FAYETTEVILLE -- Two rezoning requests and a proposed change to the city's street plan are likely to consume the City Council's attention next week.
The first rezoning is for 642 acres in west Fayetteville where the city plans to extend Rupple Road about 1 mile from Persimmon Street to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
Fayetteville City Council
When: 5:30 p.m. Tuesday
Where: Room 219, City Administration Building, 113 W. Mountain St.
Construction on the new section of Rupple Road is expected to begin in July and wrap up by the end of 2016.
Fayetteville planning staff requested the rezoning, expecting property on either side of Rupple to develop rapidly once street construction is complete. Most of the property is held by a handful of large landowners. It has been zoned for low-density residential and agricultural purposes for years.
The council on Tuesday will consider mixed-use zoning along both sides of Rupple. The new zoning would allow houses, apartments, offices, restaurants and/or neighborhood shops to be built. Higher intensity commercial uses would be permitted near the new Rupple Road-Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard intersection.
City planners want to zone most land farther away from Rupple Road for residential purposes, while restricting development in specific areas where wetlands exist.
Jeremy Pate, Development Services director, on Tuesday recommended future policy discussions allowing developers to count environmentally sensitive areas as part of their tree preservation or parkland dedication requirements.
Alderman Mark Kinion asked whether those areas should be better defined before the property is rezoned.
"I don't want any developer to purchase property with the expectation of development only to be blind-sided with some concerns in the long-run," Kinion said.
A second rezoning is for 17.3 acres of wooded hillside south of Stonebridge Meadows Golf Club.
The property, owned by Falling Waters LLC, was part of a broader 137-acre, 258-lot subdivision the City Council approved in 2005.
According to an April 27 letter from Clay Carlton, an owner of Buffington Homes, his company and several partners spent $2.5 million to extend water and sewer lines to the property about a decade ago. The subdivision was never built, however, and the City Council rezoned the property back to a residential-agricultural setting after its development rights expired.
Carlton, in his letter, said higher-density zoning allowing two houses every acre is needed to make the project viable.
"I realize that the financial implications are my problem and not the city's," he said. "However, those are the facts. Ten years ago our development was hailed as a great addition to Fayetteville by our city staff and leaders. And I am hopeful our current city leaders will view it the same way."
If the Planning Commission's 8-1 vote against the rezoning request is any indication, Carlton and Buffington Homes will face an uphill battle next week. Planning staff is also recommending denial.
"In our opinion, introducing additional suburban development in this area would be incompatible," Pate said Tuesday.
A third item up for discussion next week is also likely to create controversy.
The owners of 92.3 acres west of Razorback Golf Course want to amend the street plan so they don't have to build a bridge over Clabber Creek. The bridge would connect 271 planned houses to the Crystal Springs Subdivision.
If the bridge isn't built and property owners west of the site don't allow a connection to Salem Road, the only options for accessing the site would be via Raven and/or Woodlark lanes to the south -- both of which are dead-end streets.
The streets "are two-lane, local streets that should not provide the only means of ingress and egress to 271 new residential lots," Jesse Fulcher, senior planner, said in a May 1 letter to the City Council.
Pate and Mayor Lioneld Jordan said Tuesday they expect to hear from multiple concerned neighbors next week. Nearly two dozen nearby property owners have written letters to the city, opposing the street plan amendment, over the past month.
NW News on 05/13/2015