HS city board backs decision to deny zoning
An undeveloped Malvern Avenue lot that has sat vacant for more than a decade is likely to remain idle, as the Hot Springs Board of Directors upheld the planning commission’s denial of commercial zoning for the 2-acre parcel last week.
Owner James Green, through his attorney Q. Byrum Hurst, told the board since the planning commission unanimously rejected his rezoning application in October he had entered into an agreement to sell part of the 2105 Malvern Ave., lot to Chambers Bank. Hurst said the sale is contingent on the property being rezoned.
Its suburban residential, or R-2 zoning, designation doesn’t permit most commercial uses. The commercial transitional, or C-TR zoning, Green
requested would allow him to petition the planning commission to develop the property for a financial institution or financial institution drive-thru, both conditional uses in the C-TR zone.
The planning commission denied Green’s request for neighborhood commercial, or C-3 zoning, in July. According to the zoning code’s table of uses, a financial institution is allowed in the C-3 zone as a conditional use. A financial institution drive-thru is a permitted use, which wouldn’t require planning commission approval to develop the lot for that purpose.
Hurst said in 2011, when the Roman Catholic Diocese of Little Rock owned the lot, Arvest Bank wanted to put a branch on the property. The planning commission approved an application for C-3 zoning, but the board overturned the commission’s approval.
“(Arvest) did an extensive feasibility study and came up with commercial was the only way to go with this property,” Hurst told the board. “And our planning department agreed with them at that time, but it met a lot of opposition. It was rejected at that time, and since that time it’s remained vacant. It just sits there growing grass.”
The city said it received more than four dozen comments opposing the rezoning application. Seven people, including representatives of the Hot Springs Country Club and a property owner whose residence adjoins the lot, expressed opposition at last week’s appeal hearing.
Larry Bailey, who told the board he’s lived on Suburban Drive since 1980, said putting a commercial development on the lot would benefit Green at the expense of the neighborhood. Suburban Drive forms part of the property’s northern boundary.
“This is something where a developer sees a chance to pick up a piece of property pretty cheap,” he told the board. “He could flip it and make a fast buck and leave our neighborhood slowly decaying from the front. It’s not in the interest of our community to see this thing changed.”
The board agreed, upholding the planning and development department and planning commission’s finding that Green failed to show that the rezoning wouldn’t adversely affect the Suburban Heights Subdivision and nearby residential areas.
District 4 Director Carroll Weatherford was the lone board member to support the rezoning application.
“I’ve lived here for 72 years,” he told the board. “I don’t remember a new house built on Malvern. They’ve created several subdivisions but no new houses. Even if the property was for sale for residential no one would buy it for residential and build a residential house there.”
Weatherford said the Relyance Bank branch built near the Malvern-Carpenter Dam Road intersection hasn’t discouraged residential development in the nearby Wildwood Gardens Subdivision.
“At the corner of Malvern and Carpenter Dam there are two new banks, and a brand-new subdivision behind it,” he told the board. “It’s not hurt their value at all. They’re building houses in there left and right. This should be a commercial piece of property. It’s not a residential property.”
Hurst told the board Green would be willing to deed the northeast part of the lot to the residents of Suburban Drive, creating a buffer between the bank and neighborhood.
“We have agreed to put that property in trust for the residents of Suburban Drive to use as a park, a greenway, whatever kind of activity they want,” he said. “We will deed that to them or deed it in a manner that it could never be used except as a green buffer. In addition to that, my client has said he will fund that trust with another $5,000, which will allow at least a year’s worth of maintenance for the property.”
Those opposing the rezoning application said the C-TR designation would allow a developer to put multifamily housing on the lot. The zoning code’s table of uses allows up to 12 units per acre as a permitted use in the C-TR zone. The board asked Hurst why Green didn’t petition for planned development status, a site-specific designation that requires applicants to submit a detailed site plan and list of uses that would give the neighborhood more certainty about how the property would be redeveloped.
“At the time we requested this from the planning commission, we did not have anyone in place to purchase or acquire or develop any part of the property,” Hurst said. “(Green’s company) started talking to Chambers Bank, and it led to an agreement they would purchase a small tract on the southeast corner.
“PD would be very good, but the way I read PD zoning it looked like you had to have a development in place and recommended for the entire tract. We still don’t have anything in place for Tract 2. When we do find someone, we can go to the planning commission on Tract 2 and hope to find something like a doctor’s clinic or something of that nature that will be consistent with other areas around there.”
According to property records, the lot was acquired from the Catholic Church in January for $166,000.