revise that and put those other few on there. I would like to see street
trees planted along Old Farmington Road, another reason why we might
try to save anything that's existing. Any gaps where we do have to
remove trees, I would like to see some planted back. I think we can utilize
mitigation that was originally required for the large-scale development
since this is the same ownership. The trees that you have marked as
landscape trees, I think, can also count towards your 107 trees required for
the large-scale development of the Stadium Centre, the commercial retail
section. Like I earlier stated, you only proposed 24 trees to be planted on
the site, leaving a total of 83 trees to be paid into escrow, and I was
thinking if we could try to get more of those 83 onto this site by utilizing
some of the other options, the landscape trees and the street trees along
Old Farmington, we could lessen the amount of money to be paid in lieu.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 61
For this PZD in particular, only four 2 -inch caliper large species trees are
required for the mitigation. Those are shown on the site. As long as they
don't fall within the detention easement that was just recently requested,
they should be fine in their location. A letter of credit, bond or check shall
be deposited with the city in the amount of $1,000.00 for these four trees
for a three-year time period. That's all.
Lack: Thank you. Would any member of the public like to speak to this item 06-
2212, Stadium Centre Townhomes?
Sorrels: My name is Jerry Sorrels and I live on Sandra Street. Excuse me, I have
asthma and it's kind of hard for me to talk. But anyway, more of my
neighbors would be here today if it wasn't scheduled at 9 o'clock in the
morning. And I really can't say anything any different than what's
already been brought up from the staff and so forth and so on, except there
is narrow streets, there's deep ditches, there's no sidewalks. Traffic is
heavy. People cut from Shiloh Street all the way to 62 down Old
Farmington Road so they can miss the traffic lights at 62 and Wal-Mart.
People come into Wal-Mart coming down Old Farmington Road. The
traffic is a lot heavier than what people think it is out there. And I and
most of my neighbors feel like that 24 units in that two- acre plot is just a
little excessive. That's about all I've got to say.
Lack: Okay. Thank you, sir.
Barnes: If I could, I'd like to give an overall scope or view. Tom Hennelly with
H2; Bleaux Barnes as an owner; and Mike Jones as project manager. One
of the things as a land developer and as a division we have of Our One
Home housing -- Mike provides that service and builds homes for us -- we
try to build attainable housing, affordable housing. This is the only way
we've been able to achieve that. We've had some previous projects in the
past in Fayetteville. We've had some in the Benton County areas. And
typically as we go through these discussions, we want to keep that
individuality as best we can. When we talk about doubling up drives, we
want that individuality, because we are out there marketing these as
individual family homes. There are two-bedroom, two -bath, 1,350 square
feet. This price range is going to be from 120 to 130,000. To us that is
attainable. We were here before you with Clabber Creek Phase 4. Homes
that will be constructed in Clabber Phase 4 will be from 160,000 and up.
So we don't find that to be attainable. So this is one of our designs and
one of our solutions to try and provide attainable housing. We feel like
we've tried to, based on meeting with the community, with two separate
set meetings, we've tried to enhance the cosmetics of this with brick, rock.
It's been at the request, I believe, of staff and the community that we front
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 62
these to Old Farmington Road versus having these front this drive that
we're going to discuss, whether it be private or whether it be public. And
so I just want you to understand that that is our intent is to go out there a
sell a single-family home and try to make it affordable and attainable.
Okay. We'll we address these one by one.
Hennelly; I would like to just follow up to what he said, that there's been some
reference to these as multifamily dwellings and I think they are more
attached single-family dwellings than multifamily. We're obviously not in
agreement with staff on the recommendation to table this. The notification
that was sent out, I think you'll find by looking at the responses from
some of the neighbors, while they may not be particularly flattering to the
project, they certainly understood the scope of the project. We had met
with them on several occasions. The one adjacent owner, Hannah and
Josh Moody, we met with her individually and she was certainly aware of
what was going on, may not be in agreement with it, but was aware of
what was going on -- meeting dates and times. So to table this, you know,
on that regard, I think, is probably inappropriate. We are in agreement
with almost all the conditions of approval. For improvements to Old
Farmington Road, to the intersection of One Mile and Old Farmington
Road, that certainly will improve the level of service of that intersection.
We would like to request and submit the appropriate paperwork to the
Planning Commission for a waiver on the private street request as opposed
to public. The main reason for that is, we've gotten the idea every time
we've submitted any project, not just with this developer but all the H2
projects that we've brought through, backing residential units up to public
streets is not something that it seems the commission -- some members
are more vocal about it than others -- particularly want to see. And in
doing that we thought, you know, facing these to Old Farmington Road
was really what everybody was wanting to see. In doing that, it's difficult
to justify the cost of building a standard city street to service the backs of
these buildings. It functions more as a private drive slash alley than it
does a public street. We do think that making that one way, keeping it the
same width as we've got proposed there, making it one way from east to
west where the assess to this development would come in from Sandra and
go out onto Old Farmington Road would prevent any additional traffic
from this development driving on Sandra because they would be entering
on that rather than existing onto Sandra. That would provide for parallel
parking, which was another concern that planning had. We would -- it
would leave a 13 -foot wide open lane. We would move -- again, in
agreement with the condition to move the sidewalk from the north side of
the street to the south side of the street would reduce the number of
pedestrian traffic conflicts that would be with the curb -cuts going into
those units. As Bleaux mentioned, this project has been done before in
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September 14, 2006
Page 63
other locations. The driveways have been combined and it really gives the
look of a duplex, just a mass of concrete that sometimes is difficult to keep
the utilities out of. So you have may water meter boxes and that type
thing poured into the concrete drives, and this look does give quite a bit
more individuality to the units, which is the reason that that was being
proposed. To address one of Sarah's comments, we did initially have that
sidewalk along Old Farmington Road curve and then snaking through the
trees, and we received some comments about the creativity that was
behind that, and maybe they just wanted it straight, so that's why we
revised it. We were kind of pulled in two different directions as to try and
preserve those trees or put a straight sidewalk in. But really the number of
conditions and the level of these I don't think are sufficient to hold this up
at this level. I think, you know, with a waiver request for that drive, we
would certainly be willing to provide an exhibit showing a connection
from the commercial development. We're opposed to that and I think that
certainly the neighborhood would be opposed to that. The connection of
that commercial and retail center to Old Farmington Road, we think, will
do nothing but increase an existing traffic problem. It won't do anything
but exacerbate that problem.
Barnes: And if I might add, at that time when that modification come back before
this planning body or the subdivision body for the commercial
development, we understood the intention that there may be connectivity,
and those residents on Old Farmington Road don't want that connectivity.
We choose not to want it coming through this drive and through this area.
Hennelly: I guess my point is that the conditions that are listed and the -- I don't
really see as being severe enough to warrant any major revision to the
project rather than just some minor revisions to the plans and maybe some
clarification of what we're proposing, along with a request for a private
street. There are commercial developments that are around town that have
been brought through recently that have a street, I guess, and that in some
instances in commercial developments may not be as clearly defined when
they connect parking areas within the development, but they do connect to
public streets and they're still considered private streets. They have street
names and no right-of-way dedication and that type thing. We are just
proposing this as a private street and feel like that is certainly appropriate.
The rest of the conditions we don't have a problem with. Can make
revisions and can have what we feel to be a good project before Planning
Commission on the appropriate re -submittal date.
Lack: Thank you. Commissioner Graves.
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September 14, 2006
Page 64
Graves: Mr. Chair. I tend to agree in most respects. I know for a fact that we've
approved projects in the past that had, whatever we call it, a private street
or an alleyway or whatever, that connected two public streets together. I
know we've done that. I remember that we've done that on other projects
and I've seen other developments that have that in them. And when you
have that it seems like it also addresses, at least to some degree, the
parking concern expressed by staff. So to a great degree I would tend to
agree with the applicant; however, I think that the staff ought to be able to
review and evaluate the offsite improvements that are being considered,
and it sounds like they haven't seen a drawing of what's going to be done
with the intersection of Old Farmington and One Mile Road. I also don't
have the notice that was sent to neighbors. I agree that it seems when I
read through some of the comments from neighbors that some of them
seem to know what's going on and some of them specifically said they
didn't know what was going on. I don't know if the ones that said they
didn't know are ones that live within 100 feet, but the notice requirement
is there to protect the city and to protect the applicant from a lawsuit, or
whatever, later on by someone claiming they had no idea what was being
done near or to their property or whatever. So I have a little bit of concern
about that part of it. Is this an example of what actually went out?
Lack: That's the notice.
Barnes: Yeah, and we did sit in their neighborhood meeting also. Kipp Hearne
represented H2 and Mike Jones represented our organization and we sat in
their neighborhood meeting with these elevations with this proposal.
Graves: The problem is, and I'm not arguing with you, --
Barnes: Sure.
Graves: -- the problem is that -- not knowing who attended the neighborhood
meeting and whether it was everyone that lived within the 100 -foot radius,
and looking at what the notice said, I'm not sure that if you didn't -- if I
lived within a 100 feet and didn't go to the neighborhood meeting I might
not know. I would personally tend to be curious enough to try to find out,
but not everybody is, and it's having the written documentation that you
told somebody as opposed to -- I know, for example, that I'm sure you did
talk to -- whatever the lady's name was --
Barnes: Hannah Moody.
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September 14, 2006
Page 65
Graves: -- Hannah Moody. But having the written documentation or the proof by
certified mail that the notice went to Ms. Moody is better than an
anecdotal description that you talked to them.
Hennelly: I would agree, certainly, that a better job of describing, going into a
detailed description of the project, could have been done. The -- I think
the simple title of it, the Stadium Centre Townhomes, obviously gives
them a description of what's being done. They were notified of the
meeting date, the meeting time. I think that proper notification had been --
particularly when you consider the Ward 4 meetings and the neighborhood
meetings that were attended and this project was discussed -- even if you
didn't consider those, I think we fulfilled the legal requirement for
notification of the project and, you know, obviously, the name of the
project, and everybody who needed to be notified was notified of the time,
the date, and the location of this meeting.
Lack: I would like to ask Mr. Pate, as our resident authority, what is the legal
requirement for description of a project, or is that spelled out?
Pate: I'm not sure that it is spelled out. We noticed, obviously, with one of
those responses -- and most of the people who did respond back to us
actually came into the office to find out what the project was about, so
they were notified of whom to contact -- but most notices that go out
describe, at least briefly, what the project consists of, if it's residential, if
it's commercial, if it's all attached units, or something of that nature, much
like our description in our agenda states. It's just a really -- a very --
pretty vague, but it at least gets the idea across, and this one specifically
only noted the parcel number and, I believe, --
Graves: The address.
Pate: -- the address on the property, so it really didn't -- It's right below
"Project Description," but it doesn't really give that project description at
all.
Hennelly: And we would be certainly happy to hand -deliver plats to all the adjacent
property owners within -- you know, by the end of the week, by tomorrow,
and re -notify them of the upcoming Planning Commission meeting. I just
feel like that the legal requirement has been -- and we certainly want them
to be able to have their say, which is the reason we've gone to all the
Ward meetings and the neighborhood meetings, you know, because of
that.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 66
Graves: I think, you know, after talking through this, I think that I agree. I'm don't
think that I'm willing to hold it up, based on the notice. If the notice -- if
we want more in our notice, then maybe we need to modify our ordinance
on what's required to be in the notice, but it seems to me that at the very
least the neighbors were notified that there were going to be some
townhomes built on that parcel and that we were hearing it at Subdivision
today and I think that that would -- my personal opinion is that would
satisfy an inquiry as to whether they were notified about what was going
on. Obviously, if we were to forward this to the full Planning
Commission today, my suggestion would be that it might be more
descriptive in the notice that goes to them about the Planning Commission
meeting.
Hennelly: Certainly.
Graves: I also tend to agree with the applicants' comments about shared
driveways. I think those wide swaths of concrete -- you know, you see
them -- for example, there's several of them behind the Supercenter up
north in Johnson that have these huge swaths of concrete that aren't
particularly attractive, and I understand, again, that we're attempting to
create parking areas for guests of folks who might live in the
neighborhood. But if we are, for sake of argument, saying that this is
going to be a private alley -type connection going through the
neighborhood, then, you know, you could use that for parking.
Hennelly: Well, the common drive changes the elevation, because you have to have
stacked garages at that point. You know, we're spreading the garages out
and trying to give that individuality. You have to force two garages back
to back in order to have a common drive area, and that's -- you know,
that's simply the -- I mean, that's what we're trying not to -- we're trying
to look as much as we can as a single-family home.
Pate: Just for the record, we're not recommending any wider than our normal
curb -cut. We're recommending a standard 24 -foot residential curb -cut
shared by both units as opposed to the 12 -foot curb -cuts that are separated
by, I think, a 10 -foot greenspace right now. And I also do want to clarify,
look back at notification requirements. It does say a description of the
project or request is required under all notifications.
Graves: I guess, you know, we can quibble over what a description is. I agree that
under the term "Description" in the notice it's not particularly descriptive.
But it does have the title on it of what's being built, along with notice of
the meeting.
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 67
?: Right. One of the things I would like to address is the improvements to be
made to One Mile, Finger Road, and Old Farmington Road. I am a
resident of Farmington. I have traveled this road back and forth. We're in
agreement with the engineering that obviously there needs to be some type
of improvements made. I mean, we've come forth and said, "Yes, we'll
help with those improvements." So I think, you know, that's the
responsibility of the Engineering department and Tom and his engineers to
sit down and decide what's best at this time to make improvements to that.
There are improvements there that need to be made. As the development
of Scotts Woods back to the east, and if this were to develop, those are
going to be widening areas of Old Farmington Road that are going to help,
and I think that's one of the single tools that's going to widen Old
Farmington Road at this time, you know, are some improvements and
some development as it occurs.
Hennelly: And it's my understanding from -- and, Matt, you can jump in if I'm
misstating something -- but it's my understanding that Engineering's
major concern is the radius of that curb at the intersection of One Mile and
Old Farmington, and we're certainly in agreement to widen that radius as
much as possible within the available right-of-way. And, you know, the
simplicity of that -- we would certainly be willing to provide an exhibit
for full Planning Commission to show what we're intending on doing,
what right-of-way is available, you know, based on courthouse records
and that type things, but didn't really see that that depiction would be
necessary at this level, but we can certainly provide that.
Lack: I think that the private street, as Commissioner Graves said, we have
approved that. We see that from time to time, even, in connection. The
fact that it does connect, if I'm right, Sandra Street would almost be an
extension of that. That being a private street certainly helps me to be
willing to accommodate the idea of the individual driveways. If it were a
public street I would probably have a little more difficulty adding that
many curb -cuts, but downgrading the size of it and the character of it
being more like an alley would help to accommodate the additional
driveways. I'm torn on accepting staff's recommendations on the
notification or a logic of the idea that notification was provided, if not as
clear as it could have been, and I don't know that I'm willing to make that
more legal determination. I think that that's something that we do have a
legal responsibility or legal requirement to make that notification, and so
I'm definitely torn on that one.
?: I might add that Mark Brandon and his family lives directly across the
street from this proposed project, and I don't see -- I mean, we physically
have sat in their living area, because it directly affected them. I mean,
Subdivision Committee
September 14, 2006
Page 68
they were obviously right across the street, and at the time that we sat with
them we were looking at two connections out to Old Farmington Road and
not accessing to Sandra, and that was one of the things -- they described
that we were going to have vehicular traffic coming out and shining lights
right into their windows of their home. And Mark, I mean, he has nothing
here opposing that, but we've sat in his living room and discussed, you
know, vehicular traffic and lighting.
Graves: The discussion is not whether you told people.
?: Sure, sure.
Graves: The discussion is whether we can prove what you told them. That's the
issue.
?: Right.
Lack: It's a legal requirement for a certain document to be --
Hennelly: While I'll sit here and fully admit to you guys that we could have done a
much better job of writing a more detailed description on that, I think the
fact -- again, the fact that they were notified of the time, the place, and the
nature of the meeting, I believe the name of the project provides some
level of description that townhomes are going to be built on there, I think
that the intent of that requirement was met, while maybe not as well as it
could have been. Again, we would be willing to re -notify with plats to
everybody within 100 feet and do that, you know, in time for them to
review that and respond at Planning Commission if that was a concern.
One other item that I would like to address is letter ( h.) under Condition
Number 3, the compatibility and transition. We did initially have all these
units attached where they were adjacent to that RSF-4 development, we
did try to separate those units to create whatever level of transition you
can do on up to a half -acre parcel, but do feel that, you know, overall,
going from a commercial retail center to an RSF-4 and R -A area, that this
does provide transition in that regard.
Graves: Mr. Chair.
Lack: Yes, Commissioner Graves.
Motion:
Graves: For the reasons that I've stated I'm going to move to forward R-PZD 06-
2212, striking Condition 1 and leaving the other stated conditions of
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September 14, 2006
Page 69
approval. There's only two of us here, so I don't necessarily think that we
could reach a consensus anyway on how those conditions could read, and
some of them may be worked out between now and full Planning
Commission on some of these things. So I would leave the conditions as
they're stated, although I've already stated for the record my disagreement
with some of staff s recommendations on some points.
Lack: Thank you. And I will concur with that. I think one thing I would like to
see at that meeting is the proposed improvements of the intersection, the
offsite improvements. And I think we can definitely look forward to
discussions of density and appropriateness of density in this single node
along Old Farmington Road.
?: Thank you for your time.
Lack: We will be adjourned.
(The meeting adjourned at 12:05 p.m.)