Maumelle Planning Commissioners unanimously agreed Thursday night that a sand and gravel storage and distribution business isn't suited for a commercially zoned property along the city's riverfront.
Jeffrey Sand Co., a sand distribution business in North Little Rock, wanted to operate a sand storage site on 22 acres that the company owns on Crystal Hill Road at Maumelle's eastern border with North Little Rock, stating that the site's zoning codes should allow it by right as a "building supply" business.
The seven commissioners, as well as 35-40 people gathered in opposition, saw the company's purpose as being more to create "a sand pit," a definition that Commissioner John Todd said better described Jeffrey Sand's intent.
After the rejection, Jeffrey Sand President Clay McGeorge said the company "will explore our legal options" to the commission's decision.
"We aren't going away," McGeorge said.
The property is zoned for Commercial Service, or C-3, a classification city Planning Director Jim Narey referred to in a Wednesday interview as the city's "most disruptive commercial category."
A sand or gravel pit, Todd said, reading the city's zoning definition written in 1985, is a "facility for storing and marketing sand" and other materials. Because that isn't allowed in a more restrictive industrial zoning category, it wouldn't fit into a commercial zone either, Todd said. A building supply store, he added, is for the sale of materials "and" hardware, he added.
"The people who wrote this then had a good idea what they didn't want in Maumelle," Todd said.
Commissioner David Gershner agreed, saying that the company's plan "fits more into the sand pit definition."
David Bridgeforth, an attorney for Jeffrey Sand, earlier had stated to the commission that "building supply" properly described the company's planned use because sand dredged from the river and stored on the site would be used in construction products. The company's initial request had been for a conditional use permit to allow a wholesale sales and storage site before amending its request.
"Building supply would be a permissible use under C-3," Bridgeforth said. "It would be a facility that stores the sand and sells the sand."
The Maumelle City Council voted in 2007 to deny Jeffrey Sand's request to amend city zoning regulations to let the company operate on the same property. In 2003, the city won an appeal to the state Supreme Court which decided the property couldn't be detached from Maumelle and annexed by North Little Rock in order to gain a preferred zoning.
Nine people spoke Thursday in opposition to the company's proposal, all drawing applause from the audience for their comments. One person spoke in favor, and was jeered when he said an already congested Maumelle Boulevard would have less traffic because trucks hauling away sand would have a shorter distance to travel around the city.
Several people spoke of how a sand operation would harm the aesthetics of Maumelle and open the way for other types of industry in areas meant for commercial purposes.
"I believe a precedent will be established in Maumelle for future heavy development on Maumelle's riverfront," Phil Bullington of Maumelle said.
"Consider it as a mining company," Maumelle resident Jim Munns said. "Let's not lose the vision for Maumelle. I'd hate to see us lose that because it will be difficult, if not impossible, to get it back when it's gone."
Janice Lamb of Little Rock, whose Walton Heights neighborhood overlooks the Jeffrey Sand property from across the river, said what the company really wanted "is a sand mine."
"You'll have lines of rusty barges along your river bank," she said. "I would not buy a house in a community that voted to allow in a sand mine."
Metro on 08/28/2015