The Little Rock Board of Directors will hear a proposal next week to change land-use rules near a 70-year-old rock-crushing plant, after a vote was delayed for more than a month when neighbors said they weren't properly notified.
Minnesota-based 3M seeks approval 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. Of that land, about 69 acres would be zoned for mining and 31 acres would be changed to open space.
Most of the property -- and all of it that would be changed to mining -- is east and north of Springer Boulevard and inside a looping railroad track that services the plant south of Interstate 440.
Directors on Tuesday added the proposal to the agenda for the board's 6 p.m. meeting next Tuesday at City Hall, 500 W. Markham St.
City staff members and the Planning Commission have recommended approval, and both neighborhood associations in the area now find the proposal acceptable, Planning Director Jamie Collins said.
3M previously requested that directors postpone the vote amid concerns from the Granite Mountain Neighborhood Improvement Association, which said it was not notified of the pending change until it originally appeared on the board's June 20 agenda. The company met with residents on two occasions since then, Collins said.
Association members had expressed concern that the change signaled an expansion that would cause more dust and draw more trains and truck traffic to the community.
Jordan Johnson, a company spokesman, said 3M has "no plans to expand the plant," and that the zoning change is clerical.
Should the company's plans change, it would need approval from city, state and federal authorities, Johnson said.
"It's consolidation of paperwork," Johnson said. "You've got a lot of separate properties that you own collectively, but individually, you have to pay the appropriate taxes. This consolidation, instead of cutting several checks, you're cutting one check. Instead of making several filings, you're making one filing."
The mining designation is appropriate because crushing rock is a component of mining, Johnson said. When 3M first bought the property in the 1940s, it looked at mining the land but determined that was not feasible, so it bought a quarry miles away, where it still collects the rocks, Johnson said.
The zoning issue is part of a three-item package of 3M-requested changes. The company also wants the city to change its land-use plan for property south of the plant from industrial to mining, and it has proposed abandoning rights of way and plats in the Granite Mountain-College Station area.
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.
City Director Joan Adcock, after a board agenda-setting meeting in June, informed the Granite Mountain association of the proposal and helped put together a hastily organized meeting days before the previously scheduled vote.
About a dozen residents showed up to air their concerns.
The group's president, Stephanie Ricks-Fields, said then that the neighbors didn't have time to go through planning documents -- which showed that a tract newly zoned for mining would be within hundreds of feet of the closest home -- to understand and properly respond to the proposal.
A 3M representative then suggested deferring the vote. Since then, 3M has met twice with the association, Collins said.
Former city Planning Director Tony Bozynski, who retired June 30, said the association was not notified because it wasn't on the list of such groups maintained by the city's Housing and Neighborhood Programs Department.
Bozynski said the group would have otherwise been informed because of how close the neighborhood is to the property in question.
3M's zoning proposal did not draw public opposition from College Station residents. Those resident had their concerns addressed in earlier meetings with company officials, state Rep. Charles Blake, a Democrat who represents the district, has said.
The company also has committed to cleaning up some of its other property in the area, such as mowing grass on vacant property that abuts other homes, after meeting with Granite Mountain neighbors, Johnson said.
Metro on 07/26/2017