LITTLE ROCK — Homeowners in Little Rock’s Deer Park neighborhood are seeing some of their backyards disappear as the city moves forward with construction of a new fire station at Taylor Loop and Rahling roads.
The station has been on the drawing board since 1999, drawing ire from residents back then who didn’t want the noise of a fire station behind their homes. A lack of money delayed the project until Little Rock received a $2 million federal stimulus grant in 2009 to build the station.
The new funding meant another round at the Planning Commission because the previous approval had expired, and residents again showed up to say they didn’t want the station on the 2.65-acre corner lot and feared its effect on property values.
Now, two years later, the city finally has all the money needed to build the $2.6 million project because Little Rock residents approved a sales-tax increase in September. The estimated cost of the station, the first new one to be built since the early 1990s, ended up being a few hundred thousand dollars more than initially expected.
With a November 2012 deadline to complete the federal stimulus-funded project, the city moved ahead this month on clearing the land.
Last week, construction crews started work on expanding a drainage ditch that separates Deer Park homes off Wesley Drive and the construction site.
Steve Elkins wasn’t happy when he saw bulldozers inching closer to his backyard. He knew they would be arriving soon but thought he had three more weeks to try to persuade the city to change some of its excavation plans.
“If nothing else, it’s not fair,” said Elkins, who is losing more yard than all of the other homeowners.
Instead of using half of the city’s property for the wider ditch, construction plans call for using most of the 15-foot easement running through Elkins’ and his neighbors’ backyards.
“My suggestion was, take half of yours and half from mine. At least work with me on it because my kids love to go out there and walk up and down on what has been considered my property for years,” he said.
But the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wants the city to straighten out the creek and going deeper into the city’s property would create an unwanted bend, said Doug Coney, Little Rock’s assistant fire chief who is overseeing the station’s construction.
The Corps of Engineers is requiring the city to better define the channel, making it a similar width to the basins before and after the construction site. Once finished, the ditch will be 24 feet wide at the bottom.
“I’ve had the engineers out here, and I’ve asked them: ‘Can we shift it any?’ and they saidn ‘No,’” Coney said. “My hands are tied.”
That means Franchelle Owen will lose some of her vegetable garden. Owen, who lives next door to Elkins, isn’t happy to see some of the older trees go down either.
“I like to look out the kitchen window and see the creeks and the trees. It’s just like being in the country,” she said.
The city can’t leave the older trees in the middle of what will become a waterway, Coney said.
There are plans to replant some trees on other parts of the property, which will also have some of its natural forest remain to help the project qualify for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification. The certification is awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council for projects that are environmentally friendly and energyefficient.
“I want to make these people happy,” Coney said, but he knows he can’t please everyone.
“Just give us a chance. I promise you we’ll be a good neighbor,” he said.
But, Elkins said, he and other residents continue to have questions and concerns. A prominent rumor in the neighborhood is that the station won’t serve their homes, something Coney said isn’t true. Other rumors have circulated about the width of the improved ditch and the federal government’s financial requirements for the stimulus-funded project.
“To me, it’s a lot of question marks, and I feel like I’m being bullied,” said Elkins, who had the police called on him Tuesday after confronting construction crews about moving into his yard before he felt he had all his questions answered.
Elkins wasn’t cited for anything, but construction workers told police they felt threatened.
“I was not trying to be an irate neighbor,” Elkins said. “I was trying to get it done and be fair about it.”
He said he’s now starting to be more unhappy about the police report’s existence than the work that will be going on in his backyard.
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 12/04/2011