Renter access to Little Rock streets subject of suit; apartment traffic damages neighborhood, resident says

A former candidate for the Little Rock Board of Directors is suing the city for a second time over road usage in his neighborhood.

Clayton Johnson is refiling a lawsuit that was dismissed in federal court last year.

Johnson attempted to run for an at-large position on the city board in 2012 but didn't collect the number of required signatures to get his name on the ballot. He was on the ballot in the 2016 election but lost to incumbent Gene Fortson.

In February 2016, a federal judge dismissed Johnson's federal and state claims in a lawsuit over traffic in his neighborhood. The state claims were dismissed without prejudice, meaning he could refile the lawsuit in Pulaski County Circuit Court.

He did so Feb. 22 of this year.

At issue is the access nearby apartment tenants have to streets in Johnson's single-family neighborhood.

Residents and guests at apartment complexes located north of his residence in the Forest Heights neighborhood use Florida Avenue and North Hughes Street to access the complexes from Mississippi Street and Evergreen Drive to avoid the often busy Cantrell Road, Johnson said in his complaint.

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"As a result, tenants and their guests create a large volume of traffic, crime, and noise in the Forest Heights neighborhood," the lawsuit said.

Johnson claims the city has a responsibility to calm the traffic and noise, but fails to do so. He said he inspected other apartment complexes throughout the city and found no other case of an apartment complex with direct access to an adjoining residential neighborhood.

"Stated another way, he found no complexes, of similar high density size, where the tenants [and] their guests are allowed to have neighborhood access," the lawsuit said.

"Plaintiff has concluded that the city has a city-wide policy of eliminating any direct adjoining neighborhood access to large multifamily housing complexes throughout the entire city, with the one exception here of the Forest Heights neighborhood. The City has no rational basis for treating Plaintiff differently from the citizens in other neighborhoods adjacent to other similar, high-density apartment complexes," it said.

In response to last year's federal lawsuit on these claims, the judge ruled that the city had a rational basis for allowing apartment traffic in the neighborhood -- to help avoid more traffic on a heavily used main thoroughfare, Cantrell Road.

But Johnson's suit says that since the ruling, widening a section of Cantrell Road has lessened the traffic congestion, and there are routes apartment residents can take aside from his neighborhood's streets.

By allowing such traffic to continue using neighborhood roads, the city "has permitted the degradation of the quality of life and public safety" of Forest Heights residents, the lawsuit claims.

Johnson is requesting that a jury determine the amount of damages -- including pain and suffering, emotional and mental distress, and attorney's fees -- that the city would owe him if a ruling is made in his favor.

He is also requesting that a judge make the city restrict apartment tenants' access to neighborhood streets.

Johnson is a teacher at Premier High School of Little Rock, a charter school.

City attorneys have yet to respond to the complaint in court.

Metro on 03/06/2017

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