In government we trust?

Are long-term agreements worth anything?

When the Fayetteville Planning Commission voted 6-2 last week to support development of a new restaurant in the CMN Business Park — already home to Academy Sports, Malco Razorback Cinema, Target and dozens of other retail outlets and offices — it might have seemed like a no-brainer.

The proposal for JJ’s Beer Garden and Brewing Co. isn’t all that unusual. What is unusual happened more than 20 years ago when the developers of 300-acre business park wanted it all rezoned. It was a controversial proposal, and certainly a concern to the residents of the Centerbrook subdivision, a collection of 51 homes build in the 1970s. Their homes butt up against the southwest portion of CMN Business Park.

Those neighbors fought the CMN rezoning all those years ago, extracting an agreement from developers to limit development near them to specific kinds of businesses. Excluded from that list were restaurants.

Time passes, and, potentially so do commitments. Representatives of JJ’s and CMN want the city to change the rules so the restaurant, along with JJ’s corporate offices, can be built. Some nearby residents say the city should honor the 1995 agreement. Lawyers for the restaurant operators, as lawyers will do, even question whether the agreement really does what the city and residents say it does.

JJ’s certainly has a lot at stake. But this really boils down to a city government issue. If residents emerged from the 1995 controversy with a pledge that helped them be supportive, or at least not in opposition, to the CMN Business Park rezoning, when is it OK for the city to go back on that word?

It will be intriguing to watch how the City Council handles the matter. Can government be trusted? Does a neighborhood’s’ agreement to get out of the way of a major commercial project expire the first time the developer has an opportunity to make a buck by overturning it?

A restaurant at the location isn’t really the issue. The question is whether the residents of Fayetteville can have faith that agreements worked out via the city zoning process have any lasting substance. Or do they fall by the wayside as soon as it becomes inconvenient to further development?

The City Council will determine how residents should feel when someone in government says “trust us.”