Bella Vista planners OK tower height waiver for fire training facility

BELLA VISTA — Bella Vista’s Planning Commission approved two requests pertaining to the city’s Fire Training Facility project during its Monday meeting held at the District Court Building.

The Bella Vista Fire Department’s new training facility, approved by voters as part of the 2020 public safety bond issue, will be located at 7 Carlisle Drive.

Fire Chief Steve Sims and Mayor Peter Christie, acting as applicants on the project, presented a zoning variance and waiver request to the commission regarding the height of the training tower as well as other issues such as landscaping at the facility and aspects regarding the access road from U.S. 71 to the facility.

The requests came after they had achieved conditional approval of the large-scale development at the commission’s Sept. 12 regular session. Conditions included that the applicant achieve a zoning variance request for the maximum structure height for the burn tower in the I-1 District in which the facility will be located and for the 10- foot landscape perimeter around the burn tower as well as a waiver of the curb and gutter street requirements and pedestrian accommodations.

“In order to meet the training requirements, the tower has to be 54 feet tall, but that zone will only allow 45-foot-tall structures,” said Taylor Robertson, senior city planner. “And the burn tower has to have a clear perimeter around it. That’s why they’re requesting no trees. Trees can’t be on any sides of the structure.”

Carlisle Drive also presented issues that required the commission’s approval for the use of asphaltic shoulders (asphalt all the way to the edge of the street) instead of curb and gutters.

“In normal circumstances residential streets do asphaltic shoulders” instead of curb and gutter, said Robertson, “but because it’s a residential street serving a nonresidential use, it triggered the curb and gutter. But they requested and were given a waiver of curb and gutter because it’s a residential street.”

The requests also covered pedestrian accommodations, meaning now construction won’t have to include sidewalks for pedestrians since the facility is on a dead end road and isn’t near any public trail.

“Anything that’s nonresidential in our code requires a sidewalk,” said Robertson, “so they requested a waiver of that requirement and the commission approved that request.”

The road will also include additional thickness of asphalt because of the weight of the vehicles that will be traveling to and from the facility.