LITTLE ROCK — Chenal Valley’s first subdivision isn’t a gated community, but over the summer Little Rock’s Chenal Circle Property Owners Association posted 24-hour “courtesy officers” in its “information booth” to keep an eye on traffic turning onto the public street.
To the chagrin of some residents, the officers put out cones at night to corral traffic on the wide public street to stop nonresidents and ask where they are headed. Property owners, who pay about $2,400 a year in association fees, have hang tags in their vehicles to distinguish them from nonresidents.
A few Chenal Circle residents have complained to Little Rock City Hall about the actions, which they believe are illegal on public streets and violate the property owners association’s franchise with the city.
“There’s been a war on that property-owner board for years. Some want to control access, some don’t,” said Steve Beck, Little Rock’s public works director. The Public Works Department is in charge of enforcing the franchise, which gave then-Deltic Farm & Timber Co. permission in 1990 to put the information kiosk in the city’s right of way.
A telephone message left at the home of the association’s president, Julia Joseph, wasn’t returned, and several residents declined to talk on the record about their concerns.
In 1988, Deltic Timber started building Chenal Circle, which now is surrounded by several gated communities as well as neighborhoods without a guardhouse. The original subdivision plans show an entryway with islands in the middle of the public street. Eventually, the developer added the information booth at the front of the subdivision.
The 1990 franchise agreement stated that the structure “is to be used as an information center and not to be used as a guardhouse or in any other way to restrict access on a public street.”
In August, city directors approved transferring that franchise agreement to the property owners association. All the 1990 conditions still applied.
Asked about the courtesy officers and the cones, City Attorney Tom Carpenter said, “If they’re doing that they’re doing it illegally.”
Even police officers have to be careful about stopping drivers to inquire about their activities.
Last month, Washington, D.C., police abandoned a Neighborhood Safety Zone program that a federal appeals court found unconstitutional, The Associated Press reported. Three people sued over the police checkpoints in a crime-ridden neighborhood that was experiencing a rash of murders after officers refused entrance to motorists who didn’t live in the area or wouldn’t reveal their destinations.
In Little Rock, the only way an entity can close a city street to public accessis if it can persuade city directors to abandon the roadway for private residents to maintain. Most gated communities in Little Rock never turned their streets over to the city to maintain, making them private from the beginning.
At least one Chenal Circle resident has made his objections known at City Hall. Frank Herring, who lives in the subdivision, asked city attorneys in early December whether they thought the guards violated the franchise, according to a city email discussing residents’ concerns.
Beck said he has driven through the neighborhood during the day, when the cones aren’t there.
So far he hasn’t had any contact with the association, he said. But on Friday, Beck said he intends to tell the association that under its franchise, it can’t put guards in the building or put out cones in the street. Beck said hewould check with Carpenter and City Manager Bruce Moore before taking action.
The association could seek to change the franchise agreement to get the city’s permission, Beck and Carpenter said.
If the city does allow the neighborhood to continue its practice, it wouldn’t be a first for Little Rock.
Otter Creek has had an agreement with the city since 1995 to have gates across its entryways at Otter Creek Parkway and Base Line Road. The gates, which the neighborhood wanted as crime deterrents, open for any vehicle at any time of day, and a camera captures each entrance and exit.
The Public Works Department didn’t like Otter Creek’s request back in 1995 because of a fear that other neighborhoods would follow suit and try to restrict public streets. That fear has been unfounded so far, Beck said Friday.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 21 on 12/20/2009