FAYETTEVILLE -- An attempt to rezone 93 acres north of Sam's Club will get a closer look from members of the city's Environmental Action Committee.
The land in question is part of a failed development called Park West.
Fayetteville City Council
Also on Tuesday, the City Council approved a $250,000 contract with the Walton Arts Center, as it has every year since a paid parking program went into effect in the entertainment district in 2010.
According to Tim Vogt, vice president for finance at the center, the money is used to provide low-cost programs for Fayetteville schoolchildren, subsidize rent for resident companies like TheatreSquared and the Community Creative Center and offset costs associated with the center’s annual Artosphere festival.
Aldermen Sarah Marsh, Adella Gray, Mark Kinion, Alan Long, Matthew Petty and Justin Tennant voted in favor of the contract. John La Tour voted against it. Alderman Martin Schoppmeyer was not present at Tuesday’s meeting.
Source: Staff Report
Plans for the Park West project, which, at one point, included 1,750 residential units and 856,000 square feet of commercial space, were approved in 2006.
The project, proposed by local developer Tracy Hoskins' Paradigm Development Enterprises, was never built. The property is owned by Legacy National Bank.
Development rights for Park West have expired. Jeremy Pate, Development Services director, said city Planning staff initiated Tuesday's rezoning request to make the property "marketable" and "develop-able" again.
"We need to zone it something," City Attorney Kit Williams said. "I'm uneased by the fact that we have land in the city where we ... don't have any development (rights) on it."
Tuesday's rezoning was delayed after the council heard from Joe Neal, a retired biologist and local bird expert.
Neal said he was concerned the land, which he called a "seasonal wetland," could be developed without regard for various species found on it. Those species include American golden plovers, Arkansas darters, small-mouth salamanders, Brewer's sparrows and Bell's vireos.
Neal suggested requiring any developer to offset the impact of the development by preserving an equal amount of green space elsewhere in the city.
"I'm not exactly sure how that would work," he said. "But before you permit more of this kind of habitat to be developed ... you could require that those losses be mitigated, so that within the city of Fayetteville we could still have a lot of these creatures."
Neal was also involved with an effort to prevent development on more than 120 acres south of Sam's Club known as Wilson Springs. The property is now owned by the Northwest Arkansas Land Trust.
Alderman John La Tour was the only City Council member to question how Neal's idea would impact property value and Legacy National Bank's ability to sell the former Park West land.
"If the city wants to keep that as wetland, let them buy it from the bank and do with it what they please," La Tour said. "But I think it would be wrong for us to impose those standards on a private landowner."
After a bit of back-and-forth between La Tour and Alderwoman Sarah Marsh, Marsh suggested rezoning just 33.4 acres along Deane Solomon Road to a designation allowing eight single-family residences per acre. She said the City Council could determine how best to zone an additional 59.7 acres across the street from the 112 Drive-In after Environmental Action Committee volunteers have a chance to weigh in on the issue.
Marsh's motion was unanimously approved.
The Environmental Action Committee is next scheduled to meeting March 16.
NW News on 02/18/2015