Planners recommend streamlining notifications

Residents appealing to the Board of Zoning Adjustments for conditional-use permits, rezoning permits and variances are one step closer to saving money on public notification requirements.

The Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend amending current city code to ease the cost burden on residents applying for rezoning permits, conditional-use permits and variances. The proposal will now move to the City Council for final approval.

Commission member Jaime Kemp was absent.

The changes will require the city, rather than individuals, to provide both published and posted notifications for conditional-use permits, rezoning permits and variances.

City staff was instructed last month to draft language that would put Bella Vista’s public notification system more in line with surrounding cities, including Springdale, Rogers and Bentonville.

Those cities provide — at no charge to the applicant — legally required notifications that must be published in the newspaper and posted on signs in the applicant’s neighborhood.

“The short version is the city is providing a sign, the city is paying for a newspaper ad, and when applicable, the applicant will send out certified mail to a 200-foot radius instead of a 400-foot radius,” said City Planner Jennifer Bonner.

The language will still require individuals to send out mail to neighboring residents, except in the case of variances. The radius has been cut in half to save postage.

Those mailed notifications must occur no less than 15 days prior to scheduled public hearings.

The proposal will simplify the code by removing large portions of redundant language.

“We’re striking quite a bit

of language in the existing code that was replicated several times,” said Chris Suneson, director of Community Development Services, at last month’s work session. “It’s not often that the planning staff brings you something that simplifies the code.”

The proposed changes were suggested during April’s Planning Commission meeting by Chairman Daniel Ellis in response to the front-yard fences and accessory building ordinance. It was in response to questions of whether the ordinance was necessary because there were only two variance requests in 2015.

“We’re just complicating the ordinance more than anything,” Planner Jaime Kemp said.

“Maybe the real solution here is that we need to change the requirements to get a variance,” Ellis said. “We can get away from people having to sometimes

pay $1,000 for public notifications…. Maybe the solution is modifying the process of getting a variance…. I think a variance should just require a sign and a posting in the (Weekly Vista).”

Suneson said that one benefit of the proposal, other than saving residents money, is the more-simplified language.

“Put yourself in the role of the person who has to explain (the notification process) to a resident coming in and wanting to build something like an accessory building,” he said. “The simpler, the better. Not only from an understanding point of view, but for us as a staff communicating it.”

Planners also unanimously recommended two other proposals to City Council: a property line adjustment for a property adjoining Big Red Gallery, and the addition of a road

materials bunker at the Street Department building.

The additional structure had been planned when the initial development was underway.

“Think of it as Phase Two,” Suneson said.

“There was more money found in the budget after things got figured out, so they decided to go back in and put in the new bunker,” said Jason Kelley, city attorney.

All three proposals will now move to the City Council for final approval. The next council work session will be held at 5:30 p.m Monday, June 20, at City Hall.

The next council regular session will be at 6:30 p.m. Monday, June 27, at the American Legion Hall.

Full agendas for each Planning Commission and City Council meeting can be found at bellavistaar. gov.