City Beat: Council advised to approve plat for contested Galloway subdivision

A proposed subdivision near the intersection of Battlefield Road and Lone Pine Avenue has drawn concern from neighbors, but members of Springfield City Council were advised by the city attorney to look narrowly at a measure to approve a preliminary plat.

At council’s Jan. 27 meeting, discussion of an ordinance regarding the proposed Chimney Rock development in Galloway Village – with applicant JCRS Development LLC – was preceded by remarks from City Attorney Jordan Paul, who told council that their role was merely administrative.

“When you enacted the general subdivision regulations, you were wearing your legislative hat,” Paul said. “Those are the overarching rules, like what lot size is going to be, what setbacks are going to be – in other words, you’re kind of constructing the goalpost whenever you create your overarching subdivision ordinance.”

When applying rules to a property, council is wearing its administrative hat, and its role in reviewing a plat is to administer those rules, he said.

“For example, the question is whether the plat meets the lot size requirements, not whether the requirement is good or bad, adequate or inadequate at this point,” Paul said. “In other words, you don’t move the goalpost at this point.”

Paul called council’s subdivision plat review a technical analysis. He cited case law from the Missouri Supreme Court, in which Furlong Cos. Inc. successfully sued the city of Kansas City. The court held that the city council did not have the authority to refuse to approve a subdivision plat that complied with the subdivision ordinance, and it awarded damages to the developer.

“There are many other cases in this vein, and I’m not aware of any other cases that have come out the other way,” he said.

Craig Hosmer, a 12-year member of council, was skeptical.

“I’m not critical of your assessment of the law, but it does seem odd that it’s coming to council and the only vote council can make is a yes vote,” he said. “That doesn’t seem right to me.”

The city’s Planning & Zoning Commission voted Dec. 19 to reject the plat, according to past reporting, though city staff recommended its passage.

Members of P&Z cited residents’ concerns about stormwater drainage and quality of place. They also cited a need for a traffic study.

Some of the neighbors’ concerns – stated in written correspondence with P&Z and in statements offered to council during the comment period regarding the ordinance – addressed concerns about the plat.

Residential lot sizes were one concern. Although all lots in the plat conform to the city’s minimum lot size for single-family residences of 6,000 square feet, the lots are smaller than those of adjacent residential properties.

The subdivision would portion 8.7 acres into 40 lots. Councilmember Brandon Jenson noted that if the proposed subdivision were to be developed at the same density as the adjacent Chimney Hills subdivision, only 35 homes would be included.

Neighborhood residents were also concerned about the width of streets in the plat and leading to the plat. An example is Mimosa Street, which City Planner Steve Childers said was not on the plat but resident Tammy Fulk described as the main access road to the property, designated by the city as a local street.

City design standards require local streets to have 27 feet pavement width, Fulk said, but Mimosa measures only 22 feet wide at the entrance of the proposed subdivision and only 17 feet wide leading to it. This would create an access issue for fire vehicles, she said.

The council meeting included a public comment session with 14 people representing both the development team and the neighborhood.

Own Inc. engineer Jared Davis, the company’s land development division leader, indicated action by past councils as far back as 1995 settled land-use questions, and zoning requirements were the first thing the development team looked at. These included considerations like lot sizes, setbacks, density and subdivision regulations.

“If you meet all of those requirements, it should never get here. You guys should just be accepting the streets at that point, and P&Z should have taken the steps to accept this plat,” he said. “You guys have never seen this before because it never happens.”

Hosmer, a lawyer by trade, described the staff recommendations – such as there being no need for a traffic study and that water detention requirements are met – as conclusory, a word defined by Merriam-Webster as meaning the statement is presented as a conclusion without offering supporting evidence.

He also expressed concern that the city relies on the developer’s own engineers to determine whether those standards are met.

“The neighbors haven’t had a chance to have a competent expert to say the reverse of that,” he said. “It seems like both sides should be treated equally. They should have the same ability to have someone bring up information to say this does not meet [the requirements].”

The Galloway Village neighborhood has organized in the past to object to development efforts, ultimately taking to the ballot box in 2022 to ask city residents to vote on whether to allow a mixed-use housing project by Elevation Enterprises LLC. Some 71% of city voters said no to the development.

Hosmer said all parties are depending on council to get the matter right.

“Sometimes we get pushed into making decisions that I think are faster but not well thought out,” he said. “This is something that I think is important enough that we need to get it right and not just get it done quickly.”

Pediatrics clinic rezoning
Council heard the first reading of an ordinance to rezone 29 acres of property at 851 E. Primrose St., the current site of Amanda Belle’s Farm, a hospital farm and agricultural incubator site, at the request of property owner Lester E. Cox Medical Center.

The hospital system intends to establish a new pediatric clinic, along with unspecified future hospital uses, at the site, and that would be facilitated by a rezoning to government and institutional use from its current planned development designation.

The ordinance called for a buildout of Kimbrough Avenue to an intersection with Primrose Street, but a motion by Councilmember Derek Lee, approved by the body, nixed that requirement – based on a 1980 traffic study – and called instead for a standard traffic study.

“I just think if the road is not needed, it would serve our community better to have that money spent for that road, which is substantial, to be spent on health care, and particularly the pediatric care that this particular site is going to afford,” he said.

Rod Schaffer, vice president of facilities management, spoke to council about the CoxHealth plans and noted that the rezoning would allow for future growth.

“Our region needs comprehensive pediatric care,” he said. “Our plan is to meet those needs by creating a standalone pediatric outpatient center on that site, which will allow families to stay close to home and the care that’s needed.”

Schaffer added that a 2007 hospital study examined traffic needs and resulted in more than $8 million in investment in roads serving the health campus.

The report added the community gardens currently on-site would remain there until development necessitates a relocation, and the health system will discuss options for relocation at that time.

Council will vote on the measure at its Feb. 10 meeting.

Council also held first readings of five other zoning measures, with votes set for Feb. 10:

• A conditional use permit to allow adaptive use of a nonresidential structure at 3080 E. Cherry St. at the request of Franklin Partners LP, which intends to establish a dog-grooming business.

• The rezoning of 5 acres in the 3600-3700 blocks of North Glenstone Avenue to low-density multifamily residential from general retail at the request of South Valley Apartments LLC and Mike Seitz to allow for an apartment complex with Wayne Morelock as builder.

• The rezoning of less than half an acre at 3505 S. Campbell Ave. to highway commercial from residential townhouse at the request of Westport Management LLC, which wants to clean up split zoning at the existing Nissan dealership on site.

• The rezoning of a quarter acre at 2409 N. Boonville Ave. to low-density multifamily residential from highway commercial at the request of Locust Investments LLC to build a residential house.

• The rezoning of 4.5 acres at 910-920 S. West Ave. to government and institutional from office at the request of Greene County to establish a residential treatment facility where children would reside and have schooling on-site through Lakeland Psychiatric Hospital.

Other action items

• BNSF Railway Co. will pay $40,000, the total cost of a study to determine whether the Jefferson Avenue Footbridge can be raised as part of its rehabilitation project. City staff reported at the Dec. 16 meeting that the bridge would be raised by three to four feet at its footings, as it is currently about two feet below BNSF standards. The study is not projected to prolong the completion date, even if the change it recommends is approved, staff said at the time.

• Council OK’d two other projects with BNSF: grade grossing signal installation agreements of $460,000 to install new equipment at the Boonville Avenue crossing and of $74,000 to do the same at Campbell Avenue. The city will fully fund the crossing signal installations as part of its Renew Jordan Creek project, and BNSF will administer the signal installation.