Board of Zoning Adjustment and Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

early meeting. Yeah, just a couple That's our recording. All right, let's call to order the city of Bella Vista Board of Zoning Adjustments. Call the role, please.

Ellis, here. Here. Here. Sbury, here. Portillo, here. Lloyd, here. Wagman here. All right, everybody's present. Uh, next up on our agenda is our meeting minutes from December the 8th. I make a motion they be approved as submitted. Got a motion from Farner. Second. Second from Cleen. All in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? All right. Many minutes are approved. We have nothing under unfinished business. New business. We have public hearing 202562691 a variance request on parking lot surfacing and landscaping requirements planner Hyatt.

All right. Thank you. Uh this property is located in the south central area of Bella Vista is the current parcel that we are sitting on right now. Um code section 10949D uh is surfacing requirements of all parking facilities to consist of asphalt, concrete, brick or semi-p permill pavement. And the division 5 section 109-63 requires perimeter and interior parking lot landscaping requirements. The applicant is requesting a five-year variance request from the parking lot surfacing requirements along with a permanent parking lot landscaping variance request in order to establish a short-term impound lot uh developed again at the subject site. Um again the police department is proposing an approximately 18,215 square foot impound lot. Uh the lot will be located directly behind the street department existing street department and again this request uh is for the variance from the surfacing requirements with a sunset clause of 5 years to allow the establishment of the lot in a shorter time frame uh due to urgent need of expansion. Uh the applicant would provide a ribbon to contain the proposed gravel for the lot and additionally there's a variance request from perimeter and interior parking lot landscaping requirements. Their justification for this request is due to the nature of and intended use of the lot. Uh the applicant states that the interior landscaping requirements would be a hindrance to the function of the lot by reducing usable space and uh maneuverability for the towing of large vehicles and anything [clears throat] that's impounded. Um [cough] excuse me um long trailers etc. But this lot is fully screened from view currently uh as it sits behind the current development of the street department and a burm and forested area shields the lot from the residential or would shield the proposed lot from the residential subdivision located east of the site. Uh the site is zon C2 local commercial part of the future land use map sits within the type 2 village center node and our master

street plan shows that uh Forest Hills Boulevard is a major arterial. Uh we haven't received any public comment at this time. Uh we did publish a legal ad in the Democrat Gazette on December 28th and posted the public hearing sign on January 2nd. Uh staff recommends approval of the surfacing variance with the condition that it be brought into compliance by January 12th of 2031. And staff recommends approval of the landscaping variance so long as the pre-existing trees that were planted by the street department development uh to the north are not disturbed. All right. Any questions for staff? I

mean, how many how many trees are we talking about a variance on? Um, so did the quick math on it. It'd be about 36 perimeter trees for that. And but again, there are the existing trees. I don't have the count of the existing trees that are there on that northern side. Um, and then a tree for each island, which I believe were six Yeah. But we but I mean we do have a fairly heavily wooded area to the east and the south and some [clears throat] trees were planted to the north when they did the original development. Right. Correct. Okay. Any other questions for staff? Yes, ma'am.

On the overhead shot, it showed an area that's red dirt. Is that the area we're talking about? It would expand off of that area back further east of it. Where is it on there? Well, is that red dirt area currently not in compliance? This is So, you've got that gray building there in the back with the little red thing sticking out of it. And I think it's that existing gravel lot is what we're looking at. If I plan correctly, the red dirt area, I believe, is just where the street department traffic goes through. But yeah, east of that building. It looks to me like it's an existing gravel lot already, quite frankly. Well, it looks like it's an existing dirt lot.

No, it's it's gray. So, it's probably gravel right there I'm I'm looking at the red the red right here. The red dirt is just erosion and common just disturbance from it never being stabilized in that piece of ground. This is according to plan. This is what we're talking about. Yes, that is what's being expanded to the east. An existing gravel parking lot. Oh, in the back. Yep. Yep. Okay. I'm sorry. I was looking at the red. So, all that green you see will no longer be green. It will be gravel. Yeah, we're expanding onto that existing gravel parking lot. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for staff?

If not, the applicant come up and state your name and address for the record and we'll give you up to 15 minutes to add anything on to the staff report if you'd like to. Good evening. Uh John Stanley, CI Engineering, 2600 Northeast 11th Street, Bentonville, 72712. Um, I don't have anything really to add to the discussion. Um, if you have any questions for us, I'd be happy to answer those questions. Um, we uh we're just trying to get uh the police department some some more operating room here, though. It's very crowded. Uh, they've got vehicles stacked on top of vehicles, so uh they're eager to get going, but uh we understand we need to follow follow ordinance. So, we're here to But I can try to answer any questions you might have from an engineering standpoint.

Any questions for the applicant? All right. Uh, seeing none, if you would go ahead and take a seat and we'll conduct our public hearing. Since this is a variance, we will have to conduct a public hearing. If there's anybody in the public that would like to address this item, if you would come up or state your name and address for the record, and we'll give you five minutes. So, that we'll open the floor. All right. Seeing no, we'll go ahead and close the public hearing. Um, applicant, come back up to the microphone. You technically do get five minutes to rebut anything that you've heard in the public hearing. I don't think there has been anything. So, or 10 minutes, I'm sorry. 10 minutes to rebut. So, if there's anything else you'd like to add?

I don't have anything else. No, sir. Mis. All right. I guess board members, any other questions, comments? All right. If not, can I get a motion to approve zoning variance 2025 62691 with staff recommendations? So, moved. Got a motion from Portello. Second. Second from Farner. Call the role, please. Wagman, yes. Floyd, yes. Won, yes. Sedbury, yes. Barner, yes. Portillo, yes. Ellis, yes. All right. Verance is approved. Staff will get with you on next steps. Thank you. Thank you all very much.

All right. Thank you. That ends our new business and takes us to open discussion. Uh 2025 variance review. Director Robertson. It's a little different, a little weird because we have a new code. So, reviewing the variances.

I can't read that. address and what we fixed. Also, just to highlight that we didn't approve very many variances. Um, in 2025, we had 20 submitted, eight were approved. Um, a you know, there was a portion of them that were denied by the BCA or that was withdrawn by the applicant. Um, either before the public hearing or before it even made it to you guys on the agenda uh because they just chose to comply. Um, and I think we had one that was moot. Um, so we didn't end up taking a fee, but it still was processed, so [clears throat] it's still on here. Um, looking at the types that we had, we had three landscaping variances, one servicing, one bike parking, we had eight building setbacks, and only three of those were approved. We had three fence heights, one signage, one non-residential structure size variance as in um a garage being more than 720 square feet on the same lot or over,200 square feet on the adjacent. Um we had an accessory structure setback one and then one chicken coop. Uh but chicken coop placement. So um with that really the one the majority or the the most that we had was building setbacks. Um, and since you guys only approved three of those, there's not really any need to look any further into them. Um, it's our setbacks didn't change very much for the residential zone, and that's where the primary variances were. Um, so you guys made a statement that there really needed to be a hardship for those with only approving three out of eight. So, um, I don't think there's anything to do at that time. Other than that, um, the others were minuscule in terms of what was approved, um, let alone even applied for. So, if anyone has any questions about the 2025 variances, I know it's a lot to kind of chew on as I'm just

It's really not a lot because we denied more than 50% of them, which I think is the way it should be. It's typically, yeah, best practice variances should be very difficult to have. Um, if you guys don't have any questions or any discussion, that's all I've got for you. I just want to report on our variances that we had last year. Thank you for the summary. It's very helpful. Thank you. All righty. With that, we'll go ahead and adjourn our board of zoning adjustment meeting and we'll move into our planning commission meeting.

All right, let's call to order the January 12th, 2026 city of Bella Vista Planning Commission meeting. Call the role, please. Ellis, here. Barner here. here. Sedbury here. Portillo here. Wagman here. Floyd here. All right, we do have a quorum. Uh, next on our agenda is our meeting minutes from December the 8th. I make a motion that be approved as submitted. Motion from Farner. Second. Second from Clson. All in favor say I.

I. Opposed. All right. Meeting minutes are approved. Uh, next up we have our public input session. Is there anybody in the audience that would like to address the commission for any non-published item? Seeing none, I will go ahead and close our public input session. We have nothing under unfinished business, new business or committee reports. So, 2025 report and and 2026 projects. Director Robinson.

Got a couple things here for you. I'm supposed to report to you administrative approvals that staff approves the end of the year throughout the year. Typically at the end it also department development report. Um fun little video. I'm calling it a roundup as well. Um but we'll do the required stuff first. So I am required to tell you that we had 10 administrative approvals in 2025. Eight of those are cell towers um swaps. So anytime equipment needs upgraded, AT&T, Verizon, etc. needs to fix their equipment. Um so they need to swap antennas out or swap the generators out uh to make sure that they they're not adding height to the antenna, they're not expanding [clears throat] the GFA. uh they have to get a site approval or large scale approval from staff. So we had eight of those. Two of them were actual site permits. Um one of them is from Taniard. The Tanard development that you guys approved um later came back to us and said we want it we want to extend the sidewalk um to get people from the sidewalk we made them put in uh to the parking lot. And so that was a small site work. It was small enough to be considered under the old code through administrative authority. And then that work hasn't started yet. I think POA is still waiting on um a contractor to select before they actually break ground on that project. But it is through um it is through planning and it's waiting on them to put their BMPs in to actually start work and break ground. The other um site work that we approved administratively was for uh 160 Oldm in that old metal building. Um it's been many many things over the years. Uh but they are currently working on putting a gym in there. And so uh due to the change of use, uh some small site work items were required as to bringing the parking lot and access management or the

driveway in the compliance. And so that project's pretty well almost done. We're waiting on their engineer to certify that it met the approved site plan and then we will close that one out. But if you drive by that uh old metal building, there should be a new parking lot that catches your eye. Um, but other than that, that's all we've done. The rest of the large scales here on the spreadsheet for you are ones that you guys have approved or ones um if you'll see to the right where it says the status if it was voided, that means the applicant withdrew. So, the POA water department um tank that was withdrawn uh for example, I think they ended up waiting until after the state law went to effect and it was our planning area. So, we don't have any jurisdiction over it. So, that project won't be coming to you guys anytime soon. If it has the word admin next to it, that means that was an administrative approval. Um if it does not have one, that means you guys approved it um or it never made it to you because it was withdrawn. So you'll have the status on there. Any questions about administrative approvals? None crickets. Sweet. Um I have a just normally I give a just quick synopsis of what we've done um with some charts. I decided to kind of make it a little bit more um fun to watch or to look at. I'm calling it the development roundup. Um so here we go. So here's our development roundup for 2025. This will include really anything that our department has done. So 3,99 applications were reviewed by planning department staff. That includes building permits or GEC's with our most popular being GEC's. And we reviewed 1,534 uh GEC's.

That is more than we've ever had. It's another record-breaking year. um 12% in increase compared to 2024 and a bigger increase of 61% compared to 2020. So just in five years or 2020 2025 61% increase in grading and erosion control applications. With that, our inspections also went up 18% compared to last year at 5,661. And I expect next year to be much bigger. And then we had another record-breaking um 787 new houses with 1,16 zoning reviews from our planning department uh assisting the building department. Those 89% increase from 2020. Here are honorable mentions and other applications and permits that we've reviewed. STRs being the next most popular followed by fences. And you can pause this real quick. Um so this is just a quick uh synopsis of just things that you guys have reviewed. Um you guys have hosted 24 public hearings in 2025. That's quite a bit um regarding individual projects and then uh required ones such as the development code reform. Some site plans that you guys have approved. The highlights for 2025 include the Oz Trails Bike Park, Al Commons Master Plan Community, the Razerback Greenway Extension, Campfire Ranch, Town Center East, um you guys remember approving that. We're hopefully getting getting the ground broken on that one by the end of January is what the property owner saying now. Domino's Pizza. Um, as of late and then of course at our last meeting or yeah, in December you guys approved the VA clinic. And this one's got a little bit longer just to kind of look at the numbers on the right. Um, versus CUP's processed, which means staff take took it in, we put it in the system, and then approved. Y'all approved it. Other notable

department projects we did in 2025, built and published the city's first ever GIS database that we will continue to build. And then four grants for two large projects that will be coming to you guys um hopefully in this year or the next year. And then we can't forget we completed our zoning and development code reform with over 400 pages of code and nearly 50 square miles of zoning map. 2026, you can pause the Madison. Um some projects that we're looking at here pretty quickly in the short term. Um calling it phase five. We're doing an audit of the code that was adopted um for cleanup um as we said we would. Um what's applying? We're currently actually administering it, taking notes as to what's working, what isn't working, what we thought would work, uh etc. Um and then of course small cleanup items as well as the next step. Um, we want to clean up the master street plan and future land use plan for readoption. Um, make sure that our zoning map and future land use plans speak to each other. We adopted the zoning map based off of the adopted comprehensive plan and the future land use plan. Um, but after uh discussion, there were some tweaks that were made to the zoning map based on public comment. Um, so for a new trailside stop, that's one example. So, we'll be making sure those two match and bring that forward to you guys here soon. some projects on the horizon. Um 71 planning study, those were the grants that we got that I mentioned a couple slides ago. We got two grants for that. One from the state and one from the Walton Family Foundation to conduct a planning study of all of 71. And then it'll also include uh a plan set focused on the town center to um Mercy Way uh for an actual uh I think we did 30% plans is what's built into the grant razorback greenway land use plan. This

is something we've been working on regionally um and we are getting ready to enter into phase two which will be in the hands of the city. So essentially um the region has created a overarching land use plan of the greenway with all seven cities. The next step is to create a key place future land use plan or master plan along Razerback Greenway. Um that is basically a much focused area um that you guys will of course um review have um a public hearing on recommend to the council for adoption by the end um hopefully by the fall but definitely by the end of 2026. And then the greenway master plan update. We got two grants for this project as well. One for the state and one from Walton Family Foundation. Our greenway and trails master plan is 10 years old. It's time to update it. And so, um, this is just best practice to update your plan every 5 to 10 years. [snorts] And so, that's what we're doing. And with that, um, that pretty much sums up everything that we've got, uh, to report to y'all in terms of development for 2025, as well as upcoming projects that are they're going to be pretty big key highlights in 2026. And that was a pretty quick synopsis. So, um, if you have any questions, more than happy to answer them.

None. We're good. No question. None. Is there potential for more commercial development in the future? Well, our zoning map has a lot more commercial on it now. I'm talking about are you being approached by developers, clients, or not clients, but developers or consultants on retail projects. We're adding a lot of residents, but not a lot of sales tax, it looks like. Yeah, we our main permit is single family homes still obviously with um Yeah, I would honestly I'm curious whenever the uh the ARS report comes out. I bet we were number one the first half of 2025. I I bet we're still number one at the end of 2025.

I think Bella Vista will be. Yeah. Um we had Bentonville beat by over 100 I think almost 200. Oh shoot. Bentville had a moratorum for the last six months end of June. So, I have not been appro I've not seen an uptick um in due diligence or inquiries. We've got um we've had one for similar use change out legal non-conformity. They'll be able to just slide right into an existing, but not very much. So,

okay. Any other questions for staff? All right. Well, with that, that uh ends our meeting. Uh city council will have a work session Tuesday, January 20th at 5:30 p.m. with the regular meeting on January 26th at 6:00 p.m. Uh our next board of zoning adjustments is scheduled for uh January 20 Oh, I'm sorry. Our next work session is scheduled for January 29th at 4:30 p.m. And our next board of zoning adjustment is scheduled on February the 9th at 4:30 p.m. directly followed by our regular planning commission meeting. And with that, we stand adjourned. Thank you all. Thank you.

Okay. Thanks for the report, Taylor.