The Little Rock Board of Directors on Tuesday deferred a proposal to rezone property near 3M's rock-crushing plant in order to give the company time to rethink its plan, after one director called the rationale "malarkey" and a "great legal trick."
Minnesota-based 3M Co. asked the city to remove residential zoning from about 100 vacant acres of its property near the Granite Mountain and College Station communities in the city's southeast. About two-thirds of that property would be zoned for mining and the rest would be changed to open space.
3M previously allayed concerns expressed by two nearby neighborhood associations, where residents worried that the change signaled an expansion of the current plant or the first step in mining that property.
Both associations dropped their opposition after meetings with the company, Planning Director Jamie Collins previously said, and city staff members and the Planning Commission have recommended approval of the rezoning.
The company's spokesman, Jordan Johnson, has said the aim is to consolidate property tax filings and make property it has bought piecemeal over the decades consistent in its zoning.
Johnson said 3M has no plans to expand the existing plant or to mine the property, referring to an abandoned attempt to mine the land in the 1940s because of the rock quality.
At-large City Director Dean Kumpuris said the proposal would nonetheless lay the groundwork for mining at the site years into the future and that the company offered no legal assurances that those plans wouldn't change. Kumpuris suggested that 3M could achieve consistent zoning by reclassifying all of the property to open space.
"The idea that we're doing this at this classification to make it easier to do tax work and to pay taxes is malarkey, in my opinion," Kumpuris said. "We're giving this company permission to bypass this group forever if they want to mine, and that's just the bottom line."
Kumpuris referred to a drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing that unlocked vast gas reservoirs that drillers previously thought were too costly to develop.
Ward 1 City Director Erma Hendrix, who represents the area, said she agreed with Kumpuris. Other directors also expressed skepticism.
"I don't think people think like that, but I respect your opinion," Johnson told Kumpuris.
City Director Lance Hines requested the two-week deferral to give 3M time to consider whether to change the proposed zoning to open space, rather than mining. Directors unanimously approved the motion.
3M mines nepheline syenite rocks in Little Rock and crushes them to create granules used in roofing shingles. The company's 2,500-acre quarry, where the rocks are mined, is at 6100 Arch St. A rail line connects it to the granule plant at 3100 Walters Road, where the rocks are crushed.
Metro on 08/02/2017