LITTLE ROCK — Lake Maumelle watershed property owners and waterquality advocates alike on Tuesday spoke against a proposed ordinance that would regulate development near the lake, a water source for about 400,000 people in Pulaski, Saline and Grant counties.
At a public hearing before Pulaski County’s planning board, property owners said the zoning ordinance would lower the value of their land without compensating them.
Advocates for water quality, meanwhile, said the ordinance doesn’t go far enough to protect the lake.
The only person to speak in favor of the ordinance was John Tynan, watershed-protection manager for the lake’s owner, Central Arkansas Water.
“We recognize the code is not perfect,” Tynan said.
However, he said the ordinance would add protections for the lake while giving flexibility to property owners to “continue doing what they’re doing.”
Van McClendon, the county’s planning director,said the hearing was required after the Quorum Court last month approved an amended version of the zoning code, which it first began considering in 2011.
The Quorum Court put its consideration on hold in December of that year as it awaited results of a study by the U.S. Geological Survey on the potential of development to pollute the lake.
That study, released last month, found that increasing the amount of development would result in more pollutants in the lake over a seven-year period, but that theoverall level of the pollutants would remain low.
The zoning code would ban landfills, hazardouswaste sites and other potentially harmful developments from the 40,000 acres of the watershed - just under half the total area - that lies in Pulaski County.
Most of the watershed would be zoned for “low impact planned residential development.” In that district, a property owner would be allowed to develop up to 40 percent of his property with a “village density” of up to twohouses per acre. The rest of the owner’s property would be limited to one house per acre.
Among the changes made to alleviate property owners’ concerns since December 2011 is a provision allowing the construction of up to 15,000 square feet of structures or roads per tract of land without regard to the effect on storm-water runoff.
Other development would have to comply with the county’s subdivision regulations, which are meant to limit runoff and pollution. Property owners also would have to set aside at least 25 percent of a development asopen space.
Butch Penney, who owns 120 acres of land in the watershed, noted that no houses have been built in the area in the past few years.
His wife, Barbara, contended that the zoning ordinance would violate the state constitution, which prohibits the taking of land without compensation.
“This zoning is not about clean water, but about the power and the wishes of the county to take over the property rights of the citizens,” Barbara Penney said.
Kate Althoff, a founder of Citizens Protecting Lake Maumelle Watershed, said the ordinance wouldn’t do enough to preserve existing forests, which she said help prevent runoff and pollution.
In response to a question from another member of the watershed group, McClendon acknowledged that the ordinance would allow a developer to clear the trees from an entire tract of land, then declare 25 percent of the cleared property as open space.
“What you have before you does not protect the lake like it should and it ought to,” Althoff said.
Once declared as open space, the ordinance would require the land to be designated as forest, grassland or open water and would limit the activity allowed on the property.
Charles Nestrud, an attorney for Deltic Timber, which owns about 11,800 acres of land in the watershed in Pulaski County, attended thehearing but did not make any public comments.
He said after the hearing that the company does not have a position on the ordinance, although he could be heard telling the Penneys he liked their comments.
McClendon told planning board members that the meeting was meant to provide the public with information and that no vote was required. He said Quorum Court members were invited to attend. None did, however.
The ordinance went back to the Quorum Court for a second reading Tuesday evening. The Quorum Court is expected to take a final vote on it Feb. 26.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 01/23/2013