Are Restrictions Chasing Business Up U.S. 71?

Fayetteville zoning laws continue to stir debate among developers, planners

When Cracker Barrel Old County Store decided in July not to build a restaurant and store in Fayetteville, critics were quick to say the city’s commercial building regulations are too restrictive. Fayetteville was chasing business up the U.S. Highway 71 corridor to Springdale, Rogers and Bentonville, they said.

At the same time, many Fayette-ville residents praised the city’s Planning Commission for sticking to the regulations, saying Cracker Barrel shouldn’t be allowed to build a larger sign than the city’s sign ordinance permitted.

Although Cracker Barrel had asked for a variance to construct a larger sign than allowed, the company didn’t bother to pursue an appeal to the City Council after the Planning Commission turned down the request. Only 6-foot tall monument signs are allowed in Fayetteville’s overlay district along the U.S. Highway 71 expressway.

Cracker Barrel isn’t saying why it pulled out of Fayetteville, other than grumbling in general that the city was “unfriendly.”

Alett Little, Fayetteville’s planning director, says Cracker Barrel knew from the beginning what the sign regulations were. The company that owns down-home, country-cooking restaurants throughout the South knew it could ask for a variance, but it also knew a variance allowing a larger sign in the city’s overlay district had never been granted before.

Little says the real reason Cracker Barrel backed out is because the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department may move the expressway’s southbound U.S. Highway 62 exit about 300 feet to the north.

The move would help alleviate traffic at the intersection of the two major highways, but it would put the Cracker Barrel store 300 feet further down a frontage road and make it difficult for drivers heading south to see the restaurant’s monument sign out front.

“They wanted the visibility,” says Little. “All of their studies showed visibility from the current exit. When that became uncertain, that’s when they became uncertain. I feel like that was the deciding factor for Cracker Barrel. They knew what the rules were before they began to develop that site. They got everything approved but the sign.”

Randy Ort, a spokesman for the highway department, says the exit change is still under consideration. Other options are also being examined, such as removing a stop sign at the intersection of the exit ramp and Shiloh Drive, but that would require making the frontage road one way, says Ort.

The highway department also proposed making both Shiloh Drive (the frontage road along the westbound lanes of Highway 71) and Futrall Drive (the frontage road along the eastbound lanes of Highway 71) one way in the direction of the highway lanes they parallel.

Little says construction of the Cracker Barrel at the proposed site on Futrall Drive would have been expensive because of the extensive earth work that would be required there. But Cracker Barrel said it was getting the land so cheap, it could afford to do the extra work, she says.

Fayetteville fanatics

Fayetteville has the toughest commercial building regulations of the four largest cities in Northwest Arkansas (see accompanying story for details).

Developers say those restrictions are bad for business. Planners say the opposite is true: The restrictions make for more attractive businesses and help lure tourists to the city.

Mary Denham, owner/broker for Northwest Realty in Fayetteville, says Fayetteville’s overlay district along the U.S. Highway 71 expressway will set a precedence for the rest of Arkansas. Small businesses won’t be able to build in the overlay district because 25 percent greenspace is required there and 80 percent of that must be landscaped.

“You could see all the businesses staying out of Arkansas,” says Denham, who, along with her husband, Elam, was part of a failed lawsuit to stop the overlay district. The Denhams own four acres of land in the overlay district, a restricted business zone established in 1994.

“I think the ordinances in Fayetteville are well founded,” says Collins Haynes, a Rogers architect and developer. “They protect the integrity of that city. Other cities in the area need to develop similar ordinances. I applaud the city of Fayette-ville for doing that. God forbid if we can’t live without Cracker Barrel.”

Haynes says developers in Fayetteville won’t speak out against the city’s regulations because they will likely go before the Planning Commission in the future.

“People kick Fayetteville around about how restrictive they are, but if you look at it, it’s one of the most desirable places to live,” says Rich Lane, a planner with the city of Bentonville who worked for two years as a Fayetteville city planner. “They’re not having any problems getting businesses to come in there. They’re just telling people, ‘If you’re going to do business in our town, this is what you’ve got to do.’ There will be 10 more Cracker Barrel-like stores that’ll want to come into Fayetteville.”

Lane says Fayetteville’s regulations are in line with those of other cities throughout the country. But the city’s regulations are more progressive than those of other cities in Northwest Arkansas because of the influence of the University of Arkansas.

“Fayetteville is several years ahead of some of these other cities,” he says.

Fayetteville’s sign ordinance was passed in 1965 primarily to get large signs further away from College Avenue and improve the appearance of the business corridor, says Little. Enforcement of the ordinance began in 1972.

Lane says many companies will play one town off another in a region, trying to get the cities to loosen their construction regulations to land the business and bring in more tax dollars.

“For as many people who say Fayetteville is running business out of town, you have as many people saying, ‘Hey, Fayetteville is getting too big. You need to keep businesses out of here,'” says Lane. “A certain amount of restrictions help everyone. It makes a place more visible.”

“I don’t know if it’s harder to do business in Fayetteville if you play by the rules,” says Little. “Fayetteville has made a conscious decision to be the retail center of Northwest Arkansas. We want those businesses to be sales tax producers for us.”

A 1 percent Fayetteville city sales tax brought in $9.9 million in 1997. One percent city sales taxes brought in $7.3 in Springdale and $3.3 million in Bentonville in 1997. A 2 percent city sales tax in Rogers brought in $9.7 million last year.

“Most businesses willing to make that investment [and play by Fayetteville’s rules] are more committed to Fayetteville and are more willing to stay,” says Little. Most businesses that come to Fayetteville would allow for the amount of greenspace required by the city even if there wasn’t a regulation, she says.

In her seven years as planning director, Little says, she’s seen only one other business pull out during the approval process. That was Mitchell Oil Co., which decided not to build a gas station near the intersection of Highway 71 and Wedington Drive because it would have been on an access road instead of at the intersection.

Restrictions help beautify a city for residents as well as tourists, says Little.

“I think tourism is important, but I think it’s also important for people who live here to enjoy their town and not be upset by the development they see,” she says.

Little says grading and drainage ordinances usually cost businesses more than sign and greenspace ordinances, but the regulations ensure safe developments.

“It requires quality development,” she says. “It prevents shoddy development. It protects the citizens [from having to pay for repairs later].”

The reason Fayetteville has many of its regulations is because the city needed a way to enforce Planning Commission decisions, Little says.

Previously, after buildings were constructed, they frequently wouldn’t resemble the plans approved by the Planning Commission.

Last year, construction of a McDonald’s restaurant in Crossroads Village became an issue. McDonald’s wanted to build its prototype building at the $12 million shopping center, but developer Don Cozart had promised the Fayetteville Planning Commission that the development would have a central theme and color.

The issue boiled down to roof beams. McDonald’s wanted white. The Planning Commission preferred a teal green to match the rest of the development. McDonald’s agreed in the end to use the same kind of building materials and paint as the rest of the shopping center.

Cozart had threatened to turn his shopping center into an average strip mall just to keep from losing McDonald’s as a tenant.

Bentonville billboards

Although Lane praises Fayetteville for its foresight, the city he works for isn’t as restrictive. Bentonville has no sign ordinance restricting size or location of signs. Billboards line Walton Boulevard (U.S. Highway 71B) through town. Many of those billboards advertise the nation’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which is based in Bentonville.

“When cities control size of signs, it actually makes for an even playing field,” says Lane, noting that businesses don’t have to battle it out to build the biggest sign.

A few years ago, an effort was under way to establish a solid sign ordinance in Bentonville, but “sign companies came out and fought it, and it stayed like it was,” Lane says.

Troy Galloway, planning director for Bentonville, says he hopes to have a new sign ordinance before the City Council by fall, spring at the latest.

“We’re trying to put some measures in place that will ensure quality growth instead of just quantity growth,” says Galloway. “If that makes it appear we’re trying to be more like Fayetteville, maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”

Lane noted that both Fayetteville and Rogers are in the Tree City USA program, which requires that a certain number of existing trees be preserved at construction sites. Bentonville will apply to be part of the program by the end of the year, he says.

Rogers restrictions

Rogers is the second-most restrictive city in Northwest Arkansas concerning construction regulations.

“You need to be visible, yet you need some decorum to the town,” says Maurice Coleman, Rogers’ planning director. “We’re still generally a growing town.”

Coleman says Rogers has had a sign ordinance since it enacted zoning ordinances in the early 1960s.

Derrel Smith, Rogers’ assistant city planner, says the sign ordinance has gotten signs away from the edge of primary thoroughfares in the city.

“It was an unfair business advantage as you’re driving down the highway,” says Smith. “Now, you have to get on top of [the businesses] to see the signs.

“We tried to take the best of both: keep the landscaping and give the businesses a way to compete. I think we’re getting quality development in here, and that’s what we want. Everything we get over here is good for the city.”

Springdale signs

Springdale, like Bentonville, is much more lenient about construction and sign regulations. Although sign regulations apply, they’re lax and allow for billboards in the city.

“It’s kind of wide open,” says Roger Lein, a planning examiner for commercial projects in the city. “It leaves the developer to do some planting.”

Patsy Christie, who has been Springdale’s city planner for the past two years, was on vacation and unavailable for comment.