Planning - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. We're ready to open up now. Welcome to the city of Jonesboro Metropolitan Area Planning Commission meeting for Tuesday, 12/09/2025. If you're here, please check-in with your button.

I'm okay.

Second. Ready? Alright. Alright. All right, next thing we'll do, we'll open up for the discussion of the minutes from the November 12 meeting.

Is there anything changes to be made or I'll entertain a motion for approval? Move to approve. I motion to approve the minutes. Start here a second. Stiling second.

All those in favor, press your I button. Anyone opposed, press your Nay button. Alright. Minutes are approved. I'll give a little more warning on that.

Okay. Anybody know

my item we have on the agenda tonight is a this is a rezoning request. Applicant Marquis Meehling is requesting rezoning for the property from r one to plan development, r l u o plan development residential. This is an unlimited use overlay East Of Warren Street and South Of Jonathan Drive. We had the gonna

have to make that pictures of a duplicate development that's existing that we've done in Jonesboro. Did it in started in 2013, and doctor Abraham did Oak Tree Manor up off on North Culver House. But this is a proposed gated community for primarily senior living. That's the the targeted market for this. And they're gonna we had had a product product that we wanted to be able to present.

And we've worked with the the city, the various departments in the city, engineering, planning, fire department, and we've talked to city waterline as well about this. And we've made some some adjustments to it to hopefully make it make it fit for for a good fit in this area. The the streets are traditionally a street in a development like this would be probably 24 feet wide, but we've enlarged those to 30. And and part of this to accommodate fire code just to make sure we have plenty of room for fire trucks to maneuver. We also enlarged the the cul de sac at the end.

One thing we are asking planning commission approval, traditionally, 400 feet is a maximum street length. This one will be 830 feet long, but we do have a good fire coverage and all of the buildings will be sprinkled. And so we've we've made those adjustments to to accommodate what we wanted to do here. We are proposing this as a private street and we will be making sure that city council knows that there is a waiver involved in that to have private street. Those are no longer approved in in traditional subdivisions, but in planned development with a waiver from city council, we can still do that.

But we've the the things that we're we've got plenty of of green space to meet the requirements. Again, each building will be sprinkled. They will be a gated community. There'll be a common building. There's 30 buildings proposed.

29 will be occupied by residents. One building will remain as the community building that residents can can use or borrow if they have a family gathering or something like that to be able to use for that. Each each building will have one enclosed garage and a parking space out front. We're putting including site lighting in here and plan to install five different pavilions scattered through the development for the residents to be able to use for just sitting out in the shade or grilling out or whatever kind of activities they'd like to do. But we appreciate you letting us present this tonight and I would certainly be glad to entertain any questions that anybody might have.

Anyone have any questions at this point?

I do. The question that I have is that I thought I heard you say single family residence, and I thought that's what I read in the materials.

It's single family attached is is what this is classified as. Each each building would Except for the community building, each building would have two separate units.

Okay. So maybe I'm just dense, but I thought that was a I would refer to those as a duplex, not a single family residence, but it's single family because it's owned individually almost as is

They will be set up that they could be individually owned, yes.

So, okay. And where did you say this property was?

This is actually an existing development up off of North Culver House just north of actually part of close to Bradley Street. Just North of Johnson. That's Oak Tree Manor is the name of it. Doctor Abraham developed that starting in back 2013.

Okay. I'll open up city planner.

You have staff comments? Yes, sir. We do. This does meet all six requirements for the zoning criteria. So, we would recommend approval with the following stipulations. The pro size shall satisfy all requirements of the city engineer, all requirements of current storm water drainage design manual, and floodplain regulations regarding any new construction. Final site plan subject to all ordinance requirements shall be submitted, reviewed, and approved by the planning prior to any redevelopment of the property, and any change of view shall be subject to planning department approval in the future.

Okay. And with this rezoning request, is there anyone here to give any other public comments? You would come up to the mic and state your name for the record, please.

I'm guessing you you plan to Sir?

Rent that property Randy.

Address the commission, please.

My name is Randy Willett.

Yes, sir. And what's your question for the commission?

Okay. I'm curious if it will have fencing, if it'll be encompassed by a fence all the way around. I understand it's gated, but would that just be the entrance or?

George, you plan on putting a fence around? It'll have a perimeter fence, yeah.

All the way around, okay. Yes. All right. And I'm guessing from your answer a moment ago, it could be rentals as well.

These could be, but they will be constructed so that they could be gold.

Okay. That satisfies me. Thank you.

All right. For Thanks your comments. Anyone else here to give public comments or questions? If not, I'll open it up for commissioners. Questions of the applicant or city staff?

So, my question is just, I know when I read through the application, it did say senior living. So, does that the approval only mean that it could only be used for senior living purposes?

It does not. That's who they're going to market it to but if this rezoning goes through the way it is, we can't put an age limit on housing. So then why do we do it?

Why do we say, why do we present that then that way? Is it easier to be moved through or this is just a question for me because I think we had one several months ago. I think it was over in the Valley View area. And that was one of the reasons that they said that they was going to do that, to help grow and give housing for senior living. And it was I think it was kind of, everybody thought the same way that we needed that in Jonesboro, but I don't want everybody to use that just to get it through and not be able to do that.

There's a lot of underserved areas in Jonesboro with seniors being one of them, so I'm sure that's who the applicant will try to market it to. But if that doesn't work, if you want I'm not saying you're not a senior or you but if you decide you wanted buy a unit out there, I'm sure he would sell you one.

George, do you know a better answer to that? Is there a bill of assurances or anything that goes with this development that will say 55 and older is ownership or anything Or like how do you define that senior living?

Why is that part of the applicant? A bill of assurance is, we can't accept a bill of assurances on it. Yeah, we can't enforce it.

The POA could the property owners.

POA, if there is a POA, we can't enforce making them have a POA. But if there was and it was enforced, then yes. But we can't do that. That would be up to

the developer. So is that something that is in the works or something that's not being considered or?

Well, there's not a POA right now. Right now, it would be constructed and maintained by the owner until the unit is rented or sold. And if it's rented, he'll continue to maintain it.

As Monroe was suggesting, Mr. Poynter was suggesting, we should probably strike the senior living portion because that's just an initial marketing effort. That's not necessarily a real requirement.

Is a legal requirement. Development.

It legally be a requirement from us. I mean they can still say that's who they intend to market it to, but we just need to understand it's not a legal requirement from us.

Any other commissioners have questions? I have a question.

Sir. Jim Little. You said that these are sprinkled.

Yes,

And they're duplexes. That's not really a requirement by code. So I'm curious like why are they sprinkled or is it a square footage thing? Or, you know, like what why are they sprinkled?

The primary reason for it is the configuration of the property and the presence or lack of street infrastructure around it. We really only have one place that we can enter this place.

It doesn't have two exits.

Okay, I

see what

you're Correct. And so for that reason, is one reason we made the cul de sac bigger for fire truck maneuvering, made the street wider, and that was a voluntary thing. But we don't have a second exit to get out of here. And so that's why all the buildings will be spurred.

Thanks.

Anyone Anyone ready with a motion?

Dennis Zulper make a motion to approve the rezoning request with stipulations.

I have a motion to approve. Do I hear a second? Little second. Getting the vote set up.

Should've said it at the beginning. Forgot. She's recusing. Can I put that on the wait?

Hold on just a second. Can

you put that on? I'm recusing. I've worked with Mr. Meiling several times. Meant to put that on the record earlier. Didn't say anything though so we're good.

Miss Nelson has recused herself from voting?

Did you hit the recuse button?

I didn't, I don't know if that, maybe not right.

It wasn't operating.

Yeah, don't I know if that did it because they have to have it queued up for that.

Everyone cast your vote. Okay, so you've received a favorable recommendation from the Planning Commission, but you need to get on the City Council's agenda before 10:00, Thursday.

Thank you very much. Alright. Have a nice evening.

City planner, do you have anything else to add tonight?

Just wanna remind everybody that this will be our last only meeting in December. So, Merry Christmas to everybody and hope to see you in the New Year.

Commissioners, any comments? We're adjourned. Thank you.