Board OKs annexation requests

The Hot Springs Board of Directors added more than 30 acres to the city through the voluntary annexations it approved earlier this week.

The state’s annexation code allows owners of property contiguous to the corporate limits to petition the county judge for annexation if more than half the affected acreage belongs to consenting property owners. Ordinances the board adopted Tuesday night subsequent to County Judge Rick Davis’ approval annexed a commercial area off Albert Pike and Bull Bayou roads and the Shady Heights Apartment Homes Subdivision.

The former tract is contiguous to the incorporated spit of land jutting into Lake Hamilton where the Atrium at Serenity Pointe retirement community is located. The newly incorporated commercial area includes Cajun Boilers restaurant, First Class Books and a boat storage and repair business.

The 8-acre tract also contains three homes behind the book store and a mobile-home park on Bull Bayou Road. The petitioners requested the area be zoned C-4 highway commercial/ outdoor display. Position 3 will represent it on the city board.

All of the owners of the eight parcels voluntarily agreed to join the city.

Robert Gunn, the petitioner for the subdivision on Shady Heights Road, owns all of the 27 acres he’s voluntarily annexing. He’s listed as the principal of TWS Investments LLC of St. Joe, which owns 36 units in the duplex development. The area is contiguous to the corporate limits and includes 37 undeveloped parcels, the development of which is contingent on Gunn building a secondary access road into the subdivision.

In accordance with the Arkansas Fire Prevention Code, the subdivision is under a building-permit hold until the road is built. Clubhouse Circle is currently the only road into and out of the subdivision. A 5.47-acre parcel at 421 Shady Heights TWS acquired last June was included in the annexation petition. The city said the land could be used for the secondary road.

Several directors expressed concern about the city accepting maintenance responsibility for Clubhouse Circle and other roads in the subdivision. The former has a steep grade that directors said would make its upkeep difficult.

City Attorney Brian Albright assured directors that the board would have to take a separate action for the roads to be accepted into the city inventory. Because they are private and not part of the county’s road inventory, the roads don’t automatically qualify for city acceptance upon annexation, Planning and Development Director Kathy Sellman said.

She said the roads won’t be accepted until they’re brought up to city design standards.

Directors also questioned if emergency-service vehicles could traverse the steep road into the subdivision, but Assistant City Manager/City Clerk Lance Spicer told the board the Hot Springs Fire Department has developed a plan for getting its vehicles into and out of the area.

Albright told the board TWS sought the annexation to gain additional connections to water and sewer mains. The city code limits connections for residential areas in the unincorporated area.

The 27 acres was part of Enclave Study Area E, the more than 2,000-acre tract south of the King Expressway that the city considered annexing last year through the board’s authority to annex land situated between the corporate limits and a lake or a river.

Position 6 will represent the area on the board, and it will receive an initial zoning designation of R-4 residential high density.