LR board to take up subdivision embargo

Pause on high-density housing is aim

Little Rock will place a moratorium on high-density residential developments just outside its western boundary if a resolution is approved Tuesday by the city Board of Directors.

The proposal is being considered by the board in response to a recent skirmish over a sewage treatment plant and a high-density subdivision proposed near Pinnacle Mountain State Park. Earlier this month, the board denied a developer’s application to build a sewage plant in the area after heavy resistance from a neighborhood organization.

Without alternative options for sewage disposal, plans for the 135-lot subdivision have been halted.

If Tuesday’s resolution is passed, a moratorium will be placed on any residential developments that would require a sewage plant to be built along the city’s “extraterritorial jurisdiction,” or the 3-mile area beyond the western city limits where

Little Rock exerts zoning control.

The moratorium would be in place until the city completes two studies to examine how extending services to that area would affect the city.

One study, expected to begin next year, will look into how Little Rock Wastewater might go about extending sewage lines into the extraterritorial jurisdiction. The second study, expected to begin by the end of this year, will examine how extending all city services into the area — including police, code enforcement and public works — would affect Little Rock in the long term.

“The public sentiment from the electorate and the board has been that these large [sewage] treatment plants for higher-density residential development are not the way to go,” said City Director Lance Hines, who was a lead sponsor of the resolution. “I believe in development. I just think we should be extending [city] sewer services into the extraterritorial jurisdiction for this development to happen.”

“This is just a temporary moratorium until we get a study that tells us if and when we can do it. It’s a question of whether or not we’re going to have reasonable growth in the city — sustainable, reasonable growth,” he said.

City officials plan to complete both studies before the state Legislature’s next regular session, anticipating a bill that could remove control over utility extension decisions from cities, forcing them provide those extensions at the request of a developer or property owner in the extraterritorial jurisdiction.

An iteration of that bill was filed in this year’s regular legislative session by Rep. Andy Davis, R-Little Rock, but it made little progress in the House. In March, Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola called the legislation “very troubling in its mandates.”

City Manager Bruce Moore said the city aims to complete both studies before a similar bill could be introduced in the next session, although Davis said he had no definite plan to file the legislation in the 2019 session.

Little Rock developer Wayne Richie, who has plans of his own for a 266-lot subdivision and sewage treatment plant in the extraterritorial jurisdiction, said the proposed moratorium would hurt the city’s natural growth.

“I think it will negatively impact the way the city develops. I think it will send a message to developers and real estate agents and to potential homeowners to avoid that area,” Richie said. “I think it just sends a negative signal to everybody that the city of Little Rock is closed for business.”

Richie likened the proposed moratorium to a similar decision on apartment complexes along Bowman Road in west Little Rock.

The city board in February 2016 imposed a yearlong moratorium on apartment construction along Bowman Road while it commissioned a study that analyzed how complexes affect nearby home values.

The study found that apartment complexes in the area have, if anything, a positive effect on home values. Ward 5 City Director Doris Wright, who requested the moratorium, said the study had only confirmed what she already knew.

That study and moratorium “didn’t change anything,” Richie said.

City directors “keep spending money, money, money. They keep doing studies, studies, studies. I don’t see any purpose behind that. They’ve already had studies on that area. So why wait?” he said. “You’re delaying the inevitable, eventually development is going to come that way.”

The city has had a policy against extending its utility services to the extraterritorial jurisdiction since the Little Rock school desegregation case of the 1980s.

The policy resulted from a ruling by U.S. District Judge Henry Woods, who determined that extending water and sewage services outside the city exacerbated “white flight” migration trends by allowing white residents to easily move outside the school district and still enjoy other city services.

The Board of Directors banned the extension of utility services outside the city in response to Woods’ ruling.