Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

the regular meeting of the uh June 10th planning commission meeting. We'll uh take these six items in order. Uh the first will be a roll call. Miss B. Anita Picket here. Jason Dri here. Anderson Neil here. Boots Thomas here. Randy Hickerson here. Chris Owens is absent at the moment. And Cory Mops here. Got one absent. Okay, next item, adoption of the summarized minutes of the May 13th meeting. Everybody had an opportunity to look those over. Are there any additions, subtractions, changes to be made? If not, the chair accepts a motion. I move to accept the minutes as presented. And need a second. Second. And a second. That's a voice vote. All in favor say I. All oppose, same sign. Item number three, final plat approval request by Colin 6211 Tennessee Road, Texican, Arkansas for final plat approval of McDonald Heights located at 6103 Mount Olive Drive in Ward 6. Miss Jamie, may all This property is on the corner of Mount Olive and McDonald Drive. Um, the only phone call we received about this is from the lady across the street. She had no opposition to it at all. So, all right. I'm I'm here for Callahan. Oh, okay. And, uh, I work a lot. I'm one of her siblings and so I'm here to uh assess the situation. Okay.

Um, so the only change from the preliminary plan is originally they were going to run all the utilities behind the houses. There's five houses. The water company requested that they run. Okay. So that's the only change. [Applause] No road being built access from the front. So each each h home will have an access on McDonald lane. Correct. Correct. Now the utilities and all that's already been done. All all the underground work's already been finished. I saw saw you out there working. Okay. We've got a letter from TWW signed off. Great. Okay. So all that's good. Setbacks are coming off of uh 25 foot off the setback. Not from the middle of the road, but from the setback line on the shoulder of the road. Is that correct? It'll be 15 foot 15 foot off of the the road set back because the because of the road it should be shown on that. It says 15 ft on the It's because the the property The road I think encompasses about an extra 15 that was approved originally. Yeah, I remember to keep it similar to the subdivisions are the same from the road.

Nothing's changed from your original house plans. We don't have we don't have actual house. Well, you kind of had an idea of how big you wanted to build. Yeah, within that. Yeah, within that. Okay. I mean, they're not going to be multi-story. They'll be single families, singlestory homes. Uh they will they will be multitory. They will be multi-story. Okay. But they will not be but they'll be single. Okay. They're within that footprint. That's great. Okay. Can I ask a question? Yes. Will what you doing uh spill over into other people's propert? Well, you already seen the water lines kind of running. Yeah. All the water line all the utilities have already been installed and they're within the property line within within city. Ma'am, could we have your name for the record, please? Minister Sonia Collins. Okay. Thank you. So, we addressed the drainage also on that, did we not? All right. Any questions from anyone? So, which direction? Since we had to run through there, we actually reinfor So, that's really drainage on the

property that I think most of that water runs but as far as everything on on the lots itself that all runs to McDonald it runs forward so that we had to change anything we don't plan to change anything there's adequate storm drains off McDonald all right uh any other questions from anyone [Applause] All right. There be no questions. Will the chair accepts a motion to accept or reject this plat? I move to accept the plat as presented. All right. Second. Second. Have a second. Call a roll, please. Anita Picket. Yes. Um Jason Dupri. Yes. Anderson Neil. Yes. Randy Hickerson. Yes. Cory Mobs. Yes. Chairman Thomas. Yes. All right. Plat is accepted. We can move forward with construction with proper permits. We're good to go. Can I ask one nosy question? Sure. You know how long it's going to take? We'll probably start work right now. Got about three months to get everything going to start. We'll probably start from the west side and work our way back. Very good. All right. Item number four would be a review of the draft ordinance regarding truck stops inside the city limits and creating a new zone for such. M Mr. Jamie, um based on the comments from the last meeting, I the definition of minor vehicle repair. I put a clause in there

that prohibits inoperable vehicles from being there over two weeks. Uh we're requiring a lighting plan and I added a clause that was grandfather existing truck stop to the truck stop and then to the mixed use highway ordinance. The only thing we did is add minor instead of the word minor to the think all those highlighted in red. Yes. [Applause] Reviewing the uh minimal block area at 20,000 square ft. That's a good minimum for you. You're happy with that? It'll be bigger. It'll be bigger than that, right? That's just the minimum. Remember when we were looking? Of course, it could be bigger, but is 20,000 enough is a minimum. I'm not good at knowing how big 20,000 ft is. So, some of y'all when we were googling know how big 20,000 ballpark half an acre. Okay. Well, half acre won't do it. When we were googling 6 62 612 square 208 208 square 43,560

ft minimum quarter acre you won't be enough for the building. Half acre half acre won't be enough for a building. What do you want to make it? Most truck stops are going to need a minimum. Would you say, Jason, of three acres? We're just talking minimums. No, that's not right. Uh yeah, you can uh Roadrunner there on U by the interstate. There's five acres there. Close to it. Maybe three. All the trucks parked next to the big no truck parking sign. Yeah, that's right. Well, the one across the streets where they actually do park trucks overnight, that's uh that's a solid two acres over there. Yeah. Um what would you guess Flying J is out on the interstate? I'm looking it up. Oh crap. Yeah, that one. Um, and I would look at the uh the new QT over there in Nash. Oh, the one on the south side of the interstate over by the uh across from the road runner. The north side. North the northeast side there. Yeah. I mean, honestly, they're Nobody's going to buy a lot that's not suitable to their needs. drug three acres there. I'd hate to I'd hate to shoot too big and then rule out somebody that has a design that can fit something. Would you settle on two acres? Minimum

the Flying J has 13 acres. 13 acres and it's actually got a little more beside it. It's got two parcels, 13 acres. Uh, and then another lot that's about 7 acres. You're faster than me, Miss Velvet. Yeah. Say maybe maybe bump it to 80,000 square feet. He's technically under two acres, but I mean that would allow somebody to have a truck stop that had three parking places in it or four parking places in it. Yeah. Now, right across the street from that is Taylor Truck Wash of America, and it's got 2.5 acres, that convenience store across right next door. It's across the street, and I'm not sure what I I've always kind of assumed in today's economy that all these truck stops are going to be corporate things. They're not going to be a mom and pop operation, but they could be a franchise, a small franchise operation owned locally. U if you're going to have a truck stop with overnight parking, you have to have a big enough area for maneuvering and everything. So, I kind of agree with Jason. The company, whoever's going to build this thing is going to buy whatever property they need to do what they want to do. But if we set a minimum standard, then you know a small mom and pop or a gas a convenience store that wants to sell diesel fuel and allow them to park also it needs to be a minimum I think minimum of two acres. So you want to say 80,000 square feet. I think that would be appropriate and most are going to be larger than that. The circle case 2.08. Huh? The

Circle K is 2.08, which is about as small a truck stop as you think somebody would invest in these days. They're not going to anything smaller, they're probably not going to be financially worth it. Well, the only other thing that I could see that would be on a small scale would be like that uh one across from the Roadrunner and that's that was a convenience store that also sold diesel fuel and some of the local guys parked their trucks around back at night, but it's not it's it's not what I would uh traditionally call a truck stop. Yeah, they don't have showers and stuff. They don't have all the facilities. It's just a the road runner across the street from it's 2.576. Yeah. And they allow trucks to park over there, but they don't sell diesel. So, and all of the vehicles, all the trucks that are parked at those two locations are local trucks. They're not over the rotors. So, minimum two acres would probably suffice, I guess. All right. Any other discussion? Anybody else got anything else we're talking about here? I would like to get a motion. Yes, ma'am. Um, like I said, our mother uh this my other sister Donna Williams and our mother, we would like to give uh 15th Street dedicated to Bertha May Callahan. You don't have to change the sign. Put the little brown sign up there to dedicate the and she drove those streets for 76 years. So, it's it's a thing that's uh near and dear to the heart. Yeah. And we compassionate about and we would like to see that done in honor of my mother. Okay. Because we had

an amazing mother. Well, this is this is Miss Jamie is the lady you need to see. We were talking about the truck stops and sizewise and I pulled up the notes. That'll be an item for another day. Okay. Do we want to change the 20,000 to 80,000? I Yes, I will go along. that's amendable in the future if we see we need to, but that's that should be a minimum standard, I think. All right. On item three under administrative requirements E, uh we're talking about any truck stop, travel plaza in existence at time of this ordinance or annexed into the city limits at a later date should be allowed to remain and shall be considered legally nonconforming and shall comply with article 8 non-conforming structures and land uses. So, let's review that if you don't mind. Okay. If you have a business that is operational and you annex it in or it's already

pre-existing and it doesn't meet these requirements. Technically speaking, it is nonconforming. But do we really want to do that to a business because that makes them not be able to expand or grow or change that locks them into what they're currently at? Let's Could we talk about that for a minute? What do y'all think about changing that maybe? Or is that would would we consider that a grievous enough handicap that we might be causing problems with pre-existing businesses? letting grandfathering them in a good thing. And then if they want to is a good thing, but do we want to make them nonconforming? We don't have any truck stops right now. That road that easy are not technically trucks under our definition. So you don't have any right now that would be grandfathered in. So we would just You talking about anything that got annexed in? Oh, I don't know of anything outside of our city limits. Arkansas legislature eliminated our ETJ. So, we don't have any authority outside of our city limits anymore. There's not any truck stops out 49. No. Or 71 or 82. There's some convenience stores out that way that could morph into a truck stop, but uh no truck stops per se. So, all right. So, it's your it's your contention then if we made it

non-conforming, it'd be a non-event because there is none. Is that what you're saying? That's what I feel like. There's not any out interstate between here and J. So the Roadrunner and Easy are both considered convenience stores. Mhm. Okay. Triple J is under a C3 zone, I believe. Triple J is in the city. It's in the city limits and it's currently a C3. So that would be pre-existing. Would you make that non-conforming? It's already in the city limits and it's pre-existing. If we pass this ordinance, then it becomes non-conforming according to this language. Is that correct? Am I correct there, guys? We definitely don't want to do that to to to fly and J. What would it not mean? Well, he's just saying they would be able to expand. Why not? Because they'd be nonconforming. Why is it non-conforming? Unless we struck that language. Because it's already in existence. Although, but if it meets all But if it meets all the requirements, then isn't it conforming? It would be in compliance. Oh, because it wouldn't be zoned mu, right? Oh, and according to this language, it would be a non-conforming land use because it pre-existing the ordinance. It'd be grandfathered in, but it'd be non-compliant. But if all it needed was to reszone, I is that really is it a big deal to come

get something reszoned if they wanted to add on to it? that burden on them to do that. Y'all come down and fill out your application, get give us your $100 and we'll hear your thing and in a month or so we'll know if you the city board agrees and you know, do we want to do that? I guess what I'm suggesting is we could strike the non-conformant and just make them grandfathered in. Okay, that's up to you that I mean I'm throwing that out for ideas, guys. Jason, what do you think? I'm trying to think of what else about the what could they do if we just grandfather them in the way they are. What could they continue to build or add on that? They would be able to. Yeah, but what of that would we not want? So long as they were not if so long as they conform well they'd have to conform to the ordinance. I think Jason's saying what would they build that we would be against building. I think they already had a truck wash. Yeah. Scales. I don't know if they have a repair facility or Well, I I mean, I don't see Triple J do it too much unless they wanted to add more parking lot, for instance, or expand their building, for instance. Somehow word it that anything they wanted to modify, they had to get some kind of conditional use approval. Well, if they were non-conforming, they wouldn't be able to do that. So, we had this issue when we when we passed the ordinance for the C4 crossroad business park zone. There were a lot of homes and some existing businesses like the international

dealership, truck dealership. If we passed it as they wrote it, those all those homes and all of those up and down Mount Olive and uh the International Dealership and uh little strip mall there on the the frontage road, those were all going to be non-conforming uses, which meant you're locked in. You can't do anything else to your business. You can't add to your home. You can't do any of that because you're locked in. So non-conforming is something you do very carefully. I I learned that back then because we were fixing to greatly impact some profitable businesses and certainly some residents that lived in there. But you can't label it as conforming either because it doesn't conform. Well, it's a non-conforming land use. It's not that it's a non-conforming building or that kind of thing. It's a non-conforming land use. And you that's all we deal with. You were locked in. You couldn't make the land uses. I know. So if we bait this if we don't if there's an existing truck stop. Well, we'll take triple J for instance. Obviously we think Triple J is conforms to all of these requirements. But if it, let's say it did, there was some things that didn't exactly match our ordinance here, would we make them change whatever they had to conform to this ordinance if we brought them in and to avoid being a nonconforming? They have to go to the what's the name of that thing I'm on? Oh, the board of adjustments. Yeah. I think there's board of adjustments is a cure for a lot of stuff. You're exactly right. There are things in here that

they probably have not done like submit a lighting plan. Yeah. And get a access letter or whatever that is. That's I mean, yeah, that's we're not going to make them go back and do all that. It it exists. But I would think if they were going to add lighting, we'd want to see a lighting plan if they're wanting to Yeah. change their driveway. I mean, I don't know. I Well, if they were I don't want to create a bunch of hoops for folks to draw to jump through, but if they were going to do anything out there, if they were going to add on, build on, change up, fix up, well, they'd have to have a building permit to do it anyway. But if they're a nonconforming use, then they can't get a building permit. That's what I'm suggesting. So, we need to be careful to not make it a nonconforming use. I think that's just my opinion. I don't think we would hurt ourselves if we did that where Jason's right. They could always go to board of adjustments and change it up, but uh I I'm always pretty timid when it comes to interfering with pre-existing profitable businesses. Let's don't make it harder on them. You want to strike the non-conforming language? I would like, but I'll take a consensus of everyone's opinion about it. I don't do it on my judgment, of course. What do you guys think? So, what ordinance applies to them if the truck stop doesn't or do they currently fall under gas station? I'd have to go back and find it. Um, I'm guessing that she classified them as a gas station, but I don't know. I wouldn't hear them. Well, I know the zone where Flying J is a C3.

That's a multitude of all kinds of uses. So, and we don't, like you said, we don't I don't we don't really want them to reszone. I mean, we could reszone around them and it wouldn't affect them, but we could go ahead and do it, you know, preempt it and just reszone it if if the board of directors wanted to and it wouldn't affect their business at all. I'm wondering if you went and after you passed the ordinance, if you just went to them be like, "Hey, we want to resone y'all now." So that and honestly, they probably don't care. Yeah. Probably helps them because like right now they couldn't put a a shop or a hotel on that lot, right? Well, there's a shop. There's a little tire shop there now, I think, but no hotel. They can't increase their footprint. Yeah, they wouldn't be able to. No, I'm saying like right now today, even if we didn't have this ordinance, could they add a hotel on the same lot? If it's I'd have to look at the zoning My guess my guess is if it's C3, it allows a hotel. It would. I believe it probably would because I know they added that truck wash. They've added that truck wash in the last five years. I was here when they added the truck wash. The one across the street or the one that that one across the street's been there a lot longer than that. They added Oh, they have their own truck wash now. They bought some They bought some land. They bought some land and added to that the last five years. I hadn't been out there, so I guess I didn't. Okay. I didn't notice that. All right. You're talking about out at Mandville. That one, the big one. Yeah. It's 13 acres now. Well, that's all done with building permits because I know when they did it, half of what they bought, part of it was in the city limits and part of it was out of the city. We had to maneuver the

building when the building was in the city. It is zoned C3 and it's a it's basically a two lot subdivision. 13 acres is the truck stop and then next door is seven acres. Well, for me, for me personally, from my experience, I I'm uncomfortable the non-conforming uses, non-conforming structure. I don't want us to get into it. I don't want to create problem. But if we don't, we could grandfather them all in. Just don't make them non-conforming. But then they would be. That's the definition of it. Miss Anita, what you think? I like the idea of um striking nonconforming. That's that sounds more feasible than doing anything else. So, we want we want to grandfather them in. We want them to have some guidelines, but we don't want them to be nonh. Yeah. I don't want them to be non-conforming because I don't want to lock them up. But to make them non-conforming, all they would have to do is go before us. No. If they were nonconforming, it ties their hands. It ties their hands. They can't do anything. So what So if we said, "Okay, you're conforming. We're not going to we're not going to label you non-conforming." And they want to expand. What part of this ordinance would apply to them? Only the new stuff.

I don't think any of this ordinance would apply to them because they're not in a mixed use highway zone. That's true. Exactly. So unless we reszone them to mixeduse highway, they wouldn't fall under they wouldn't fall under this ordinance anyway. So they're not they would fall under C whatever zone they were in. C3. That's what I'm saying. If we if we pass this ordinance and we don't reszone the Flying J to mixeduse highway, they still meet the definition of a truck stop, but okay. So you think item number three here, this ordinance only applies to only applies to mixeduse highway zone, right? That's the way the ordinance is written. They're only allowed in mix. So unless we reszoned them, they wouldn't be grandfathered. that would be need to be grandfathered in because this ordinance doesn't apply to them. Now, if we incorporated if we annexed, we could you we would have the decision what to zone them when we annex them in. Right. Correct. Correct. So, if there's some new truck stop out there that wouldn't meet this and we didn't want to lock them in, we would just zone them C3 when we annexed them. If they went ahead and met the requirement and there wasn't any problem, we zone them as mixed use and all was right with the world. Well, I guess all that to say the easiest thing or or don't and they keep functioning like they always have as a C3 gas station. Well, the purpose of the ordinance as it was requested by us, no board of directors to define a truck stop and to set some minimum standards, right? So, we're going to if every truck stop that we do going forward that we might annex in, if

there was one out there, let's say somebody builds one just outside the city limits, 5 years, 10 years from now, they get annexed and we bring them in as C4, C3, then our truck stop regulations don't apply to them at all. Yep. That defeats the purpose of our truck stop. But we could bring them in as the MU multi-use. bring them in as a use and make them conform. We we would have that decision at the time. I guess what I'm saying is nothing that we do unless we reszone it, it's going to affect the flying jay and manage. So, we don't have to worry about whether we're locking them in or anything at this point until they got reszoned to a mixeduse. And if they don't want to be reszoned and we don't want to force them to be reszoned, then it would never Do you want me to call them? Do you want to table this until I can talk to them? Get from them. Well, another scenario, Jason. If we have at least one board of directors that wants it left in wants it what? Left in. The one that asked for the ordinance. The non-conforming or the the nonconforming. Yeah. that gives us the opportunity to make them come into conformance if we need to. And well, if another company moved across the interstate on the south side there and built a truck stop in that open patch, let's say, is that in the city limit? And that's not in the city limits. Yes, it's not. But let's say that we wanted to annex them in at some point. Would we bring them in as a mixeduse highway or C3? You never know how things are going to play out. But if some if a love truck stop wanted to build that's not in the city limits, the city's going to want to annex it right then because the tax off of it,

right? So in the development of that truck stop, we would have the ability to say meet these requirements requirements. Yeah, true. Because we're going to annex you in. Now, they could go build without coming to us, right? They just build whatever. They're going to want water. Sure. Which was the whole reason the flying jays Well, the second reason the flying jays in the city limits, right? I was before my time. They wanted the water and the city wanted the taxes. So, they jerrymandered a little city limit out there to gobble them up. True. Okay. All right. So, our consensus is that it really doesn't matter one way or the other if we leave it non-conforming. I think leave it as is and add the 80,000 around that. Is that your is that your thought, Jason? That's the way I'm interpreting it. If if it only if if if all of these rules only apply to a multi-use highway zone, then I think that's how we get around locking somebody in that we don't necessarily want to lock in or we do. I'm thinking since we currently do not have any truck stops. Yeah, we're not we're not putting except flying J then we're really not uh we're not going to make anybody non-conforming. You think? That's what I think. Yeah. And we don't have a multi-use highway zone anyway. So nowhere. Yeah. This is all until we start zoning. Now, not to switch subject, but before I forget the the next page on uh administrative requirements where it says an approved driveway permit from ARDOT. We probably need to say if it's on a state highway. because it technically you could have somebody on like Jefferson that's not a state highway than Arkansas DOT to would it be better to say from the appropriate authorities?

Yeah, because you would think we would you know Tyler would want to have bought off on a driveway permit before that way we don't have to change anything. Now, we're we're including this mixeduse highway zone and all of the requirements and definitions and regulations governing truck stops. So, we're we've locked this highway zone down to truck stops only, basically. Right. The way it's written, the mixeduse highway is a whole another. So, The truck stop ordinance is one ordinance and the mixed use highway is another ordinance. Okay, so you got two here. This says it's to provide suitable locations for commercial activities or light industrial land uses that serve highway travelers, provide goody services to a regional population, or uses that have a need to be located near the interstate highway system to facilitate access by a large number of employees, used by the traveling public or the receipt or shipment of goods by highway because I mean at some point maybe I don't know, maybe FedEx Okay. Not not to just completely muddy the waters more. So, we enact this. We're saying that truck stops, anything that meets the definition of a truck stop is only allowed in a mixeduse. That is okay. Then if the flying J meets the definition of a truck stop, we have made it non-conforming in a C3. Right. You're correct. Yeah. So, so we would need to resone flying J if if they wanted to ever modify anything. They would need to res run it by them. Yeah. I like the idea of two ordinances. One governing truck stops and one governing the land use.

So, if they're the only one Yeah. How about I think we could just go ahead and reszone it. to sit on. Well, if the city board wanted to reszone them, if if we wanted to reszone them, it'd just be a simple thing. Okay, you're going to be reszoned. And to them, it would have no functional effect. It just change the zone of the dirt you're sitting on. But I think it's a courtesy I should give. Well, yeah, you certainly absolutely can talk to Yes. I I would suggest do that. get some feedback from them and we'll see because it's really like I think Jason said it's to their advantage to be yes I go along with that okay any other questions ideas or suggestions from anyone I have a question just about procedures if we do an ordinance right here what the city board have two choices yes or no or can they amend it when they get it there. If they amend it or change it, whatever you want to call it, more stringent, they can't make it less stringent. Yeah. They make it less stringent, it has to come back to us. If they say no, they say no. Yeah. But most of the time they'll say no. Let's send it back to the planning commission. Y'all work on this some more. So because the ordinance that we voted on last month about the 10 foot versus 15 foot setbacks for accessory buildings, that's probably going to come back to us because one of the board members had some issues with. So we're working on I'm waiting on the fire chief to uh because there was a portion in there about firewalls that we struck

and we're not sure if that's in the fire ordinance. So we're waiting on the fire lucky. All right. You got everything you need here? So, are we pausing this? Okay. So, you'll come back to us with a final draft. We'll vote to approve or disapprove and then we'll send it forward to the There'll be two two ordinances. Is my correct? One for the mixture highway, one. Very good. Okay. Item number five, staff comments. You want to comment on anything? I do. I forgot it. All right. So, just for the record, we're uh on our last workshop where we were talking about the uh short-term rentals. Uh that's currently on hold temporarily. It is on hold temporarily. Okay. back to our uh little uh uh shipping container homes that is also on hold. I need to talk to Tyler about how he wants to proceed with that. Okay. The board had asked for that workshop. They haven't brought it up again. So, let me talk to about All right. Okie do. If you ever driven by looked at the one in the building, it looks good. I mean, that that's going to be those are going to be nice little places. We just need to get it not locked down where the guy can go ahead and do his thing. I mean, it's a it's a great opportunity for affordable housing. And uh the way he was doing it, as long as we've got guidelines, I mean, it won't be ranky dink. It won't be something if it's like Tyler says, if

it's going to follow national building codes, then it won't be some redneck throw together something. Yeah. And he worked with Roger for several months before he started. Yeah. Good. Good. Okay. All right. Any other business? Anyone? All right. Having uh concluded, chair accepts a motion for journal. I move we adjourn. Second. Second. All in favor say I. Yeah.