AGENDA
WASHINGTON
COUNTY PLANNING BOARD WORKSHOP MEETING
January 19,
2006
11:00 am
Conference Room
Washington
County Operations and Maintenance Center
Fayetteville,
Arkansas
4.
Adjournment.
AGENDA
WASHINGTON
COUNTY PLANNING BOARD WORKSHOP MEETING
January 26,
2006
11:30 am
Conference Room
Washington
County Operations and Maintenance Center
Fayetteville,
Arkansas
4.
Adjournment.
AGENDA
WASHINGTON
COUNTY PLANNING BOARD WORKSHOP MEETING
February 24,
2006
2:00 pm
Conference Room
Washington
County Operations and Maintenance Center
Fayetteville,
Arkansas
4. Adjournment.
Minutes
WASHINGTON
COUNTY PLANNING BOARD WORKSHOP MEETING
February 24,
2006
2:00 pm
Conference Room
Washington
County Operations and Maintenance Center
Fayetteville,
Arkansas
Roll
call was taken. Members present
include: George Holmes, Dale Quinton, Gary Head, Randy Laney, and Robert
Daugherty. Absent: Larry Walker and
Karen Inlow.
Randy
Laney moved to remove item C off of the agenda.
Gary Head seconded. Motion
passes.
Robert
Daugherty and Randy Laney signed an oath to renew their Planning Board terms.
Juliet
Richey, Washington County Planning Director, stated, “The Conditional approval
causes the Road Department to add a 125% bond for road construction costs, they
can go ahead and sell lots prior to having all of their improvements done.
It creates a big hassle for the Planning Office; none of the other cities
have Conditional approval. The
Planning Board hears the project twice (Conditional Final and the regular Final
Plat). Since no one else does Conditional approval we are in favor
of getting rid of it.”
Richey
added, “It also causes hassle with 911 Addressing.
They need the addresses so that they can start building.
So if there is a change, between Conditional Final and regular Final
approval it creates a big hole in the loop for them and for the people that
permit them (Fayetteville Water).”
John
Gibson, Assistant to the County Judge, commented, “With the pre-sell
mechanism, I don’t see a need for Conditional Final.
The Road Department does not have the plats since it is not finaled, they
don’t know where things are. Electricians
need addresses to get electricity turned on so that they can build the houses.
Then we get into the problem when the Final Plat does get approval and
the addresses are not correct.”
Head stated, “Banks don’t want to loan money until Final Plat is approved. I don’t think that you’re helping anybody by having a Conditional Plat.”
Richey
commented, “We are going to delete number 2 of Section 11-75 that informs
about the Conditional Plat. The
Board can not recommend anything to the Quorum Court without it being published
in the newspaper.”
John
Jenkins, Washington County Fire Marshal, was present to answer any questions.
Richey
stated that the handout had been changed since the last special Planning Board
meeting on January 26, 2006. Changes
had been made particularly to the ones that the Planning Board was interested in
and had questions about. Richey
also handed out copies of the actual Fire Code.
All
subdivisions of land, over (4) lots, shall be subject to the
minimum gallons per minute Fire Flows mandated by the Arkansas State Fire Code.
Actual or Engineered fire flows must be presented at time of Preliminary
Plat or Preliminary Large Scale Development Review.
If the Arkansas State Fire Code cannot be met, and alternate
solutions acceptable to the Fire Marshal cannot be reached, then the County will
not approve the project.
Richey
commented, “It used to say the County will not approve the project, I added in
alternate solutions acceptable
to the Fire Marshal cannot be reached, then the County will not approve the
project.”
Head
asked, “The County does not mandate fire hydrants on four lot subdivisions so
how would you know what the fire flow is?”
Richey
replied, “This is only for subdivisions over four lots.”
Quinton
stated, “Some of the subdivisions are still in a rural area on small water
lines with no hydrants.”
Jenkins commented, “The way that I was directed to do, was that anything over four lots we apply the fire code and hydrant testing. Anything four lots or under is exempt. The part that was added is taken into account why it is in the Fire Code. Large ponds with dry hydrants can also be in the rural area, you take that into consideration when you’re building subdivisions as far as water supply. If you’re looking at a hydrant that has 150 gallons a minute of flow, you can factor in that you have 20 thousand gallons of tanker water that is sitting in that surrounding area. That is an acceptable solution to the Fire Code in addition to the hydrants. It gives leeway to the developers and to the Fire Marshal to look at it and see if it is at all possible without completely shutting it down.”
Quinton
asked, “You’re putting the same requirements on a five lot subdivision as
you would a 100 lot subdivision in the rural area?”
Jenkins
replied, “Yes, according to what I was told to do.”
Richey
stated, “When we say four lots or over we mean as in what they are bringing in
on paper on that day. It is one of
the loopholes that we’re trying to deal with.
If someone splits up their property and they use up their four exempt
splits, the next time that they come in to split property, then the Planning
Department Staff will tell them that they need to go before the Planning Board.
They tell the Board that they had already used up their four splits, but
they want to split one of the exempt lots and split it into three lots, which
makes it seven lots. However, he is only bringing a three lot split to us at
that time. We only rule on it as a subdivision if it is under four
lots.”
Quinton
asked, “What if someone buys the land and they come in and as long as they
meet the acreage requirements, it could be a separate subdivision?”
Richey
replied, “If that separate subdivision is four lots or under then the Fire
Marshal will not review it.”
George
Butler, Washington County Attorney, asked,” When you say that the Fire Marshal
will not review it, it is still considered a subdivision? We don’t limit
subdivisions to two or more lots?”
Richey replied, “Our subdivision is if someone has already used their four exempt splits, or if they want to create more than one lot that is less than five acres. People that has never split land, owns a five acre piece and they want to split it into three pieces, none of those pieces are going to be more than five acres and they will have to go before the Planning Board no matter what, unless it is for family or the splits are mandated by a court or a bank”
Richey
added, “If it is a family split, then you don’t have to submit.”
Laney
commented, “If I am not building on my land, then water would not matter, I
could not record my deeds since it didn’t go through the Planning Board.
Basically, I could not sell the land, unless I had good water.
So, my land will be unmarketable.”
Jenkins
asked if the splits could be caught in the 911 Addressing?
Gibson
replied, “Yes and no.”
Quinton
stated, “This has been so confusing all the way through.
I hope that we can come up with something that we can understand.
These questions are going to be asked sooner or later.”
Gibson
commented, “If we had building permits then we can catch it when someone
builds a house, that is the only way. Once
someone splits their land they’re done they can do whatever they want.”
Butler
asked, “If someone splits their land and they don’t know if they are going
to build on it, how would the Fire Marshal even apply the minimum gallons per
minute flow?”
Head
stated, “There’s a lot of land in the County where there is no water, there
isn’t going to be any fire flow. They
are going to drill a well. If you
tell someone, you have to have 300 gallons per minute and I have no water line,
does that mean that I have no way to build?
Some people catch rainwater in holding tanks.
I’m saying you’re going further than you can go, you’re going to
get shot at.”
Gibson
commented, “It is not a hope beyond the capability of the County to build some
kind of a database that says that someone divided land.
Some kind of a mechanism, we don’t care if there is an address on the
lots until some type of utility needs to go in.
As a rule, they are going to require some kind of utility to be brought
to the site. The utilities will not
set a water line or a utility pole until they have a 911 address.
When people contact 911 Addressing for an address, we need something in
the database to tell Planning that there is a lot that now needs approval from
the Fire Marshal.”
Head
stated, “For the ones that are on water that have fire hydrants, the Code is
clear. You’re saying you can’t
split property unless you are on City water.
There is no way that anyone can meet fire flow if they have well or
spring water. Subdivision is
loosely defined. It needs to be
written differently.”
Quinton
commented, “According to some of the County regulations, if you have a four
lot split the back two lots have to be provided water if it is within 1,200’
of a public water source.”
Head
stated, “It does not make sense to me, we have rural fire departments all over
the place, that we don’t have some kind of stipulation that people have to be
on some kind of County water before that is going to meet the test or that
people are going to have to be so close to someone else’s residence because
the Fire Code is written for if someone’s house is on fire, they are already
in trouble. You have to worry about
their neighbor. Some type of size
requirement needs to be determined. If
your house catches on fire in the middle of 20 acres you may have a brush fire,
but if your neighbor’s house catches on fire that’s another problem.”
Gibson
commented, “Gary brought up an excellent point, if there is a house in the
middle of 20 acres, unless we have building permits and building codes, it
doesn’t matter. It appears to me
that we need to talk about what you have to do if you’re on a municipal water
line and what you have to do if you’re not, and in that talk about lot
size.”
Head
asked how other Counties handle this. Richey
stated that Benton County just hired a Fire Marshal.
Gibson
replied, “My daughter lives in Sumner County Tennessee and they don’t need
this because they have building permits and zoning out in the County.”
Head
commented, “How is the Fire Marshal ever going to be able to manage the Fire
Code without a building permit requirement?
Why waste our time? We need
to tell the Council don’t ask us to regulate something that you won’t
regulate to start with because if you don’t want to get a building permit then
we don’t need to send the Fire Marshal out to get shot at on 20 acres telling
someone that their well doesn’t meet Fire Code.
My point is, this thing doesn’t get written until we get building
permits and codes. We can’t write
something that is County wide for everyone that lives in the southern part of
the County that lives on 100 acres if they chose to build; they are not going to
ask for a permit, they are not going to have anything to code. There’s no way
that you can’t tell them to build because there is no code violation.
We’re trying to write jurisdiction over 90% of the County that has no
jurisdiction as it is.”
Gibson
stated, “Until the County can have something better, lot sizes are the
answer.”
Head
commented, “A house on two acres or less, that’s considered a subdivision,
will meet the Fire Code. The City
of Goshen has the minimum lot size of two acres.
You have to protect the neighbors.”
Gibson
stated that it depends on how much water you have on wheels.
Quinton
commented, “The Planning Board has approved some lot splits with wells because
they could not get rural water.”
Jenkins
stated, “I am a deputy of the State of Arkansas, in a major life safety issue
like a serious violation of a building code where there are not any smoke
detectors or windows in bedrooms installed that is a major violation to the
State Fire Code.”
Head
commented, “Let’s not make it worse, because that is what we are fixing to
do. If we have already adopted the
State Fire Code then we’re not doing our job as a County either Planning
Commission or County Board to not do something so that he can at least provide
jurisdiction over the Code that is already adopted. The only way that you can do that is to require building
permits. Everybody wants to spot
zone everything that comes in, they don’t want it zoned the way it is.
I haven’t heard anyone complain about a building permit.”
Butler
stated, “I think that getting an actual building permit is more controversial
than zoning.”
Head
commented, “I think that it is time for this Board to say to the commissioners
don’t ask us to jurisdict until you want to get us building permits. It is not
fair to the people that do it right. We
are not going to be able to legislate the morality of the people that are
building. Some people have no
batteries in their smoke detectors.”
Richey
stated, “John Jenkins and I came up with four lots because that is the way our
code is structured right now. We’re
wondering how to make it apply and make it reasonable.”
Laney
commented, “A subdivision has rural water available we will let them build,
but it has to meet fire flow. If it
doesn’t have rural water we will not let them build.
If lots are two acres or less then you have to meet the fire flows, if
you can’t meet fire flow then no subdivision.”
Richey
stated, “I think it would be no matter what.”
Quinton
commented, “Some people have property that there simply is no rural water,
they can’t get a tap because there is no capacity for it.”
Richey
stated, “We’re saying that you can’t build a house on less than two acres,
I don’t think that means that you can’t build a house there.”
Head
commented, “If you don’t want to build your house to Fire Code or any code
(electrical or plumbing code) you burn your house down you shouldn’t be able
to burn your neighbors. When you
say lots on two acres you have to write in the setbacks, if you have houses
20’ apart you have a problem. It
has to be no less than two acres and no closer than 50’ apart or something
like that.”
Richey
stated, “If you catch it at the splitting process then people can’t sell the
land. If you tell the person that
is dividing land that no you can’t have seven 1 acre lots, you don’t have
the fire flow to split that. You
have to knock that up to two acres.”
Daugherty
commented, “Anything that already has been split and hasn’t been sold falls
under this guideline.”
Laney
stated, “You can catch it at closing.”
Head
commented, “We could say unless there is County or City water available for
fire protection at some minimum fire flow that you can’t build on two acres or
less anywhere in the County and setbacks are 50’ from any another structure,
that would be the most simple way to handle it not just dealing with fire but
dealing with the whole situation. Then
you can’t split less than two acres if you don’t have a water source.”
Daugherty
stated, “The Health Department rule is anything less than three acres is
considered a subdivision.”
Quinton
commented, “The Health Department has a different set of regulations.”
Richey
stated, “The Health Department is trying to enforce three splits any of which
that is less than three acres, which means you have a 100 acres you split off
ten and then you split off two, then that means that one and the past one is a
subdivision.”
Butler
commented, “The Health Department just looks at septic issues.”
Sec. 11-96. Water systems for land developments.
The
water supply system shall be approved by the Arkansas Department of Health or
its authorized agent and shall meet the requirements noted below, based on the
availability of a public water supply:
(1)
Available public water supply: When an approved public water supply
is within fifteen hundred (1500) feet of a land development, the Developer shall
provide a potable water system with service to each individual lot within the
land development.
(2)
Private water supply: When an approved public water supply is not
within fifteen hundred (1500) feet of a land development, another water supply
system proposed by the developer must be approved by the Arkansas Department of
Health in order to assure that the private water supply system will provide an
adequate supply of potable water to every lot in the land development.
Richey
stated, “The developer shall provide. The
way that I read that, it would apply to small subdivisions.
If someone wants to split their five acres into three lots, they would
have to supply water to the three lots.”
Head
commented, “This needs to stick. We
are not in the position today to say what that is, but we need to think this
through what is fair and judicious for everybody that we are dealing with.
If we are not going to have building permits then there needs to be a
minimum lot size that protects the neighbors from someone that chooses not to
build to code, because there is no code. There
is no way to ever have a code until there is a building permit process.
You need water and water protection to put the fire out for the
neighbors. If there is not enough
water supply to protect the people then I think that we have the right to step
in.”
Richey
stated, “I think that makes a lot of sense.
This all got started by a plat of Summer Hills subdivision in Cincinnati
with 65 lots with water provided by a community well. Some of this other stuff has to deal with street and road
design criteria that is in the Fire Code not with fire flow. It is just not fire it also deals with other emergency
vehicles.”
Jenkins
commented, “There was a subdivision that came in and it had 29 five acres lots
on a dead end road over a mile long. Do
you want to apply everything else except for the flow requirement on something
like that, because it exceeds the Fire Code by three or four times the limit on
a road size? You’re going to have
to give me guidance if the flow issue doesn’t apply, then can everything else
apply?”
Richey
stated, “We’re not trying to fix yesterday we’re trying to fix tomorrow.
We don’t need dead end roads in the County.
The dead end road subdivision representative wanted to ask for a
variance; to me variances are small variations in the County rules.
It is a huge long cul-de-sac, and it is a public road. The representative
claims that it has topographical issues; I buy that, but only to a certain
degree. It gets to a point where
not every square inch of every piece of land is meant for whatever type of
development you feel like overlaying on it.”
Richey
added, “We’re saying if you have fire flow then have closer setbacks.
Are you comfortable with 20’ minimum setbacks (10’ on either side)
for where we have fire flow? We can
have a different set of subdivision regulations for no water flow.”
Street and Road Design Criteria (amends section 11-90, Street Design Criteria for land Development)
Richey
commented, “The engineer will give us a signed letter saying that they
designed the road surface to support 75,000 pounds in all weather conditions.”
Holmes
stated, “We can not physically prove that the road can withstand 75,000
pounds, it is designed to.”
Jenkins
commented, “We ask for an engineer’s study that says that the road should be
able to support a heavy fire apparatus.”
Gibson
stated, “There are different standards for different types of streets.”
·
A maximum of 10% grade shall be tolerated on all roadways created
for Fire Apparatus use. If 10%
grade is not feasible, it may be possible to work out an arrangement with the
Fire Marshal if higher quality road materials are used.
Approval of all grades over 10% is at the discretion of the Washington
County Fire Marshal. Any grades between 12 and 17% will be required to be
surfaced with concrete. No grades,
whatsoever, will be allowed in excess of 17%.
(Amending 11-90 (9), street grades)
Quinton
commented, “I have a problem with the 12 and 17% grades, it requires to be
concrete, could it possibly be blacktop.”
Richey
stated, “I added new wording where we have things that conflict.”
Butler
commented, “The Fire Marshal can review for compliance to the Fire Code.
If the County is going to adopt portions of the Fire Code; we will have
to adopt the whole Fire Code, it is already a State law.”
Laney
stated, “We have enabled the Fire Marshal to enforce portions of the Fire
Code.”
Richey
commented, “The County codes conflict with the Fire Code, we have to change
and have different numbers. I am
responsible to get information to the public.
We’ll just take out the wording as per Fire Code.”
·
Streets with permanent cul-de-sacs shall not exceed 750’ in
length. Any dead-end cul-de-sac in
excess of this length will require special approval by the County Fire Marshal.
(change from existing 1,200’ to meet state fire code).
(Amending 11-90 (7)).
Laney
stated, “The dead end cul-de-sac requires special approval by County Fire
Marshal. Changes require a variance
approval by the Planning Board; the Board looks to the Fire Marshal. Anything over 750’ will cause a variance.”
Richey
commented, “Streets with permanent cul-de-sac shall not exceed 750’ in
length.”
Quinton
stated, “The Planning Board has approved a variance for a cul-de-sac length as
high as 1,800’.”
·
Hard surface pavements: surface Radius with curb and gutter at
48’ (Amending 11-90(7)(a) from 45’ to comply with State Fire Code).
Richey
commented, “The radius for curb and gutter is 45’, change it to 48’.”
Jenkins
stated, “They take into consideration bigger trucks for rural fire
settings.”
Laney
commented, “We’re going to take a stab at rewriting this by using the
minimum lot size and setbacks.”
Head
stated, “The alternate is building code.”
George
Holmes moved to adjourn. Gary Head
seconded. Motion passes.
Minutes submitted by: Amanda
Kimbel
AGENDA
SPECIAL MEETING OF
WASHINGTON
COUNTY PLANNING BOARD
&
ZONING BOARD OF
ADJUSTMENTS
November 28,
2006
4:00 pm, Conference Room,
Washington County Operations and Maintenance Building
2615 Brink Drive
Fayetteville, Arkansas
1.
Roll Call
2.
Approval of the agenda
3.
New Business
4.
Adjourn
MINUTES
SPECIAL MEETING OF
WASHINGTON
COUNTY PLANNING BOARD
&
ZONING BOARD OF
ADJUSTMENTS
November 28,
2006
4:00 pm, Conference Room,
Washington County Operations and Maintenance Building
2615 Brink Drive
Fayetteville, Arkansas
1.
Roll Call:
Members
present include: Robert Daugherty, George Holmes, Dale Quinton, Randy Laney,
Larry Walker, and Karen Inlow. Absent:
Gary Head.
2.
Approval of the agenda
3.
New Business
Laney stated, “This is the first meeting for the Zoning Board of Adjustments as well as the Planning Board. This meeting is being called to take a Preliminary look at ways for us to conduct ourselves under the new laws and procedures and begin to look at policies and discuss the impacts. George Butler, Washington County Attorney, is prepared to share some background for us. The objective by the end of this meeting will be for you to feel a little more familiar with what is going on and how we will conduct ourselves going forward and so that we can have the education before we hear cases.”
Juliet Richey, Washington County Planning Director, commented, “Butler is going to cover some fundamental issues. We have a Conditional Use Permit application form. We have an official County Zoning map. Everything in the yellow area is residential one unit per acre allowed by right or any type of agricultural and the green area (around the City of Goshen) is for one unit per two acres single-family residential allowed by right or any type of agricultural. Everything else is a Conditional Use Permit that means multi-family, commercial, industrial, etc…”
Butler stated, “The white space is the regular Planning Board procedure (un-zoned).”
Laney commented, “If someone wants to do something other than that (Single-family Residential at densities allowed by right or Agricultural) within these zoned areas you would engage in this (Conditional Use Permit) process.”
Richey stated, “All of the white areas are un-zoned. We have the un-zoned corridors (the major highways) as well. The Cities of Fayetteville and Prairie Grove just did major annexations. The annexations will push the buffers out. The way that the ordinance reads is: two miles from first class Cities (Fayetteville, Springdale, Farmington, Prairie Grove, West Fork, and Lincoln) and one mile from second class Cities (Elkins, Elm Springs, Goshen, Greenland, Johnson, and Tontitown.) A lot of the corridor down Highway 62 corridor is going to go away because it will be in the City of Prairie Grove.”
Richey added, “You fill out the Conditional Use Permit form and then you submit a letter to show that it conforms to the required criteria portions of the ordinance. We also suggest that they submit a concept or sketch plan to go with it. They also have to notify the surrounding property owners within 300’. There is also a comment form for the citizens concerning their comments so that we will have a written record.”
Inlow commented that she liked that.
Butler stated, “There will be a lot of instances where we will be unable to make a ruling one way or another (at the first hearing) on a Conditional Use depending on the type of thing and the turnout we have and what people have to say. The citizens do have the right to input. What the citizens have to say has to be not ungrounded fears it has to be based on a factual basis. I went over a couple of Arkansas cases and one with a Planning Staff turned down an item and the Supreme Court upheld it. It is a situation where we’re not able to make the first time around because we think that we have all of the issues covered and we may have new issues once everyone comes in and has their say. It could cause us to say that we need more information.”
Laney commented, “If you recall the many times at the Planning Board someone comes in and they raise issues as to drainage from my neighbor or their use of septics is going to foul my well and we have been able to say ‘we don’t have any rules we can’t consider that’ well we can consider that. The Board is going to use a Conditional Use Permit criteria checklist to track the things that you supposed to be hearing and considering and it kind of gets lost in the scramble if you don’t have something to go by, it is intended to be a roadmap of that they’ve heard it but you are hearing testimony if someone complains about this you can make a note and not lose track along the different observations.”
Richey stated, “On the last page of the criteria checklist it talks about the compatibility with the adopted County Land Use plan that was adopted with the ordinance.”
Laney commented, “We’ve talked about one for drainage, in the c. box adequate utilities, roads, drainage and other public services are available and adequate that is what we supposed to be looking at. Under water there will be some indication here as we’ve had in the past that whenever utilities say that they are sufficient, we’ll fill out the boxes. D. is that the proposed use is compatible with the surrounding area.”
Butler stated, “There are two Conditional Use cases that came out of Little Rock. They were in conflict because there wasn’t a definition for compatibility. The trial court misinterpreted the word compatible to mean identical. The word compatible means capable of existing together without discord or disharmony quoting Webster’s Dictionary.”
Walker commented that it is pretty broad.
Butler stated, “When you are looking at a Conditional Use it is the same way as when you are looking at a variance. You have some discretion, and as long as you don’t abuse that discretion then your decision is going to be upheld by the Courts as long as they are not arbitrary and capricious, and there is s on a rational basis for your decision. This is not an exact mathematical science.”
Holmes commented, “In a way item d. continues to get flushed out when you look at e, f, and g, they are still talking about compatibility but on another level of people not topography.”
Walker stated, “The communities’ argument was that multi-family dwellings were coming in, according to the definition of compatibility we couldn’t say no because it didn’t adversely effect. Where do you stop the multi-family?”
Holmes commented, “I thought how would we have
thought about that when we heard people from the public come in saying we have
land use that is 5 or 10 acres and this is going to be townhouses out in the
middle of the country that is different that is not compatible.”
Daugherty asked, “Is a residential development
compatible? Like for instance, Twin
Falls, was in Farmington’s Growth Area was that compatible with farms?”
Laney stated, “You have to be careful that you can try to read compatibility as being a requirement of identical use. It says capable of existing together, which sort of by definition means that they are not identical. There are other ways that you can bring things into harmony. You will have to use your judgment.”
Butler commented, “It is not automatically disharmonious and not automatically harmonious, it will depend on the situation.”
Holmes stated, “One of the ways that I read it, it is flushing out what compatibility means to people in the area.”
Inlow commented that f. gets into diminish and impair property values.
Richey stated, “You need to remember you are working off of the basis of the zoning ordinance and you are going to use the Land Use document as well. It seems pretty broad but it does kind of make some recommendations where it says ‘we’re interested in agricultural and rural residential characters in the County,’ which to me is a lot what the zoning ordinance is. The zoning ordinance says ‘we’re all about our agricultural and we’re all about larger lot residential.’ Everything else is a Conditional Use, that is your basis.”
Walker commented, “Now we can control and say we need it to be compatible but mainly it supposed to be agricultural, but a mile beyond that so be it.”
Richey stated, “What you’re saying is true, but that is not where the growth is right now.”
Walker commented, “We may have forced the
growth.”
Richey stated, “We’ll have to see and address it when we get there.”
Butler commented, “That was one of the arguments, we just pushed some of this other stuff out further, that maybe true.”
Daugherty stated, “It depends on water and roads a lot of times.”
Laney commented, “In order to weigh this and consider all of the factors, I can say 10 for all the water needed besides pipe and flow and 0 would be no water. If I made notes like that and came up with compatibility first brush through I give it a 7 and I keep doing that as we go through and I have a comprehension in my own mind that whatever the scale is somehow to keep from being so arbitrary, I’m going to have to come up with someway of measuring, don’t have to make it a calculated formula.”
Inlow stated, “All of our decisions would have to be justifiable.”
Butler commented, “When they go to Court the Arkansas Trial Court looks at them to start all over.”
Richey stated, “We have the written comments from the citizens you’re going to have a paper trail. I have begun putting together a spreadsheet for Old Wire Road Subdivision that is a Conditional Use Permit request. There is going to be more to consider.”
Laney commented, “I suggest having some keywords in c. roads, utilities, and drainage; a keyword would be ‘adequate’ we are determining that these things are adequate that is sort of a threshold. In d. compatible is the threshold that we’re looking for, in e. it is detrimental to or endanger it is not inconvenient or don’t like, and f. substantially diminish and impair property values. I don’t want to see this used to promote exclusivity; in my mind that is not what this is; that some would like to use this as a backhanded way to keep certain types out of their neighborhoods. They have predominantly been in the County. If someone builds a house hundred square feet, I think that we should be careful people arguing that it is going to impair property values or their values.”
Butler stated, “You got to have more than a generalized fear that that is going to happen. A person in Arkansas immanent domain cases can testify as to how much they feel like their own property had been damaged. Once it gets into Court that could be a different story. I’m not saying either we or the property owners will have to hire appraisers, but they have to have more than a generalized fear. There are some things that we all know just a matter of common sense whether you live in town or the country if something comes up next door to you it is going to cause your property values to drop.”
Laney commented, “The keyword for us to decide what we believe is substantial. I was thinking of an example a barbwire fence versus a wood fence on a property. If I have a wood fence bordering me is mine worth more than the barbwire fence? Well yeah, but is there substantial can I document what it is; that is a lot of what you will hear.”
Walker stated, “According to the ordinance if it is agricultural, it is permitted.”
Butler commented, “In one case, the plaintiff and the City agree that this finding is based upon fears of neighborhood residents rather than objective evidence such as real estate expert opinion. In the past this Court has acknowledged that neighbors fears may reduce property values. In other words, location of a sanitarium for mental patients, yes that will affect property values, or a halfway house for juvenile delinquents. Some things are unfounded fears and some things are founded fears. What they say is however there is an important distinction between well founded fears and those based on inaccurate, stereotypes, and popular precedence’s, if low income move in we’re going to have increased crime.”
Walker stated, “We don’t have to make a decision, we can wait and get legal counsel.”
Butler commented, “Absolutely, there is nothing mandate that you make a decision right there on the spot. I think we’ll have a lot of we won’t be able to where more information is going to have to be gathered it may take up to 2 to 4 times before we reach a decision.”
Walker asked, “What happens when we do this on a monthly basis? Will it have to be special called meetings or just roll month to month?”
Butler replied, “As it stands right now, it is going to be once a month.”
Richey stated, “We don’t have the staff to have multiple meetings per month on a regular basis.”
Walker commented, “I can see if I was a person wanting to do something and you roll me for three months.”
Daugherty stated, “Another thing we need to consider when we talk about entire property values is look at it from the person that owns the property, too. How you maybe impairing their property value for instance you say the owner that had Twin Falls that was in the growth area if we were to say that was not compatible with the farms next to it, there goes their chance to best get the most money for his property. You can take your land even for proposing a development even if we don’t consider that along with what the neighbors say, how do you balance all of that into your decision?”
Walker commented, “That goes back to the compatible definition because it co-exist.”
Daugherty stated, “It goes back to whether a development can co-exist with a farm on both sides.”
Laney commented, “We haven’t seen them here because our ordinances haven’t required them there are different ways to address compatibility. We berm and put in trees we do all kinds of things to make the co-existence work. We’ll see things being proposed that we haven’t seen in the past because they didn’t have to worry about it. I think that is a way that they will address compatibility in co-existence. Mitigate incompatibility.”
Walker stated, “A lot of times that makes my property more valuable.”
Richey commented, “You have three choices; you can approve it as its shown, you can deny it, or you can approve it with conditions that you feel like will make it compatible.”
Laney stated, “We’ll try to balance out the interest of all these people. Unfortunately, we have to weigh all this and cut the maybes.”
Butler commented, “You can bring up suggestions and say what would you think about this, see what the developer thinks and also the surrounding property owners.”
Laney stated, “Unfortunately back to your point that is time consuming looking for a solution, it doesn’t mean that it’s the right thing to do.”
Walker commented, “We’re going to have to be willing to take the time that it takes.”
Inlow stated, “We have to always remember that most people’s largest investment is their land and home and it is a hugely important thing to everyone even if you want to build a thousand square foot house, this is a huge deal.”
Laney commented, “The Integrity Insurance Pool, Inc. LSD that was approved in 2004, something that has been passed and is in effect, under zoning may have been pushed in a mile into the City of Prairie Grove’s industrial park which is about a mile and a half away. That might be the net result what happens here.”
Butler stated, “The reason that the Commercial corridors are exempt is because we talked about zoning them commercial and we also talked about doing some stuff industrial and the reason we didn’t is because it was going to make our ordinance more complicated. We decided that the corridors are already pretty much self regulating they’re either commercial, multi-family housing, some single-family residentials depending on which corridor you’re talking about. They already have mixed use. People that are living there or have a business there are already used to that.”
Laney commented, “Which we all recognize this, to remind ourselves, when it comes to counties in Arkansas, we’re more developed land use wise almost more than any other County. If George stacks all of the enabling legislation for City zoning it would be a book and if you would stack all of the enabling legislation for County zoning it would be one page. We’re not pioneers, but we’re close trying to make this work, so when you hear we didn’t want to make it complicated, because we only have one page of enabling legislation.”
Butler stated, “We wanted to keep it as simple as possible but yet still as legal as possible. We didn’t want to start off with a huge conflict. I started out looking at the City of West Fork’s zoning ordinance thinking it would be a bare bone simple thing, it was very complex it was almost like the City of Fayetteville’s ordinance. I kind of took that as my format and started writing from that and striking stuff out and changing things and even the ordinances of the small towns are pretty thick and complicated. For the everyday person we didn’t want to put something out there that was going to be very intimidating.”
Laney commented, “To me the developer who is used to being able to find the job and knowing exactly what he has to do, they are going to have some frustration-- do I hit or miss.”
Richey stated, “That is not true because they know exactly what they can do by right, it is very plain. It is if they want to do something else then they have to ask. That is very normal in cities, if you pick a piece of property that is not zoned for what you want to do, then you have to go through the re-zoning process.”
Walker asked, “I think that it is going to be a good deal. Are there going to be some problems?”
Holmes asked, “Where do we stand with the number of items on an agenda?”
Richey replied, “We’re going to see, right now it
is okay.”
Laney commented, “An issue that I don’t think we
have an answer to, the appealibility of all of this right now as I understand it
the enabling legislation on the Zoning Board of Adjustment when we’re wearing
that hat, the remedy is appeal to Circuit Court which makes our opinions very
final for practical purposes. If
we’re a Planning Board then they appeal to the County Judge.”
Butler stated, “We have talked about doing that
convening at the very beginning on how you want to do your agenda if you want to
have one agenda just convene as a Planning Board and as a Zoning Board and take
up the Planning matters.”
Laney commented, “The point is we will be going
through that to help with this transition of people understanding what is going
on.”
Inlow stated, “I think that it will be a lot
simpler if we did just one meeting and then did the other one instead of mixing
them up.”
Laney commented, “You would like for people coming
in under the old Planning Board format, my instincts are that could move along
let those people go home and then tackle the harder ones that are going to take
awhile, that may not be practical or it may be unfair.”
Richey stated, “Some people are going to want to
see if they can get their zoning and if they can get their zoning they are going
to want to go through Preliminary Plat.”
Laney asked if the Zoning Board could grant a
Preliminary Plat.
Butler replied, “No, that’s the Planning
Board.”
Walker asked, “Are there any discussion about how
it would effect the future of subdivisions in these areas?”
Butler replied, “Yes there has been a lot of
discussion, there is a lot of speculation on both sides.”
Richey commented, “What it is, is speculation and
something that we’ve talked about over and over is when it comes to
residential use abutting other residential uses I feel like that 95% of the time
there is going to be someway to make that compatible.
The real question is what you will think of battling something the
developer wants to do, I don’t think that there are going to be a lot of cases
where we from a Staff’s point of view say ‘no.’ I feel like there are a lot of things that we can do to make
things compatible and I understand that this is a numbers game for people.
We can address as in you buy the property for x amount of money, you have
to do the x amount of improvements, and you have to be able to sell, that’s
what it is. We’re going to know
that and we’re going to work as well as we can within it.”
Daugherty stated, “If I were a developer the first
thing that I would try to do is get annexed.”
Butler commented, “We had one that did that (Oxford
Crest). He was talking about
getting a Conditional Use Permit; he had gotten Preliminary approval through the
City of Farmington and not through the County.
He said that he would annex into Farmington and I told him that if I were
you I would too.”
Daugherty stated, “You talk about totally confused,
by the time he deals with us and then the City. If we stall them for two or three months and then he has to
go to the City, if there were anyway that I could annex, I would be annexing.”
Butler commented, “We have one deal, warehouse on
Finger Road, he might be able to try annexation. I am unsure at this moment if
he is directly adjacent to the City of Fayetteville; however, the City has
issued comments on the CUP request, and is opposed.
Laney asked, “Is there any change currently how
cities can ‘hunt’ in the County and not have anything to do with their
Growth Areas and some can choose to be active, is that the same with Conditional
Use Permits?”
Butler replied, “They can’t say we’re not going
to do it, to do that they have to pass an ordinance that changes their Growth
Area.”
Inlow stated that the City of Tontitown wants to
regulate everything.
Richey commented, “With the exception of Tontitown
we don’t have any problems determining jurisdiction.”
Butler stated, “We did an inter-local agreement
with the City of Farmington to take care of lot splits, they didn’t want to do
lot splits that were more than a mile.”
Richey commented, “Basically zoning outlines what
your design can be, what density, what use, and all that is your framework you
have to work in for a design. If
you buy some land and you want to do one acre lot subdivision that totally fits
into the framework then you fit into your framework and you don’t have to ask
for a Conditional Use Permit then you just go like before if you’re in
Fayetteville’s Planning Area you go to Fayetteville first for subdivision
approval and then you go to the County. If
you buy a piece of land in Fayetteville’s Planning Area and you want to put in
a duplex subdivision, were they’re going to divide it into 10,000 square foot
lots, that does not fit into the zoning framework.
At first you have to get your framework set up before you know what you
can design. You go to the County
first to get your zoning or Conditional Use Permit and once you have the
framework set up then subdivision then go through the City for subdivision
approval. Large Scale Developments
are solely County, except Tontitown.”
Walker asked, “What if someone lets their time run
out and they come back to us and it was all in Preliminary, where do we
stand?”
Butler replied, “They let it lapse they’re
covered by the ordinance.”
Richey stated, “Our ordinance says very clearly you
have a year to start.”
Walker commented, “My point is, at one time we were
saying okay this is going to work when you get all your ducks in a row and now
we’re going to say it’s not. You
have to go in and redo your streets.”
Holmes stated, “Back then we weren’t able to
because we didn’t have any enabling legislation.”
Butler commented, “They knew the law what the
ordinance said it lapses in a year and it lapsed you can never assume that there
is not going to be more regulation.”
Holmes stated, “They’re looking for consistency on our part if a year ago we weren’t raising issues and now we would, is that okay. The answer is okay because what we have is the ability to raise those rules and in the past we didn’t.”
Walker commented, “If this went to Court and I was
sitting on the jury and they said the Planning Commission said that it was going
to be okay once I got all of the ducks in a row.”
Butler stated, “That’s not what the law says.”
Richey commented, “That would be okay if you got
your ducks in a row in a year and if you didn’t all bets are off.”
Butler stated, “One thing that I wanted to remind
everybody was people are talking about what this is going to do to the value of
the land and so on and so forth. Before
decentralized sewers (which is what has driven this intense growth) we had land
development out in Washington County, people were doing subdivisions they
weren’t doing them on 10,000 square foot lots but they were doing them.
They were doing them on an acre or maybe half-acre or maybe seven-tenths
of an acre but nevertheless they were doing them and they were making money.
Decentralized sewers have come in and yes they have been able to develop
a much more compact way and make a lot more money, but that doesn’t mean that
people are still not going to develop and make money. Land values are still inflated out there; development was
half before decentralized sewers came in. Dealing
in land and development is highly spectacle and there are lots of factors that
can cause land prices to go up and down. If
a person thinks that they have the best of right to keep the hyper inflated
value. That’s not good sense. The
whole Country is experiencing land deflation right now.”
Quinton asked, “Does the zoning override deed
restrictions?”
Butler replied, “The Zoning Board just like the
Planning Board cannot enforce deed restrictions it is still the way it is even
under zoning if there are deed restrictions it is up to the land owners people
who are also subject to the land restrictions to go to Court to enforce them we
are not allowed to enforce them.”
Laney commented, “Item c. adequate utilities,
roads, and drainage, there is not an adequate road in Northwest Arkansas
including 540 which is too crowded so that certainly cannot be what adequate
means, we need to be careful. Perfect
drainage or adequate drainage, the ideal road or an adequate road.”
Butler stated, “We’ll have to look at adequate in
terms of the state of the roads and state of water service and electricity that
we have conduct that we commonly have and is commonly accepted now as opposed to
what they might expect in the City of San Francisco.
We look at our own area in terms of what we typically think of as
adequate, though that may not be adequate to some individual person.
It may be what is typically considered adequate in the area.”
Laney asked, “With the hot areas of east
Fayetteville there was a narrow two lane road with no shoulders and no sidewalk
with many “S” curves. In
subdivision after subdivision all of the existing subdivision people would come
in and say can’t ruin another one because that road is just not adequate for
the traffic. Will we be engaging
traffic counts and more road engineer opinions about adequacy of roads?”
Butler replied, “Certainly we can, that is the sort
of information that can and most likely be welcome of and be presented to you.
If it is not available, then you can rely on the information that is
given to you and your own personal experience.”
Richey commented, “The thing that this is going to
open up that we haven’t been able to consider before is the adequacy of just
not County roads but City roads. For
the December 7, 2006 meeting we have two developments that are directly adjacent
to the City. You’re talking about
a lot of traffic impact on a City road that if it wasn’t a subdivision, if it
was a Large Scale Development like the warehouses, the City wasn’t able to
address it. We couldn’t enforce
somebody to do something on another jurisdiction’s road.
If it is directly adjacent to the City we will get comments from the City
to see how it is going to impact their infrastructure as well.
That is something that we’re going to look at that that we’ve never
been able to do anything about before. It’s
been one of those weird quagmires where you’re stuck between jurisdictions,
where one jurisdiction throws up its hands and the other one throws up its hands
also. Generally you’re going to
have feedback from two jurisdictions and they’re going to tell you.
The County’s standards are basic engineering standards how we do
traffic counts, how we look at the impact of certain developments, you’re
going to be able to rely a great amount on the County Road Superintendent and
the Cities’ comments.”
Laney stated, “My opinion of what that will result
in is the one that George was particularly concerned about and a real sense of
you wish you could do something we looked at a project and it had several
duplexes and all of the driveways backed out and there was testimony that there
was a curve in the road. I think
again rather than say ‘no project’ we could say internal streets and have
the driveways have one outlet. (Harmon
Road) Now, we can say you need to
plan internal streets somehow and have one outlet that is far enough away from
the corner. Adequate road
counts-nothing is hardly adequate.”
Walker asked, “What happens when in the past I
think when the Planning Commission planned a subdivision out in the County, you
might have required the developer to improve the street in front of the
property. Now, we might not be able
to prove it if the road between there and the major road, it’s not
adequate.”
Richey replied, “There is still going to have to be
a reasonable impact.”
Laney commented, “We had one a few months ago where
it was dirt, neighbor improved pavement, dirt, and then pavement again.
That is what you’re talking about.”
Walker asked, “Are we going to deny the Conditional
Use of that until the road is brought up to standards or adequate to handle
additional traffic?”
Richey replied, “I don’t think that you are going
to run into this as much as you think. You
will have to weigh those things as they come to you. We’re going to organize that and help you weigh those as
well.”
Daugherty asked, “Are you going to make a
recommendation each time of a Conditional Use?”
Richey replied, “You will get a recommendation and
it is going to be carefully compiled from information that I receive.”
Laney stated, “We’re going to have her view and
we can make our own judgments.”
Richey commented, “Item 2 on the spreadsheet it
says ‘compatibility with the Future Land Use Plan Map (showing Cities’ Land
Use Plans for their Planning Areas) must be considered as per Arkansas Code
14-17-209. We’ve taken the
adopted Lane Use Plans for all of the Cities that have one, some of them do not,
and compiled those together for you. This
is going to be another factor that you are going to look at; there are a lot of
factors that go into this. The Land
Use map is something to look at to see what the City has planned; you are
required to consider by State law what the City has planned for that area.
It doesn’t mean that it should weigh you in any direction, but you’re
going to be presented with a lot of pieces of information.
The map will be updated as the City updates their Future Land Use Plan,
Fayetteville is fixing to do. Fayetteville
is proposing some pretty radical things, they’re talking about large areas
outside their City limits where they’re proposing it as Future Land Use
density of one unit per 15 acres. That
is not obviously going to go hand in hand with what our zoning ordinance says. It is not going to go hand in hand with the County’s Plan
for Land Use development, but it is going to be something that we are going to
consider and we’re going to talk about. I
just wanted to let you know about that map, and I will be showing for each
project you’ll have swatches of that map and what the City’s plan is for
that area.”
Laney stated, “Considered but not controlling.”
Walker commented, “If I was a land owner in the
green area and I have 20 acres, according to the new zoning I can build 20
houses.”
Butler stated, “The green area is where the City of
Goshen actually is a two acre minimum. We
said in our ordinance that if the City had a greater minimum that would control.
You’re saying in the yellow area and you have 20 acres, theoretically,
you can develop 20 houses one house per acre by right without having to go
through anything except go through Planning by right you’re automatically
included in the zoning you don’t have to do anything other than go through
Planning and follow subdivision rules.”
Laney commented, “If you have one that is 1.25 acre
and one that is .85 acre, you might as well go through Conditional Use, which is
always going to happen because of streets, hills, and curves.”
Walker asked, “According to the zoning, we can
build one residence per acre, but we’re still going to go through all the
planning. Are we going to be able
to require the drainage and the building permits required and all of this
according to the zoning?”
Richey replied, “We don’t really have building
permits not like on an inspection basis.”
Butler stated, “It says that we will issue building
permits after issue for Conditional Use, but we’re not right now we have no
plans.”
Walker asked for Conditional Use.
Butler replied, “For Conditional Use, but not for use by right,
agricultural use or single-family residence on an acre, you are by operation of
law are considered of having building permits.
The reason why I had put that in there because the State enabling
legislation says that the zoning ordinance shall be observed with the issuance
of building permits, so I had to try to figure out a way, mainly on
agricultural, the people with agricultural uses won’t get a building permit
because that was probably a deal killer.”
Daugherty asked, “The 300’ corridors, say you
have a piece of property that touches within the corridor and it is very deep,
can you sell off the back side of that as commercial?”
Richey replied, “We made a policy decision when
making the maps, you’re going to see some irregularity, we took in whole
parcels. If that 300’ touch that
parcel we took the whole parcel.”
Daugherty commented, “If it’s very deep he can
sell off the back part of it and be commercial.”
Butler stated, “We didn’t want to split a parcel
of land up.”
Quinton commented, “If that parcel that you split
off on the back you may not be able to get water to that back parcel.”
Courtney Tannehill, Washington County Planner, asked,
“Say someone has a parcel like that and they split it, do we update it so that
it is now zoned?”
Richey replied, “We’ll have to update it
periodically, probably three times a year.
The way that annexations go it will probably be updated more often.”
Daugherty stated, “This is going to force
annexations.”
Richey asked, “To me the zoning ordinance said in
the County that rural residential and agricultural to be the main use.
So what does that say about development?”
Holmes replied, “That the development can be in or
around or in someway contiguous to the Cities.”
Daugherty asked, “Is there something on the agenda
about the permits with the fire flow?”
Butler replied, “They’ve passed an ordinance
where they can put in fire flow tanks if you can’t meet the Fire Code, that
ordinance has already passed. We
passed in committee an amendment to that had to do with basically what we call a
non-residential Large Scale Development, like a furniture store, they would need
to have the same kind of control that a residential area would need to have.”
Richey commented, “Permits are on the agenda for
second reading in December.”
Butler stated, “Steve Zega, Quorum Court member for
District #8, sponsored an ordinance to create a building department and issue
building permits to adopt the State Fire and Building Codes in the entire County
and to establish a building department to issue building permits and do
inspections, which is an appending ordinance that does not pertain to
agricultural.”
TAPE STOPPED********************
General synopsis from
notes taken by Amanda Kimbel:
Quinton – septic and
plumbing inspections – water flow single family
Walker – vague compare
compatibility
Richey – multi-family
where town not same issues – add greenspace keep people out of hair
Walker – walking trails
Richey – density
4.
Adjourn
Minutes submitted by: Amanda
Kimbel
Approved by the Planning Board
on:
______Randy Laney___________ Date: ___01/04/07_
Randy
Laney, Planning Board Chairman