Agency proposes developer penalty at Diamondhead
The agency has received more than a dozen complaints about Omni, explaining in its report from a July inspection of Omni property that the developer isn’t using best management practices for soil stabilization.
HOT SPRINGS — The Arkansas Division of Environmental Quality proposed a $9,850 civil penalty for the Colorado developer whose logging activities in Diamondhead violated the Arkansas Water and Air Pollution Control Act, according to a letter the agency sent Omni Home Builders earlier this month.
The fine is part of the consent administrative order the environmental agency proposed for Omni, which acquired more than 1,600 lots in Diamondhead in 2018. The agency has received more than a dozen complaints about Omni, explaining in its report from a July inspection of Omni property that the developer isn’t using best management practices for soil stabilization.
“Very little effort is being made to employ any structural best management practices and begin stabilization in the construction areas,” the report said. “These areas are within areas of steep terrain where the drainage flows to Lake Catherine. … The only stabilization mechanism is to allow natural vegetation to grow back in place.”
Property owners who filed a class-action lawsuit against Omni and logging companies it hired to clear the lots have said in court pleadings that Omni has no plans to develop its property, asserting that lots are being clear-cut at the expense of the community’s property values.
“We’re not clear-cutting anything,” Omni owner Mark Lane said Friday. “We’re select cutting so that builders can see the terrain of the land and make a purchase. The residents and POA board are ignoring the facts. They try to make things look the way they want them to look. They’re not developers. We are. We are the developers at Diamondhead, and we have a right to select cut the land.
“There is no commercial cutting or commercial logging. It’s just a developer select cutting enough trees on a lot so a builder can come in and make a purchase decision. That’s pure and simple what it is.”
The Division of Environmental Quality said the consent administrative order, or CAO, is not subject to the state’s open-records law until both parties sign it. The mutually agreed order will stipulate what Omni has to do to comply with state law.
“The CAO has not been entered into and is only proposed,” the division said in an email. “Once the CAO is signed by both the respondent and the director, it will be a public document. Therefore, we do not have any records responsive to your request at this time. As to any communication or response from Omni Home Builders regarding the CAO, we do not have any responsive records.”
Lane said he’s working with the state to resolve its concerns.
“It’s in the hands of Omni’s attorneys,” he said. “There’s some misunderstanding about what they think Omni is doing. Our consulting engineers and attorneys are working with them to wipe out that charge and to go in a new direction.”
The letter the Division of Environmental Quality sent Omni earlier this month said failure to reply to its proposal constitutes rejection of the settlement offer and will result in unilateral enforcement action. Omni has 20 days from receipt of the letter to reply.
Omni began logging months before division issued it a stormwater construction permit in February. An email Omni’s engineer sent the environmental agency earlier that month said Omni was told by the agency it didn’t need a permit until it began moving dirt.
The division said in September that logging that occurred before the permit being issued was done with the understanding no construction was planned for the sites, explaining that logging is exempt from the permitting process required by the Clean Water Act.
The permit is for lots in Hot Spring County, but the report from the environmental agency’s July inspection said unpermitted lot clearing had occurred in the Mystic Heights area of Garland County. Omni told the agency the activity is exempt from the stormwater permitting process as a result of Mystic Heights being outside Diamondhead’s platted subdivision.
The Garland County Environmental Inspections Department said earlier this year that because the area isn’t part of a subdivision, it falls beyond the scope of the county’s stormwater and drainage ordinance. Any land-disturbing activity inside a subdivision requires a stormwater permit, the department said.