Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

all right welcome everybody to the February um Planning Commission meeting we'll start off with a couple of housekeeping items here and Cody would you take attendance for us please chairman Miller here ja here M Presley choke Smith no longer here here yeah yeah that's we do have a new commissioner here guys Dylan edel and uh Dylan wave at everybody good to have young young board buddy anybody else we do have a quum it looks like all right everybody's had the opportunity to look the minutes over for last month I'll entertain a motion on those I move to accept the minutes is written okay I'll second it all right we have a motion and second to approve last month's minutes all those in favor acknowledge saying I I any opposed hearing none the motion carried all right we don't have any unfinished business here so we'll go right on to the new resoning from R1 to R2 medium density residential located along the 1,000 block of Sequoya way submitted by William straight on behalf of Victor melker okay you got a staff report on that Victoria yes so this is a rezoning uh in the 1000 block of SEO way you can see it highlighted up there it's adjacent to South Jonesboro Avenue um the existing conditions this is a vacant property again located along

the 1,000 block of seoa way near the intersection of seoa way and South Jonesboro Avenue um situated in an area that is zoned R1 single family residential with R2 medium density residential zoning to the east um this area is residential in nature with R1 and portions of R2 zoning supporting single family residential units and then a block to the east there are a couple of multif family developments in our review there are three things that we consider with each rezoning the first being the future and current land uses of the area uh the current zoning of this property is R1 however it does sit on the dividing line um which you can see up there on the picture the yellow is going to be the R2 area and then the green area on your left um is the r R1 um so it does sit on that dividing line of some R1 and R2 zoning um in fact a part of this property is already zoned R2 that's going to be that little area highlighted in yellow um in a triangle um so one of the Lots in this property is already zoned R2 this application is not a request for spot zoning as the um as allowing this area to be rezoned just extends the R2 Zone from the East to include this property within that Zone uh the applicant is requesting this rezoning to propose uh single family attached Town Homes um however in a review of the application it does appear that the development is more um what we would consider a fiveplex attached structure um that was built to look like Town Homes um as a proposal does not indicate that they will replat the property into um individual lots for those Town Homes uh regardless staff believes that this could provide a valuable opportunity to help address the current Gap in the housing market the second thing staff must consider is the reimagine Russellville

2040 comprehensive plan um it is a guide for decision- making Prim uh and it primarily defines this area um in the future land use plan as suburban single family or quote areas set aside for neighbor neighborhoods of single family homes in reviewing the comprehensive plan in relation to this proposal while it does not fully align with the stated low density designation it does meet the intent by proposing those single family attached style homes it is reasonable to consider this development as a transition between the lowest density R1 Zone and the higher density area to the east uh the proposal seeks to create a practical and beneficial density while maintaining compatibility with surrounding areas it does not propose higher multif family densities therefore the rezoning to the R2 medium density residential Zone appears to be appropriate in aligns with the vision outlined in the uh 20 240 comprehensive plan and then lastly uh the value or income potential of the property the additional permitted uses within the R2 Zone may increase the value and income potential of the property compared to its current R1 zoning however the zoning regulations specify that the request should not be based quote exclusively upon the desire to increase the value or income potential of the property the intent behind this request is to address a specific housing need within the community rather than to solely increase the property value or income potential given the housing need within the community the ability to create higher density housing while still meeting the intent of the zoning code aligns with the broader goals of promoting sustainable development and providing a variety of housing options so as a result of this staff does recommend that the commission forward this application to the city council for approval to to rezone the property from R1 single family

residential to R2 medium density residential as a result of the findings that the application is in align with the existing and future land uses within the area the proposed rezoning is consistent with emerging Trends in single family residential construction The Proposal meets the intent of the comprehensive plan designation of suburban single family and the proposed uh R2 Zone addresses housing needs identified within the community and then last the resoning to R2 uh appears to be appropriate and aligns with the Visions outlined in the 2040 comprehensive plan that is my staff report are there any questions all thank you Victor we do have someone signed up to speak Otis Robertson can you step up to the mic and identify yourself please for the record my name is ois Robertson I live at 1402 South Independence which I saw on half the block all the way to johnell Street which is c corner from the uh the little narrow spot of region one R1 and uh and I just noticed I mean the land is really it's not it's not flat and level like everybody thinks it is and uh what it's what I could possibly do depending what kind of Apartments they're going to build or tow houses or whatever small income for other people it could uh like a lot of the apartments here in rville have depreciated people's homes that are around the around around the apartments and things like that and I'm afraid it's going to depreciate a lot of M Property which I know the back part of my land is kind of considered kind of a swamp land or whatever I can't build anything on it right now but you know who knows later on who knows what happens but uh I'm just kind of afraid

it's going to it's going to depreciate you know everybody around there's places and you got a lot of middle class people that live around there I'm afraid that none of them showed up but you know I didn't ask anybody but uh I'm just afraid it's going to hurt hurt the property value of everybody else it's just going to become more more of a slum area cuz it's just it's just like a block away from s Elementary you know just a block away from them and that's I mean it's kind of good for the kids but but U you're just going to have more of a slim eror because you got I'm not racist or anything like that but you have a lot of the Latinos that have of a a block over from squa squa way they're on what a 16 in Street where dead ends is just a just little mini duplexes the trashed out duplexes that's full of Latinos mostly there that's I'm just afraid it's just going to go further and like I said everything's going to start depreciating thank you sir appreciate it all right bill you have anything to add yes I'm William straight I I appreciate the gentleman's comment if you were to stand and and look at this property it's somewhat irregular it's elevated and it's it's not very pretty it's not a place you'd want to put a single family residence but what our idea is is to put some tow houses there it's already elevated and I think the Aesthetics to building some tow houses is is going to look picturesque there I personally think it will improve the neighborhood now the the owner of this property Vector Meltzer you know he's a very

successful con conrete contractor he and I both agree that we're not going to build anything ugly I told him this is is one of my first development projects and he says I agree I do not want to build anything ugly I want something that will accentuate the neighborhood so that's what we intend to do and uh uh we'll take this step at a step uh I would like to mention one other thing this is the first time I've appeared before this group and call myself a developer starting in 2014 I enrolled in The Institute I mean the ccim institute in Chicago Illinois to be trained as a commercial broker it took me five years to complete their education cement a portfolio of 20 substantially closed commercial projects and then after that I had to pass a vigorous 3ar examination ccon Institute has set the standards for financial analysis as well as market analysis if you were to go down to Little Rock and go to colar International it would be an office full of CCI when you see a substantial ccim construction project you'll find a CCI agent working that project so I received very good education now I didn't stop there after I got my ccim designation they started a new program to certify you as a developer that was about another 100 hours of Education I find finally finished all that in the year 2022 so uh I I have been well educated now do I have a whole lot of experience no but one thing I can do for my client right now I can put the numbers together and tell him whether or not it's financially feasible for him to do this

project and that's one of the main things a developer needs to do but we're going to do everything we can to please our neighbors okay all right thank you all right does anybody have any questions for Victoria or for Mr straight gent cleide yeah bill can you go over speaking the only way they can okay there you go yes he plans on keeping them as rental units do you have an idea uh have yall talked about that to kind of for the gentleman how how much what's the area you think you're going to try to rent them for that's going to say you know about what type how highend you're going to build them B basically enough for for two bedrooms two bathrooms so so 1 12200 1500 somewhere in that somewhere in that neighborhood yes so that would be probably in the range of what rents would be for full houses in around the area where the gentleman's living that yes no no no and do you have any any renderings as far as what the what you think think the facade what that's going to look like she showed you we we have a preliminary plat that I had to hour the architect to do it out but I think that I wasn't aware of the elevations we had

we we proposed five units I think with the elevation of terrain I say three or four units is probably going to be the maximum okay more I was asking the question more to help satisfy this gentleman's uh about what they're going to look like I think that seemed to be more his concern U for what level of uh that you're going to build them at I mean I understand where you're coming from but just to kind of clarify for the record that that might help ease some of the concerns of the of the people around and the other I said if you've got garages in the back that's a platted Street in the back I told Victor I did not want to build them without having some type of covered parking so will that be a a building that street out and then dedicating that back to the we're going to have to figure that out I initially thought a additional uh covered carport in the back but I'm thinking now with the elevation is just go ahead and drive right on in come from the front from sequ yes yes so the driveway would be facing sequa what's that each driveway will be will be pulling out to squa yes back to the city on that so if what what we're uh and I know y'all can work through this but what we would be approving is not necessarily what they would be building is that right um that's correct you all are just approving the resoning so the plans we have he is not necessarily tied to um they're just conceptual at this point and he would have to go through and get building permits at that time and it

doesn't have to necessarily reflect this exact plan okay thank you I mean we're we're still very early in the conceptual plan but but Victor and I agree that it will be professionally done with an architect and of course the engineers to do the dir work so we're just we're just looking at this as a zoning and then it will come back to us as uh whatever conceptually after that is that is that what it is yes the city will have plenty of time to look exactly what we plan on building um it won't necessarily come back to you all as far as that goes um because I would assume they would just just be building permits there's not going to be any large scale or special use permits required so it would be staff review um for the actual buildout um all you all would see would be the rezoning so what you're seeing currently yes sir okay does that answer your question okay okay any other questions okay thank you do you have are you satisfied with what you much [Music] come out started years later yeah all right Commissioners what's your pleasure

yeah okay second okay we have a motion and a second to approve U this request for resoning all those in favor acknowledge by saying I uh any opposed I okay we have I'm be very transparent okay I'm not um I don't appreciate resoning R1 to R2 if I was living there so I feel like if that's how I feel about my own neighborhood that's how I would feel about someone else's so I feel like I need to be very transparent about that it's how I voted in the past when it dealt with my own home that's much appreciated Cheryl that's why you're here absolutely all right we have a motion to we've I guess it you want to do a roll call on on who voted what Jack yes yes yes no du Jo C all right all right for uh Sarah do you want to you want to U mention something about the long range while we're here before we G out uh as you guys are aware we have a long range planning committee uh that we take all zone changes through first discuss them before bringing them to the commission and ultimately to city council for approval uh we have a commissioner whose schedule has just not allowed him to participate as much as they would like and so we do have one commissioning commissioner space open on the long range planning committee this meeting is once a quarter it is at at least a 2hour meeting just assume that

it's at least a 2our minutes it's a really good uh there's a lot of really good conversation that happens regarding upcoming zone change requests or zoning code change requests uh so if you are interested in serving on that position we are trying to have a meeting this coming Monday at 5:00 p.m. if we can organize that um please let either myself Victoria or Wendell know that you are interested in serving on that we would appreciate it okay thank you Sarah if we don't have any other business we are adjourned