JPs ready to review code edits

Plan would loosen rules for watershed

Monday, July 7, 2014

A proposal that seeks to loosen some restrictions on a zoning code designed to control development in an area around the central Arkansas water supply will go before the Pulaski County Quorum Court for the first time on Tuesday.

Supporters of the proposal -- which comes from members of the Lake Maumelle Watershed Task Force -- said changes to the zoning ordinance would give property owners more latitude.

But Pulaski County officials said the suggested changes would weaken a zoning code designed to protect the water supply from encroaching development. They also said changes could pose legal risks for the county.

The proposal must have three readings and a 30-day public hearing with the planning board. A decision on making any changes in the ordinance is months away.

Pulaski County is at least the state's third county -- the others being Crittenden and Washington counties -- to institute zoning in its unincorporated area and the first to do so exclusively in a single region of the unincorporated area for the purpose of protecting drinking water.

Buddy Villines, who leaves office as Pulaski County judge at the end of the year and who is not seeking re-election, said people need to give the ordinance a chance.

"As far as I'm concerned, it's basically done," he said.

He added, "What we're doing here -- it affects everyone in the county, and beyond that, for that matter."

Lake Maumelle, owned by Central Arkansas Water, provides the drinking water for about 400,000 people in central Arkansas.

The 137-square-mile watershed is the land surrounding the 14-square-mile lake where water drains into it. The zoning code, designed to protect the lake from polluted runoff that could come from development, applies only to the watershed and nowhere else in the county's unincorporated area.

New developments and activities are affected, not existing ones.

Pulaski County's ordinance, which took effect on April 23 after a year-long moratorium on most development in the watershed, places numerous restrictions on development, including the height of a building and the number of animals allowed on a property. The ordinance includes four districts -- conservation, village, low-impact and nonresidential -- even under the task force's recommended changes. Existing businesses and other entities could apply for reclassification as nonresidential zones.

The Quorum Court commissioned the Lake Maumelle Watershed Task Force to review the zoning code during the development moratorium. The group, which consists of environmentalists, planners, engineers, water customers and landowners, ended its work.

Its members now come before the Quorum Court with a proposal in part for conditional uses in the zoning districts, including home-based restaurants, some shops, private clubs, commercial recreation facilities and motorized recreational equipment rental. A conditional use means a person must meet certain criteria for what he seeks to do.

But Van McClendon, the planning director, and Karla Burnett, then-Pulaski County attorney, have said that conditional uses that the task force favors should be prohibited outside of nonresidential districts, which include commercial businesses. They said that, assuming the districts have traditional zoning, the districts should be distinct, with not much overlap in terms of allowed activities.

"The question is, is the Quorum Court going to consider a clean version of the task force's recommendation or take into account legal recommendation of the county staff?" said Central Arkansas Water spokesman John Tynan, formerly the utility's watershed protection manager and a member of the Lake Maumelle Watershed Task Force.

PROPERTY OWNERS' CONCERNS

Property owners Butch Eggers and Lorie White, who have been vocal members of the task force, said that the zoning code's restrictions negatively affect future watershed activities.

White has argued that property resale values could plummet if future residents aren't able to continue the same activities that were allowed before. White represents the Pulaski County Property Owners Coalition, which was created in response to the zoning ordinance's proposal.

Eggers, of Wye Mountain Flowers and Berries, and task force member Debbie Moreland, of the Pulaski County Conservation District and the Arkansas Association of Conservation Districts, said new restrictions on the number of animals allowed per acre on watershed property would prompt would-be farmers to go to Perry County instead.

Third-generation farmer Darrell Smith, 45, is not affected by the animal restrictions, because the 25 to 50 cows he owns are spread out across 200 acres. But Smith, who was not a task force member, said he's keeping an eye on the situation because he plans to build a house soon, and he knows he might have to set aside some land from construction under the ordinance.

Although he doesn't plan to build above the ordinance's 36-foot building height limit, he said, "I should be able to build a skyscraper if I want to, as long as it doesn't affect water quality."

County and utility officials, along with environmentalists also in favor of watershed zoning, have acknowledged that current activities in the watershed have not hurt water quality in Lake Maumelle. But many of them argue that Little Rock is moving westward and that the potential for development is a risk for the watershed.

Several large development projects in the watershed have been proposed and stopped or mitigated in the past 10 years in efforts to protect the watershed.

Little Rock Planning Director Tony Bozynski said the Arkansas 10 and Chenal Parkway corridors -- in the northwest part of the city -- have been two of the city's biggest growth corridors.

McClendon views the watershed regulations as proactive management, rather than "management by crisis."

"We're ahead of the curve," he said.

McClendon said Lake Maumelle has high-quality water that doesn't have to be treated as much as other cities' water supplies, which he said are costlier, full of more chemicals and worse-tasting.

"If it gets away from you, you can't get it back," he said.

RARE FORM OF ZONING

While unincorporated zoning is commonplace in many states nationwide, officials have said it's rare in Arkansas.

In Washington County, the Quorum Court approved zoning regulations throughout the unincorporated area in the fall of 2007 to protect "people's sense of home and the ability to enjoy their rural and residential property."

Residents in Washington County's unincorporated area now must apply for a conditional-use permit to develop their land "in some way that is not traditionally rural," such as building apartments, opening a business or creating subdivision lots smaller than an acre, the website says.

Crittenden County, on the edge of Memphis, instituted zoning in the 1970s, which planning department consultant Paul Louker said was probably to protect the county as the western neighbor to the sprawling city.

The zoning is "not overly strict," Louker said, adding that it consists of industrial areas, roads for commercial business and largely nonurban zones. Many of the urban zones have been absorbed already by West Memphis and Marion.

HISTORY OF ARGUMENT

The history of landowners, environmental groups and government officials arguing over protection of the Lake Maumelle Watershed dates back past the zoning code's proposal in 2011.

For more than 20 years, water utility officials have been working toward watershed management that early on included goals to acquire land surrounding the watershed. That's about two-fifths of the time that the watershed has existed; it was built in 1959 by Little Rock Water Works as a surface water source for thousands of ratepayers.

But the 21st century has so far seen numerous policy changes, heated public hearings, legal challenges and even a proposed piece of legislation targeting the water utility's authority.

In the past five years, Pulaski County, with the support of Central Arkansas Water, has taken steps toward protecting the watershed from future development. Those steps include subdivision regulations and a comprehensive land-use plan.

But the new rules did not include a list of prohibited uses, restrictions on high density, open space requirements or stream buffer requirements, which the utility has said were concerns prompting a desire for a zoning code for the watershed region of the county.

That zoning code, while eventually passing, prompted enough public dissent to form the watershed task force.

The Quorum Court's meeting begins at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the county administration building, Second Street and Broadway, in Little Rock.

Eggers and many task force members are already looking ahead to hashing out more of the zoning issues it couldn't address in their nine months and hundreds of hours of discussions.

"I'd like to see a voluntary coalition of property owners out here working with Central Arkansas Water or whoever we would need to work with to come up with something that's better than what we have now," he said.

Metro on 07/07/2014