Proposed Improvements Could Sink Fayetteville’s ‘Yacht Club’

Property Owner Seeks Clarity For Mobile Vendors

Ann Harris, owner and operator of Zuppa Zuppa Soup Kitchen, hustles Monday from her kitchen at The Yacht Club on College in Fayetteville to deliver a lunch order to a driveup customer. Zuppa Zuppa, which is at 617 N. College Ave., offers original recipe soups and salad made with locally grown ingredients served with bread from various bakers in the Ozark Mountains.

Ann Harris, owner and operator of Zuppa Zuppa Soup Kitchen, hustles Monday from her kitchen at The Yacht Club on College in Fayetteville to deliver a lunch order to a driveup customer. Zuppa Zuppa, which is at 617 N. College Ave., offers original recipe soups and salad made with locally grown ingredients served with bread from various bakers in the Ozark Mountains.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

— Ann Harris can serve soup out of a trailer at 617 N. College Ave. for another nine months.

But the next time a merchant seeks to extend his or her 90-day mobile vendors permit, Fayetteville planning commissioners might require permanent improvements to the quarter-acre property known as The Yacht Club on College.

Harris, who runs Zuppa Zuppa Soup Kitchen, is one of several vendors to set up shop at College Avenue and Trenton Boulevard during the past three years.

AT A GLANCE

City Code

Chapter 178 of Fayetteville’s Unified Development Code states that planning commissioners, when considering a variance to a mobile vendor’s 90-day permit, can “require appropriate conditions and safeguards, including semi-permanent or permanent improvements to the property.”

Source: City Of Fayetteville

For the time being, the city allows vendors to stay for 90 days. After that, they’re required to move to a new location or ask planning commissioners to extend their stay.

According to city code, the commission can require “semi-permanent or permanent improvements” before granting variances to the 90-day rule.

Last year, Cynthia Morris, who has owned the Yacht Club since March 2012, dedicated about 2,000 square feet of right-of-way to the city so sidewalks can be built around the perimeter of the property.

On Monday, planning staff recommended Morris plant four trees along College Avenue to foster an “aesthetically appealing streetscape.”

Morris said the requirement could force her to shut down the mobile vendors court.

“At any moment this could all just stop,” she said. She estimated that jack-hammering pavement, planting trees and installing an underground irrigation system would cost at least $10,000.

According to Washington County property records, Morris paid $169,000 for what used to be a vacant parking lot. She said she bought the land — not as a mobile vendors court — but as an investment in prime real estate along one of Fayetteville’s most trafficked thoroughfares.

“This is not the highest and best use for this land,” Morris said Monday. “But I feel like it has been a good thing for the city.”

During the past 22 months, she has installed a water meter, temporary landscaping and a port-a-potty, but the Planning Commission has not required further improvements. Variances have been granted to every Yacht Club vendor who has sought one.

Commissioners struggled Monday to strike a balance between encouraging an emerging business model and requiring improvements that other businesses are subject to. Property owners often must upgrade water and sewer lines, widen streets or improve storm drains if their development has a direct impact on public infrastructure.

William Chesser acknowledged that four brick-and-mortar businesses — Pigmint Floral & Event Design, Bouchee Bistro, Hawaiian Brians and Grey Dog vintage boutique — got their start at the Yacht Club.

“I think that the incubation aspect is good, and I agree that many of them have moved from this particular location into brick-and-mortar stores for the betterment of the city,” Chesser said. “However … this is not the streetscape I necessarily support as a commissioner.”

“I imagine a case where, let’s say, this situation … continues on many years in the future,” he added. “I would expect improvements to be made at some point. Under our existing code, we can require some of those improvements.”

Commissioners in the past have talked about landscaping, sidewalks and permanent restrooms.

Suzanne Clark, a Fayetteville attorney who spoke Monday on Morris’ behalf, said any proposed improvements need to be clearly spelled out in city code.

“I would say the language as drafted, frankly, is unconstitutionally vague,” Clark said, “because it permits you to take anything out of the sky and say, ‘That’s what we want Ms. Morris to do this year.’

“That does not provide any reasonable person notice of what they will be bound by.”

Clark argued last week before the City Council that property improvements are not imposed on tenants of strip malls, for example, every time new businesses move in. Improvements should not be arbitrarily imposed on mobile vendors either, Clark said.

Monday’s discussion came amid ongoing City Council debate about what to do with mobile vendors.

At the council’s last Ordinance Review committee meeting Dec. 19, aldermen talked about allowing vendors to stay in one spot for six months each year. Instead of seeking a variance for a longer stay, vendors could request an annual permit and renew it indefinitely. Planning commissioners, in that case, could require improvements. Committee members also talked about possible requirements for roving vendors who regularly move from place to place.

City Attorney Kit Williams recommended Monday that planning commissioners hold off on requiring any improvements to the Yacht Club until a revised ordinance is in place.

Commissioners Chesser, Kyle Cook, Ron Autry, Ryan Noble and Sarah Bunch voted to delay action on Yacht Club improvements but extend Zuppa Zuppa’s permit. Tracy Hoskins was the only commissioner to vote against the measure. Commissioners Craig Honchell and Porter Winston were not present Monday.

The issue is scheduled to be discussed again Feb. 5 by the Ordinance Review Committee and Feb. 18 by the full City Council.