LR freezes nearby subdivisions

City to study impact of providing sewer lines, other services

Little Rock has placed a temporary ban on the development of any high-density subdivisions in areas beyond the city limits but within the city’s zoning jurisdiction.

On Tuesday, the city Board of Directors approved a moratorium on any residential development that intends to use a sewage treatment facility in the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction, or the 3-mile area outside the city’s western limits in which the city exerts zoning authority in order to anticipate future growth and annexation.

That area receives no city services and is not connected to Little Rock Wastewater’s sewage system. Thus, any subdivision development would require a sewage treatment facility — also known as a package plant — to treat wastewater before it is released into a stream or creek.

The moratorium was passed on the board’s consent agenda on Tuesday by a unanimous vote. It intends to give the city time to complete two $250,000 to $350,000 studies — one to be carried out by the city, another by Little Rock Wastewater — that will examine how extending city services, including sewer lines, to the extraterritorial jurisdiction would affect the city.

The moratorium comes just two weeks after the board rejected a contentious proposal for a package plant for a 136-lot subdivision in an area just west of Pinnacle Mountain State Park. The plant would have discharged 30,000 gallons of treated wastewater per day into Nowlin Creek. That method drew strong opposition from the area’s residents after they

organized into a neighborhood group now called the Concerned Citizens of West Pulaski County.

The opposition compelled the city board to reject the treatment plant and subdivision by a 9-1 vote on the grounds that the development would be inconsistent with the surrounding area’s undeveloped lands and would be environmentally harmful.

“This is more than we could have hoped for,” said Drew Kelso, president of the 400-person neighborhood group. “The hard work paid off.”

“This is an excellent example of communities getting informed about a land-use issue and studying up,” said the group’s attorney, Stephen Giles.

During deliberations over the issue before the city’s Planning Commission and, later, the Board of Directors, developers accused Kelso and his group of using the package treatment plants as a way to prevent high-density development encroaching into their neighborhood, which is composed of large, bucolic parcels.

But after Tuesday’s meeting, Kelso said enabling the developments by extending city sewer lines to the area would be “the right thing to do.”

Developer Wayne Richie was also present on Tuesday. The Little Rock-based developer had plans for a 266-lot subdivision along Fletcher Creek and has been following the issue closely for the past year. He had submitted a request to speak on the item, but was never granted the opportunity before the board’s vote stalled his plans.

After Tuesday’s vote, he called the tactics used by the neighborhood opposition group “ruthless.”

“This opposition group is pounding [the board members]. They’re calling them all the time,” Richie said. According to Richie, the group also made “hundreds of threatening phone calls” to state Rep. Andy Davis, R-Little Rock, who had sponsored legislation this year favorable to developers.

Davis, a vendor of wastewater treatment plants who had worked with Richie, did not return a phone call for this article.

City staff members are preparing a request for proposals for one study, and they plan for the full analysis to be completed before the next legislative session. The second study will not begin until 2018, when Little Rock Wastewater could work the cost into its annual budget.