Neighbor opposes lot split

Developer Franklin Miller is requesting a lot split in Battlefield View of land identified as a drainage area at the regular Pea Ridge Planning Commission meeting which begins at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 6. The adjacent property owner is opposed to the request.

Miller appeared before commissioners and city department heads at a tech review meeting Thursday, July 11, asking for a lot split saying the lot designated for the detention pond is too large and the pond doesn’t hold water anyway.

After a discussion, commissioners said they had no objections to the lot split, but it later came to their attention that the adjacent property owner is opposed to the lot split and construction of a house there.

“That pond doesn’t hold water, it’s pretty much all level ground,” Miller said at the meeting.

“So, we just didn’t build it according to plan? And that’s okay,” asked Dr. Karen Sherman, Planning Commission member.

“It was poor planning. It’s just wasted land. We’re having to maintain it — it’s more than fourtenths of an acre,” Miller said, saying that he mows the lot in answer to a question from Sherman.

Michael Hall, who owns the property adjacent to the pond, in a letter to Planning Commission members and city officials, said he had recently learned of the request to modify the property that is designated as a detention area. He said he specifically selected that lot because of the “unobstructed view from my home to the north with some semblance of privacy and seclusion.”

He said he has “solely cut and maintained the area around the retention pond known as ‘common ground’ including the culde-sac for the past three years with a push mower… contrary to the plan and covenant guidelines as a POA was never formed to

handle these matters.”

He did say Miller had cut the grass in the area just recently.

“Is the pond shown as an easement now?” Al Fowler, commissioner, asked.

City building official Tony Townsend said Miller wants to build a house but the lot doesn’t have enough space for frontage as wide as required by city ordinance so Miller is asking for a variance.

Miller said there is 90 feet on the north side so he could go out to Greer Street if commissioners recommended. He said the new lot would be 90 by 180 feet.

“No, I wouldn’t do that, that would have the back of your house facing these houses,” Nathan See, Street Department superintendent said.

Hall said his house was completed in July 2016 and he was specifically told that there would never be a house built on the adjacent piece of property although it may be developed into a park sometime in the future.

“That is the reason I bought that lot,” Hall said, objecting strenuously to the lot split. He said restructuring the lot would “devalue my home both monetarily and aesthetically.”

Other items on the Planning Commission agenda include:

• A public hearing to consider rezoning one acre on Hazelton Road from Agricultural to Residential-1 for David Austin;

• A home occupation request at 280 Smith St. by Dale Abercrombie;

• The large scale development plan for New Life Church, 815 Weston St.;

• Lot split Battlefield View II-A drainage area by Franklin Miller; and

• Variance request side and rear setbacks 275 Hayes St. by Phillip Tubbs and Linda Jarred.

The Planning Commission meeting is held in the court room at City Hall and is open to the public.