City Beat: Council hears objections to east side housing development

A proposal to rezone 48 acres for a 510-unit planned development had its first reading at the Oct. 20 Springfield City Council meeting.

The development is proposed for the area at the eastern limit of the city, 3830 E. Division St., by East Division Development LLC. Behind the project are Springfield-based Napredak Builders LLC with funding by the California-based private equity firm Canyon View Capital Inc., according to the staff report and public hearing testimony.

The property, recently annexed into the city, still sports a Greene County zoning designation as an agriculture district.

The city’s Planning & Zoning Commission recommended denial of the application on its first review on July 17, sending the issue to City Council for an Aug. 11 public hearing. Council remanded the issue back to P&Z, which switched its position, recommending approved by a vote of 5-3 on Sept 25. One change in the proposal was to limit apartment buildings – and there are 10 of them – to a height of three stories.

The layout, put together by architectural firm H Design Group LLC, shows 26 single-family houses and 20 detached villas along the west and south perimeters. Additionally, plans show seven townhome buildings with about six units each, plus eight duplexes, just inside the single-family house locations, also on the west and south of the property. Most of the interior is composed of the 10 three-story apartment buildings, featuring 428 units, with amenities like pickleball courts, a pool and walking trails.

The developer has offered to pay $1.2 million for intersection improvements in conjunction with the project at Division Street and LeCompte Road, city staff reported.

Thirty-one speakers stepped forward to offer their views on the development at the council meeting. Many who were opposed – mostly residents of nearby neighborhoods – voiced concerns about traffic, density, topography – including sinkholes – and neighborhood character. A handful of neighbors expressed support for the plan.

Attorney Bryan Fisher of Neale & Newman LLP, who said he represents approximately 400 residents in Cooper Estates, recommended council deny the rezoning request.

“Johnnie Cochran famously quipped at a trial that if the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit, and I would propose to council that if it doesn’t comply, it shouldn’t fly tonight,” he said. “The issue here is that the planned development simply does not comply with the Forward SGF program that this city spent four years developing and adopting as its comprehensive plan.”

Fisher said the property is designated as a traditional neighborhood type, which the comprehensive plan defines as a place type predominantly composed of single-family detached residences.

“You need to only look at a cursory view of what’s being proposed here to see what we have is an apartment complex with a few single-family residences thrown around the edge,” he said. “That is not a traditional neighborhood place type; it does not comply with the comprehensive plan.”

He also said the comprehensive plan allows for low-intensity multifamily housing in a traditional neighborhood place type – not 10 three-story apartment buildings.

Finally, he said, the comprehensive plan stipulates that in a traditional neighborhood, low-intensity multifamily housing should be located on the exterior of a development at major intersections.

“This neighborhood does not propose to do that,” Fisher said. “It puts the 10 apartment buildings in the middle of the development – not at its exterior, not at major intersections that bisect it, but in the heart of the development, because again this is not a traditional residential neighborhood place type; this is a place type designed to be an apartment complex with a few single-family residences thrown in.”

The proposal is reduced by 20 units, or roughly 5%, from its original version that council remanded to P&Z. The reduction is due to a change in the height of the apartment buildings from four stories to three.

Ben Shantz, a partner at Spencer Fane LLP, told council, “This is the first significant development of rezoning that this council or Planning & Zoning has seen of the east-of-65 area designated for single-family traditional neighborhood. If the very first one that comes up is voted to essentially provide 90% of non-single-family traditional housing, what message do we send?”

Speaking in favor of the development was Megan Creson, an attorney with Lowther Johnson Attorneys at Law LLC and the president-elect of the Springfield Apartment and Housing Association.

Creson said the development will deliver over 510 much-needed housing units with easy highway access and close proximity to employers, meaning it would provide workforce housing.

She said Canyon View has been in the community since 2007 with developments like Golden Pond Apartments and Kensington Park Apartments, and it has several large local investors – it is not California money, as claimed, she said.

“This project is a good fit, and it will provide much-needed housing and good-quality housing to our community,” she said.

A council vote is scheduled for Nov. 3.

BK&M to return to P&Z
A land-use dispute that started in August 2022 continues for the northwest corner of Sunshine Street and National Avenue.

BK&M LLC, the developer at the heart of a yearslong effort to develop the 2.6-acre portion of the University Heights neighborhood, was given another chance by council to add a hotel to its list of acceptable uses for the property in its proposed conditional overlay district.

Council voted 7-2 to allow the company’s zoning request to be remanded back to P&Z at BK&M’s request – one council earlier refused at its Oct. 6 meeting.

Councilmember Bruce Adib-Yazdi made a motion to allow the remand, which BK&M requested because the Office 2 designation it is seeking for the parcels will no longer allow hotels when the city’s remapping and rezoning project is complete. That project will change all of the city’s O-2 zoning to the new designation of commercial mixed use, or C-MX1. That is expected to happen by April 1, 2026.

Ralph Duda, a partner in and spokesperson for BK&M, told council Oct. 6 that he was given bad information from city staff. Duda said staff steered him toward O-2 and assured him that hotels would be permitted with a conditional overlay district. In order to guarantee hotels among the allowable uses, the COD would have to be grandfathered in at the time of citywide rezoning.

When asked via email if Duda’s allegation were true, city officials declined to respond.

Duda said in an Aug. 21 neighborhood meeting and again at the Oct. 6 council meeting that he intends to sell the property and not develop it himself.

Now the issue will return to P&Z for the purpose of adding hotels to the COD. As currently written, the proposed COD allows the property to be used as a mixed-use property with multifamily or single-family residential units, a medical or professional office or assisted living.

In the 7-2 vote on Adib-Yazdi’s motion to remand, one of the no votes was from Adib-Yazdi himself and the other was from Hosmer.

Adib-Yazdi said when he last voted on the remand, he believed the developer could go back and get a conditional use permit after the fact, but without the hotel use listed in the COD, that would not be possible.

“I did not want to put them in the position of not having that opportunity,” he said.

Nevertheless, when it came time to vote, Adib-Yazdi did not support his own motion.

Prior to the vote, Hosmer indicated to his fellow council members that when it comes to the BK&M development, he’s pretty much over it.

“As a councilperson, I’m tired of dealing with it,” he said. “It seems that sometimes when we say no – when Planning and Zoning says no three times, when City Council says no twice – maybe somebody should take a message from that that you’re not going to just be able to make a zoning change when you don’t know what you’re going to build, when you have no plan, when you’re not even going to be the final developer.

“This is not a good way to do business in the city of Springfield.”

Jenson said  he believes regardless of how any council member intends to vote, the developer should have the right to present a vision and let the proposal stand on those merits. “I will be voting in favor, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s support for the final product,” Jenson said.

Ridge property rezoned
After a discussion period that included input from 11 people, council gave the thumbs-up to the rezoning of 6 acres at 1012 W. Buena Vista St. to single-family residential from planned development.

The property is part of the development area known as The Ridge near the southern limit of Springfield in the area west of Campbell Avenue and south of the Library Center.

The speakers, mostly residents who live close to the development acreage, voiced no objection to the plans by The Ridge HZ LLC, registered to Matt Miller of Miller Commerce LLC. Their main concern was whether a road providing access to the new development could be gated at both ends.

Civil engineer David Bodeen of Pinnacle Design Consultants LLC confirmed in comments to council that the developer is content to allow Buckingham Lane, which connects to the property to the south, to remain a private drive. After hearing concerns from neighbors about safety and possible changes to the character of adjoining neighborhoods, council consulted Deputy City Attorney V. Jan Millington, who confirmed that it is council’s right to declare a street closed. She noted making the road private is a different question.

“I think this is going to be complicated,” Millington said.

Two council members – Jenson and Callie Carroll – offered motions to try to solve the problem, but both withdrew them after discussion, in part to avoid weeks of delay that would have resulted from the need for another public hearing.

“What you see up here is a lot of good hearts trying to solve an issue in a public meeting, so bear with us, folks,” Mayor Jeff Schrag said to the crowd.

Ultimately, council voted 9-0 to approve the uncontested rezoning, and city planning staff were asked to provide guidance on how the city might most effectively address the street access issue when a preliminary plat is submitted.

Rental inspections discussed
Council heard the first reading and public hearing for an 18-month rental licensing and inspection pilot set for the West Central neighborhood.

There were 21 speakers, including renters and activists who have been pushing for renters’ rights in the city for multiple years, as well as landlords and property owners who expressed concerns about being lumped in with bad actors and the expenses associated with that approach.

Martin Gugel, director of the city’s Building Development Services office, said the pilot would inspect all duplexes and single-family rental properties in West Central – 1,541 in number. Units would have to be registered at a cost of $35 each annually, and there would be no charge for a first inspection. Subsequent inspections would be $50, with further inspections charged by a graduated scale, he said. Notice would be sent to occupants 14 days in advance, and no response will be seen as a refusal of consent, resulting in an administrative search warrant.

Gugel said the inspector – his office looks to hire one to be dedicated to the pilot, along with an office administrator – would look at life safety issues, like structural integrity, defects to the roof or walls, missing windows, operable door locks, presence of utilities and infestations of insects or rodents.

Real estate attorney Craig Lowther said there are 43,000 rental units in the city, yet only 200-300 of them pose problems. He questioned why the program would include the 99% of landlords he said were good ones.

“I see nothing but problems coming from this,” he said.

Michelle Garand, vice president of affordable housing and homelessness prevention for the Community Partnership of the Ozarks, said the city has a big problem that everyone needs to collectively figure out a solution to. Garand said she believes the city has found that solution in the rental inspection process.

Garand also said that a complaint-based system is based on the assumption that retaliation against tenants will not take place.

“We know that isn’t the case,” she said.

Other action items

• A vote on a bill that would have established the Sunshine Towne Centre Community Improvement District, where a Target store is being constructed, was postponed until the Nov. 3 council meeting. Jenson said the board of directors does not meet the requirement that at least one member have no financial interest in any real property within the proposed CID. He requested that staff work further with the developers to resolve the issue.
• To make way for a marijuana dispensary, a recently annexed 3-acre parcel was rezoned to highway commercial from a Greene County classification of neighborhood commercial. The applicant was CREDC Strafford LLC. The parcel is generally located at 3358 N. Beaver Road, just north of the Buc-ee’s convenience store.
• Council OK’d the rezoning of 0.2 acres at 1544 N. National Ave. to general retail from general manufacturing at the request of 3 Patel LLC. 
• Funds totaling $750,000 were appropriated from the city’s Tourism/Convention Fund toward planning, designing and constructing a regional convention and event center. The funds have accumulated over the years, according to the staff report, and will allow the city to contract with providers to begin the predesign and preconstruction phases of building a downtown center estimated at $175 million.