City Beat: Council rescinds airport condemnation order

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In other action, $4.4 million south side apartment complex receives go-ahead|ret||ret||tab|

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by Jeremy Elwood|ret||ret||tab|

SBJ Reporter|ret||ret||tab|

jelwood@sbj.net|ret||ret||tab|

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It was a case of one step forward and one step back for Springeld City Council at its Nov. 1 meeting.|ret||ret||tab|

Council unanimously approved a rezoning request for three acres at 641 W. Plainview Road. The land is now zoned as a planned development district, allowing owner and developer Patrick Watkins to proceed with plans for an 84-unit apartment complex. City Zoning Administrator Andrew Furedy said the rezoning is an "appropriate transition from commercial zoning on Campbell to lower intensity housing to the west and north."|ret||ret||tab|

Watkins of KP&W LLC said the development makes sense right now.|ret||ret||tab|

"I actually bought the land in 1982 based on a survey of where Springeld was growing," he said. "There's a lot of people that want to live on the southwest corner of town, or between Springeld and Nixa, and if you look at it, there's very few apartments there. There are some south of James River Freeway and north of this location, and it's been a very good location, so we were inspired by that."|ret||ret||tab|

Coryell Enterprises is general contractor for the $4.4 million project, which is scheduled for a July 2005 completion. H Design is the architect, and HBH Engineering is project engineer. The project is nanced through Great Southern Bank.|ret||ret||tab|

Meanwhile, council also unanimously voted to rescind an ordinance approved in May that authorized negotiation or condemnation proceedings for land northwest of the Springeld-Branson Regional Airport. City staff cited airport administration concerns that funds for the proposed new runway to occupy the land are insufcient at this time. Those monies are being used to build the replacement terminal complex on the southwest portion of the airport.|ret||ret||tab|

The airport board voted Oct. 21 to request council remove the condemnation order. The airport's 10- to 20-year master plan calls for a third runway on the 160-acre, privately owned property.|ret||ret||tab|

City manager Tom Finnie said the move was a slight cause for concern among city ofcials.|ret||ret||tab|

"Council is very, very careful about condemnation," Finnie said. "They rarely use it and they certainly do not take the power lightly. There was just a little bit of concern that if the original request was critical maybe some more thought should have gone into it, if in a matter of a couple of months they decided they didn't want to condemn the property.|ret||ret||tab|

"I think it was just a matter of wishing they had thought through the matter just a little more carefully."|ret||ret||tab|

Other council action:|ret||ret||tab|

A 19-acre parcel at the southeast corner of Glenstone and Valley Water Mill Road was re-zoned from a County C-2 and County R-3 district to a general retail and a low-density multifamily residential district. This simply changes the land, recently annexed into the city limits, from the county zoning title to its equivalent city zoning.|ret||ret||tab|

City Council agreed to enter into a license agreement with Davis Estates LLC, owner of Davis Ridge Estates on Lone Pine Avenue and Battleeld Street, to construct off-site storm water detention on adjacent city property. |ret||ret||tab|

The agreement says that Davis will pay for the construction of the facility, as well as paying up front for 20 years of maintenance of the detention area, in exchange for permission from the city to build on city property. The estimated cost of the maintenance totals $7,500.|ret||ret||tab|

The city rezoned about one acre at 307 W. Scott St. into a center city district. The owners of a business on adjacent Boonville Avenue are moving their business to the Scott Street location because the Boonville location is being used to expand the Greene County campus downtown.|ret||ret||tab|

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