POA rezones: Lone 'no' votes, but still pass

Trio of items still pass, each by 5-1 margins

Three more ordinances requesting rezones of parcels owned by the Bella Vista Property Owners Association sailed through the City Council Monday night, but not without some discussion that resulted in the only “no” votes of the regular session’s 10-item agenda.

The requests, the latest of several that have been made over the last few months by applicant and POA Chief Operating Officer Tom Judson, included properties currently home to the Metfield Cart Barn, Riordan Hall and the playground on the west side of Riordan Hall.

Judson was requesting that all three be rezoned to C-1 Neighborhood Commercial District. Currently, the Metfield Cart Barn location is zoned P-1, Conservation District while the other two are zoned R-1, Residential Single-Family District.

All three requests were sent by the Planning Commission to the City Council on April 10 with recommendations for approval.

Even though the specific addresses and maps of the locations are listed in the packets distributed to the Council members prior to the work and regular sessions, the more common locations — Metfield Cart Barn, Riordan Hall, Riordan Hall playground — aren’t listed.

That topic was mentioned Monday night, but it actually first came up in the Council’s April 17 work session when Councilman Larry Wilms asked, “To help us figure out easily on these things, without the formality of the parcel number and the project petition number in planning, could we have something that says, ‘aka Metfield Clubhouse,’ or ‘aka Riordan Hall,’ or something like that in the title somewhere on here?”

City attorney Jason Kelley, who prepares the descriptions in the packets for the Council, said, “We can put a street address on it. That’s typically what you would see on there. In the packet there is a picture … but I will do however it needs to be done. Not all properties are going to have a name with it. This is how it’s normally done, but I’m not saying legally there’s not another way to do it. But this is a legal document and sometimes it’s a little difficult.”

Wilms said adding the more common description, at least to the agenda portion of the packet, would “make it easier for us to figure it out.”

“There’s no law that says you can’t,” Kelley said. “Anything we do different will confuse someone, but it doesn’t mean we can’t do something that will be helpful.”

It was pointed out that some parcel rezone requests involve vacant lots, with no common reference. Kelley said, “And someone will call and say, ‘Why isn’t this one listed by name?’”

He said it’s possible that would “prompt a lot of questions and bring in dozens and dozens of phone calls” for the city’s planning staff to have to deal with.

When the Council got ready to vote on the first of the three ordinances Monday night, Doug Fowler, serving as mayor pro tem with Mayor John D. Flynn out of town on family business, reminded the Council of city staff’s request for each ordinance to go to a third and final reading so the matter could be decided in one meeting and not three consecutive meetings over three months, a request questioned by Councilman Jerry Snow.

“We’ve talked in the past about the actual address, the actual location of the property, from a street address standpoint … when most people look at this they have no idea where that’s located unless they go through the entire package,” he said, “and we are taking these to a third and final reading, which means the public does not have an opportunity to object to or make any comment about these rezonings.”

Fowler responded, “There was public notice on these, right? And there’s opportunity for public comment already with the Planning Commission.”

And Kelley said, “A public hearing takes place in the Planning Commission meeting and they conducted that. People came up and spoke to you during the public comment period (in the Council meeting). But you don’t have a separate public hearing.”

Snow voted “no” on both the vote to suspend the rules and put the ordinance up for a third and final reading as well as the subsequent pass-fail vote for the ordinance.

Before the similar two votes on the second ordinance, Snow asked, “Why are we fast tracking these? Why are we taking these to a third and final reading?”

Councilman Jim Wozniak said, “We’ve done all of them that way. We’ve done 12 or 13 or 14 of them that way.”

“That’s what I’m asking,” Snow replied. “Why?”

Wilms interjected that the POA is simply trying to bring its properties into compliance with the historical useage of those properties from a district standpoint where the city is concerned.

“What we’re doing is rectifying our zoning map to make the existing use compatible with the zoning districts that they have not been assigned to,” he said.

“But why the rush?” Snow asked again.

“There’s no real reason to rush it, but there’s no reason to delay it, either,” Wilms answered. “I don’t think there’s anything the applicant has proposed or is proposing that would require an immediate decision, but there’s no real reason for us to run it through three readings, either.”

“There’s really no debate about it,” said Fowler.

“There was a little debate at the Planning Commission level,” Wilms said, “some public input in some cases, but I think the concerns were misunderstanding what the intent of the applicant was. I truly believe that after being at the Planning Commission meetings.”

“The intent of the applicant?” Snow asked.

“To rezone, to bring the usage in line with the zoning code,” said Wilms. “Right now they’re not consistent with the code. They were assigned arbitrarily when the city created the zoning map and assigned P-1, which is a conservancy district, to all POA property, I believe. We should not have done that. We should have looked at the useage specific and the zoning districts being created and assigned an appropriate district at the time we mapped it. We didn’t do that for our convenience, perhaps, but not for the benefit of the applicant. There’s no reason why we would want to delay, or go through three readings and three months of time. If there’s time on our agenda there’s no reason to procrastinate with respect to the applicant to get the thing rezoned correctly.”

Snow said, “I understand all that, but this has been in effect for how many years now, and why the rush?”

To which Fowler replied, “Because there’s no rationale not to just move forward and get it taken care of.”

The votes to send the second and third ordinances to third and final readings both passed by 5-1 counts, as did the actual pass-fail votes, with Snow the lone “no” vote each of the four times.