FAYETTEVILLE -- A plan to build a new Cross Church campus, hotel, fitness center and restaurant near Wedington Drive and Interstate 49 clashes too much with the city's long-term goals, Planning Commission members said Monday as they voted to deny a rezoning request for the project.
The seven commissioners present voted without opposition against the request for a zoning district covering about 25 mostly empty acres just east of the interstate. The denial means developers can adjust plans and try again or appeal the denial to City Council.
Fayetteville City Council
• When: 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 7
• Where: Room 219, City Hall, 113 W. Mountain St.
One of the project's main problems is how typically suburban it is, according to a city planning staff report on the request. Under the plan, the four buildings are each separated from each other and from the streets into the area by sprawling parking lots, with no places for people to live allowed at all under the requested zoning district.
In other words, the development would be tailored for drivers, while most city officials and planners hope to encourage plans with a more urban layout that's also friendly to pedestrians and cyclists. The City Council's 2030 plan calls for mixed, dense development in the area, with parking lots obscured behind buildings and other differences to make it a more appealing place to live, work and shop.
"This is probably the premier property in Fayetteville, Ark.," said Allison Thurmond Quinlan, commissioner and architect. "I think there are great solutions that we can come up with, but I think this (planned zoning district) limits us to only bad solutions."
Cross Church has been working on its portion of the plan for more than a year as a way to replace its church further west on Wedington, where more than 2,000 people gather for Sunday services, teaching pastor Nick Floyd said last year. The new location would complement four other Cross Church locations in Northwest Arkansas.
Church representatives Monday said the developers of the hotel and other buildings in the project were willing to move around their buildings' footprints to be up against McMillan Drive, which commissioners said made the project more attractive. But the church wants to have a parking buffer in front of it for safety and space reasons.
The Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department plans to route the exit ramp and Futrall Drive further east when it reworks the Wedington interchange, intruding into the land in question, said Ken Hall, Cross Church attorney. The city's discussing putting a path east of that, using up even more room. Building the church up against McMillan could put it in the way of those projects, Hall said.
"We don't want to be that close to an exit ramp," he said.
Commissioners asked about moving the church over to Pam Angus Drive, which juts east from McMillan. But Brian Moore, engineer and vice president with Engineering Services in Springdale, said that could limit vehicle access to the church. In the end, the commissioners said they couldn't support the request, with some saying the zoning district wasn't the only way for the project to work.
In other business, the commission approved a Lindsey Properties request to rezone an undeveloped, 6.4-acre square of land behind the Barnes & Noble shopping center near the Northwest Arkansas Mall. The switch to community services zoning would allow multi-family housing along with shops and restaurants. The rezoning now heads to City Council.
The commission also passed along to the council multiple changes to the city's rules for small cottage housing that would make it simpler for developers to build clusters of two or more cottages in neighborhoods. Alderman Matthew Petty and city planners proposed the changes, pointing out no cottage courts have been built with existing regulations.
NW News on 05/24/2016