Watershed amendment approved

JPs unanimous in passing changes to zoning regulations

The Pulaski County Quorum Court approved an amendment Tuesday night to the Lake Maumelle watershed zoning code after some heated discussion about the merits of the original ordinance.

The ordinance passed 11-0. District 4 Justice of the Peace Julie Blackwood, D-Little Rock, District 9 Justice of the Peace Wilma Walker, D-College Station, District 10 Justice of the Peace Robert Green, D-McAlmont, and District 11 Justice of the Peace Bob Johnson, D-Jacksonville, were absent.

The vote closes a three-year discussion of zoning regulations for the sparsely populated northwest Pulaski County region. Those discussions at times became heated on how to protect central Arkansas' largest water source from potential development.

The amendment was proposed by a 25-member task force commissioned by the Pulaski County Quorum Court to review the original zoning code during a year-long pause on most development in the watershed. The task force included property owners, environmentalists, engineers and ratepayers.

Lake Maumelle provides the drinking water for about 400,000 central Arkansans. Property owners have been in dispute with county and Central Arkansas Water officials about the extent to which zoning regulations were needed to protect the lake.

The original zoning ordinance took effect April 23 after it passed a year earlier with the caveat that a task force would convene to discuss changing the code for the next year. Tuesday's ordinance will go into effect in 90 days.

"I'm surprised this passed unanimously on all fronts," District 2 Justice of the Peace Tyler Denton, D-Little Rock, said.

The solid voting bloc was a testament to the process of the task force, a dialogue among all stakeholders in the ordinance, he said.

"I think this gives us a really solid foundation to continue the conversation," Denton said.

Denton was the sponsor of the amendment and originally proposed creating the task force.

The amendment also modified some inconsistencies in the code and lessened some of the restrictions on activities in certain zones of the watershed. The text of the amendment can be found on the front page of the county's website: co.pulaski. ar.us.

Among the changes:

• Allowing residents to apply for conditional uses in certain zoning districts where some activities were prohibited under the ordinance, including home-based restaurants, some shops, private clubs, commercial recreation facilities and motorized recreational equipment rental. A conditional use means a person must meet certain criteria for what he seeks to do.

• Allowing people operating a nonresidential use in the watershed to apply to be rezoned as nonresidential. Task force members moved to allow the process after noting that the only business in the watershed zoned as nonresidential was the Alotian Golf Course.

Jesse Teague, a Republican running for Shane Stack's position as District 15 justice of the peace, told the Quorum Court that its conservatives should vote against the amendment because the original zoning code was government overreach, prompting all five Republicans on the Quorum Court to say that they would vote in favor of the amendment because it was an improvement on the original code.

"If we don't vote for the ordinance, the restrictions would be more onerous," said Stacks, who is not running for re-election.

"If you think I'm compromising my principles, that's your choice," he said.

County Judge Buddy Villines said after the meeting that the amendment, along with the original zoning code on which is was based, was a milestone.

"This is a milestone in that it completes the work," he said. "This county is the first in the state to take action to make sure its residents have clean drinking water."

Zoning has been a contentious issue, he said, from his time working for Little Rock and as mayor of Little Rock, but he added that the county needed to pass the zoning code because of the potential for development in west Pulaski County.

"One of the things I liked about this job for so many years was that we didn't have zoning," he said.

But the watershed issue was one of the reasons Villines said he kept running for county judge, a position he has held for 24 years.

"I knew that once we started, we needed to finish it," he said.

County and utility officials, along with environmentalists also in favor of watershed zoning, have acknowledged that current activities in the watershed have not hurt water quality in Lake Maumelle. But many of them argue that Little Rock is moving westward and that the potential for development is a risk for the watershed.

Several large development projects proposed in the watershed have been stopped or mitigated in the past 10 years in efforts to protect it.

For more than 20 years, water utility officials have been working toward watershed management that early on included goals to acquire land surrounding the watershed. That's about two-fifths of the time that the lake has existed; it was built in 1959 by Little Rock Water Works as a surface water source for thousands of ratepayers.

But the 21st century has so far seen numerous policy changes, heated public hearings, legal challenges and even a proposed piece of legislation targeting the water utility's authority.

In the past five years, Pulaski County, with the support of Central Arkansas Water, has taken steps to protect the watershed from future development. Those steps include subdivision regulations and a comprehensive land-use plan.

But the new rules did not include a list of prohibited uses, restrictions on high density, open space requirements or stream buffer requirements, which the utility has said were concerns prompting a desire for a zoning code for the watershed region of the county.

Central Arkansas Water spokesman John Tynan, who was a member of the task force and until late last year was the watershed protection manager for the utility, said the utility was happy with the amendment, because its major concerns were protected, such as rules on stream buffers and open space.

"From a water quality perspective, we're happy," he said.

Ruth Bell, who represented the League of Women Voters of Pulaski County on the task force, told the Quorum Court that the amendment was good but that the issue was far from over.

"This document is not the end of protecting the watershed," she said.

Metro on 08/27/2014

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