Correction: The ditch surrounding Waterview Estates’ west Pulaski County development in the Lake Maumelle Watershed is a mile long. This article misstated the dimensions.
After years of slow sales in the west Pulaski County development known as Waterview Estates, developer Rick Ferguson wants to expand the area’s several dozen lots by another dozen.
By Ferguson’s estimate, 20 or so lots have been bought and developed into homes within the area. That’s less than half of the lots out there.
“The economy was slow and still is,” Ferguson said, “but there seems to be a need for this type of product.”
He’ll ask for his preliminary plat for those lots to be approved in Waterview Estates’ third phase of its development platting at the Pulaski County Planning Board’s monthly meeting today.
A preliminary plat means a developer can build roads and other facilities in the approved lots but must go back to the planning board for the final plat to build homes.
Contention over Waterview Estates, developments proposed by Deltic Timber Corp. and other watershed issues helped fuel a comprehensive watershed-management plan from a task force, said Central Arkansas Water spokesman John Tynan, a member of the task force.
That management plan included lobbying for subdivision regulations, a zoning code and the site-evaluation tool for measuring chemical runoff. All have since gained approval, with the zoning code first approved by Pulaski County officials going into effect Wednesday. An update on the task force’s recommended changes to the zoning code will be presented to the Pulaski County Quorum Court today.
Waterview Estates received approval to develop in the Lake Maumelle watershed seven years ago after lawsuits and other opposition attempted to stop the project. Some government officials and environmental activists were concerned that too much development in Ferguson’s 200 or so acres would lead to chemical runoff leaking into the watershed. Central Arkansas Water owns the watershed and uses Lake Maumelle to provide drinking water for about 400,000 area residents.
A settlement between Waterview Estates and Central Arkansas Water gave Ferguson $1 million to build a ditch around the property that the utility’s commission requested to prevent runoff from the development from polluting the watershed.
After the mile-wide ditch was built surrounding the property, Waterview Estates was no longer considered part of the watershed legally, although it is geographically in the area, officials said.
Ferguson can now develop his 200 acres that lie within the ditch regardless of special watershed requirements, including the zoning code.
Ferguson predicts the 15 lots that overlook the Lake Maumelle Watershed will have buyers.
Many developments in the watershed, including Waterview Estates, have preliminarily platted land and have not built on every lot.
County Planning Director Van McClendon said developers in the watershed haven’t built many homes on their lots. Even so, McClendon and other county officials have been warning of increased development northwest of Little Rock that might eventually pose a risk to the watershed.
The watershed and the area surrounding it includes many single-family dwellings outside of subdivisions.
Waterview Estates also includes River Valley View Estates and Waterview Meadows, which Ferguson and his father sold to other developers in 2009. In total, the platted area is 122 lots, but the number built on each of the three developments within the ditch is in the single digits.
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 04/22/2014