Private sewage plant in west Pulaski County due for vote

Neighborhood groups, Little Rock planners oppose developer’s plan

The Little Rock Board of Directors on Tuesday will consider a contentious proposal for a permit to build a private sewage treatment plant along a waterway in west Pulaski County.

Last year, developer Rick Ferguson submitted an application for a conditional-use permit that would allow the treatment plant along Nowlin Creek. As planned, the plant would process sewage from more than 100 homes in a proposed subdivision and discharge 30,000 to 40,000 gallons of treated wastewater into the creek daily.

Neighborhood associations showed up in force to oppose the proposal as it was being reviewed by the city's Planning Commission last summer. Residents were concerned the discharge would threaten the creek, which empties into the Little Maumelle River west of Pinnacle Mountain State Park.

City staff members recommended that the commission reject Ferguson's proposal, calling it a "classic case of urban sprawl." After hearing the staff's reasoning and testimony from several neighborhood stakeholders, the commission voted 10-1 to reject the application.

Ferguson and his attorney, Philip Kaplan, immediately appealed the commission's decision to the city's Board of Directors. The board was scheduled to vote on the item in December, but it was removed from the agenda after the developer asked the city for a 90-day deferment.

The planned site for the high-density Mountain Valley Subdivision is along Arkansas 10 about 2 miles beyond the Little Rock city limits. However, the area is in Little Rock's extraterritorial jurisdiction, where the city has zoning authority but does not necessarily extend all city services, like sewage lines.

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State law allows for cities to regulate development in areas a city could foreseeably annex in the future. While developments located in the extraterritorial jurisdiction receive water services from Central Arkansas Water, the city can decide to extend other services -- like sewage lines and trash collection -- at its discretion.

"The proposed development is located over 2 miles from the city limits ... essentially leapfrogging over 2 miles of rural development and undeveloped lands to construct an urban residential development," Dana Carney, the city's zoning and subdivision manager, said last summer.

Conversely, the subdivision's engineer, Joe White, argued that "leapfrogging" is a typical pattern for development, and that disrupting this pattern would stymie growth.

"That's how growth occurs: Something jumps out in front and the city fills in behind it," White told the Planning Commission last summer. "We could never have imagined a Wal-Mart at Chenal Parkway and [Arkansas] 10 when I was growing up, and yet there it is."

City Director Lance Hines has sponsored a resolution that would instruct the Little Rock Wastewater Utility and the Little Rock Water Reclamation Commission to conduct a study over how extending sewage services to that area might affect the city. That item also will be considered during Tuesday's 6 p.m. board meeting, along with the Mountain Valley Subdivision's permit application.

"We're going to continue to see pressure on this," Hines said at the board's agenda meeting last week, mentioning another proposed development in the area -- a 266-lot subdivision along Fletcher Creek called The Trails.

The Trails' developer, Wayne Richie, has said he plans to submit his own application for a wastewater treatment plant if the city approves Ferguson's.

The Citizens of West Pulaski County neighborhood group has voiced opposition to The Trails subdivision as well.

"Permitting privately owned sewage plants in the Little Maumelle Watershed is bad public policy," said Drew Kelso, president of the group. "No government or reliable funding mechanism is available to guarantee proper operation and maintenance."

According to Hines, the area west of Little Rock in Pulaski County, between the city limits and the Lake Maumelle Watershed, is the only direction the city could grow. Hines represents Ward 5 on the city's west side.

Meanwhile, the city board also is racing against a recent legislative filing that would mandate how cities could extend wastewater services into the extraterritorial jurisdictions.

House Bill 1549, filed last month by Rep. Andy Davis, R-Little Rock, would require cities to extend sewer services upon request by a property owner if the property owner provides easements, pays for tie-ins and signs a pre-annexation agreement with the city.

That bill is "very troubling in its mandates, in taking away local control relative to a requirement to provide sewer services," Mayor Mark Stodola said last week.

"The unfortunate reality is that we've got a legislator that is potentially going to run legislation that would take local self-control away from us," Hines said. "I'm not supportive of that, but if we fail to act, like I've said many times before, the state legislator will act for us."

City Attorney Tom Carpenter said he has several concerns about Davis' bill, specifically over how "a private developer can order, essentially, the extension of sewer utilities outside where this government has absolute control," while the city would have no say over where development should occur.

Metro on 03/06/2017

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