December 8, 2021
By: Dwayne Page
If county property owner Larry Hasty wants to proceed with plans to develop a 40-lot subdivision on his 13-acre site near the airport he will have to do so without it being in the City of Smithville.
(Video below is public hearing on city annexation request)
During Monday night’s regular monthly meeting, a resolution to annex Hasty’s property on Parkway Drive into the corporate city limits on second and final reading died for the lack of a motion. The inaction came after a public hearing in which three residents in the neighborhood spoke out against the proposed annexation as well as Katelyn Sanders, Manager of the Smithville Municipal Airport. A petition was also presented to the board bearing 104 names of persons opposed to the annexation request
(Video below is the regular December monthly meeting of Smithville Mayor and Aldermen)
The aldermen had given first reading approval in September based on a set of conditions before the deal could be finalized on second and final reading.
Mayor Josh Miller outlined those conditions at that September meeting.
“This is the property that joins the Airport Park and is a potential development of about 40 homes by Larry Hasty. It does come with some conditions: As long as the county turns over portions of Allen Street, Shady Drive, Second Street, and Parkway Drive; Also our planning commission recommended that our engineer either design or inspect the infrastructure once it is put in; The next condition is that it has to be on gravity flow and not for a sewer pump system because if that were to happen every house on the site would need to have a pump and over time that would have to be turned over to the city and we do not need to get into the expense of pumps. The last condition is that the property be zoned R-2 residential,” said Mayor Miller.
A new concern was raised by the city’s airport consulting engineer who sent a letter to Mayor Miller in October urging the city to not take any action (annexation) that might interfere with the airport’s Runway Protection Zone (RPZ) or hamper future extension of the airport runway.
During the regular monthly meeting in November, the county commission voted 10 to 0 to reject a recommendation from the DeKalb County Regional Planning Commission to transfer ownership of Allen Street, Shady Drive, Second Street, and Parkway Drive to the City of Smithville subject to city annexation of the Hasty property. Four commissioners were absent. A portion of the city engineer’s letter had been read to the county commissioners at a prior meeting and Hasty now insists it should not have been because the letter was misleading and tainted the commissioners’ view of the proposal.
Several residents in the neighborhood showed up at the county regional planning commission meeting on November 8; at a workshop session of the county commission November 18; and again, at the county commission meeting on November 22 to voice their opposition to the whole idea of transferring the roads as well as the annexation. Three of them repeated those concerns at Monday night’s city public hearing (December 6). The residents say a development with more houses there would create greater traffic congestion and safety concerns with speeding and add to already deteriorating road conditions and existing wetland issues in that area. There is also a concern with low flying aircraft from the airport.
“There are three main reasons,” said Charles Wunder of Big Hurricane Road. “Safety has to be first. In densely populated areas there are going to be problems mainly with traffic. That is one of our main concerns. These roads are not developed for the amount of traffic that would be created by this development. There are no sidewalks. Kids play right up to the road. There is already a problem with speeding. Speed limit signs have recently been erected. There is a problem with accidents. Traffic is already increasing because of the industrial park so speeding and excessive traffic are a major concern. Secondly, this area is also a wetland. If this is developed it will create problems. The water is going to go somewhere. It will go into neighboring homes and farms even on county roads not being annexed including Big Hurricane Road. Our third concern is it being close to the airport. I don’t see why the city would not allow a playground area adjacent to the airport but allow residential construction there,” said Wunder.
Other neighbors who addressed the aldermen in opposition during Monday night’s city public hearing were Ronnie Garrison of Big Hurricane Road, Ricky Holloway of Shady Drive, and Bruce Turner who owns two homes in the area.
Airport Manager Sanders also expressed her opposition saying annexation of this property is not a good idea.
“I do not want to see this annexation happen for multiple reasons. The city has spent a lot of money buying property around the airport to ensure the safety of pilots and the people who own that property around the airport. Although all the property being discussed this evening may not be in the airport runway protection zone it is merely yards from the zone so I don’t think it would offer a sense of security for those who would even want to live there. Another reason against this annexation is noise. Currently we do not control traffic at hours of the night so it could be 2 a.m. that a jet or plane can fly over your house and wake you or your kids. That is something I would not want to happen to me in my home and I would not want any complaints coming back to me or the airport for something that I or the city can’t control. Just for a sense of security I don’t think pilots would want to fly over a subdivision especially in the event of a rare emergency and risk landing into somebody’s house. I would ask the council not to vote for the annexation,” said Sanders.
Hasty reminded the mayor and aldermen that he has already granted an overhead easement and sold a small portion of his property to the city to satisfy airport runway protection zone concerns and he appealed to them to approve his annexation request.
“I have owned this property for 16 years and for the last six I have been coming to the county and city talking about developing this property. We determined it needed to be on sewer. I have had a half dozen meetings with you guys to talk about sewer. I have agreed not to do grinder pumps or a pump station. I did agree to gravity sewer which is what the city requires. It is unfortunate that at a (county commission) workshop meeting a letter was read written by an engineer for the airport because it really put a smoke screen on the commissioners’ understanding of what was really going on. I don’t know if anyone is aware or not, but I have spent three years dealing with the senior project manager/coordinator from the airport as well as the senior planner from the airport and we worked out an agreement for me to give them a major overhead easement over my property which I have done. I sold (city) a piece of property to make their (airport runway protection zone) complete. I have done everything I can to cooperate with everything needed and what I have been asked to do. People at the airport must not know what one hand is doing to the other. I have been working with those people for three years. They have been very good to work with and I don’t think they would want to grant an easement and buy property from me and turn around and disapprove a project that the city has been working on with me for years. The conclusion is I have been coming up here for a long time. I want you to annex my property and do the right thing,” said Hasty.
But the city engineer’s recommendation not to annex the property apparently influenced the aldermen not to act on final reading approval.
“Their recommendation (city engineer) is that we do not annex this property and they gave a number of reasons. One of them was that a new subdivision would create a barrier to (future) runway extension. Were we to annex this and the development should occur and then we want to later continue expansion of the runway and the airport runway protection zone is expanded we (city) would have to do more (land) purchases and easements (to clear the glide paths) so how much more would it cost the city in the future? Our job is to look out for the best interest of the city” said Alderman Brandon Cox.
Alderman Cox went on to say that the public is also having a hard time understanding why the city would close the children’s playground near the airport as it did in 2019 but grant annexation for a residential development in the same area. Earlier the city was required by the state to purchase and tear down a brick home on Allen Chapel Road near the airport (which it did) using grant funds because the structure was deemed to be in the airport runway protection zone.
“This is the biggest complaint I have had from a lot of people. We tore down airport park because of this (airport runway protection zone) and now you are going to allow houses to be built right across the street from it. That doesn’t seem right,” said Alderman Cox.