Fort Smith : Planners vote no on casino RV park
Posted on Thursday, October 12, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/169417/
FORT SMITH — The Fort Smith Planning Commission has denied the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma’s request to rezone land it owns in Arkansas for a casino parking lot and RV park.
City Senior Planner Garry Cathcart said the commission denied requests Tuesday for the rezoning from Open-1 to Industrial-1, which allows for light industrial uses, and for a conditional use permit for the recreational vehicle park.
The requests were denied, Cathcart said, because the Choctaw Nation didn’t follow the commission’s requirement that the nation meet with a neighboring homeowner. The land is not in Fort Smith
1 but is within a 1 / 2-mile radius in which the city has claimed extraterritorial jurisdiction. The designation allows the city to enforce its zoning regulations to ensure orderly growth of outlying areas in anticipation of one day annexing them into the city. The parking lot, which already is under construction, borders three sides of property owned by Nathan and Melanie Bradshaw. The commission told the nation to meet with the Bradshaws to resolve their concerns about the effects the 500-vehicle lot would have on their family.
The Bradshaws have four school-age children and say the lot will be a constant source of traffic noise and bright lights from cars and light poles, according to their attorney David Hardin of Fort Smith.
A plan submitted to the commission by the Choctaw Nation showed a screening fence would be erected and trees planted around the Bradshaws’ property to block the car lights and that the parking lot lighting would be placed so it would not shine on the Bradshaw property.
The Choctaw Nation has 10 days to appeal the commission’s decision to the Fort Smith Board of Directors, Cathcart said. If the directors uphold the ruling, the nation would have to wait a year before it could reapply for the zone change.
If it doesn’t appeal, the nation would be barred from reapplying for the same zone, Cathcart said.
The nation could not ask for a different zone, he said, because the city’s master land-use-plan only allows that area to be zoned Industrial-1.
Parking lots such as the one the Choctaw Nation began building are not allowed in other zones.
Scott Maynor of Denison, Texas, an engineer who spoke to the commission Monday as an agent of the Choctaw Nation, did not return phone calls Tuesday for this article. Attempts to reach representatives of the Choctaw Nation at its headquarters in Durant, Okla., also were unsuccessful.
Cathcart said the Choctaw Nation, which owns Choctaw Casino on the Oklahoma state line, had nearly completed construction of the lot in Arkansas when an anonymous caller alerted city officials to the work around Aug. 1. The lot has been leveled and covered with gravel and 30- to 40-foot-tall lights have been installed.
The nation is building the additional parking space as part of an expansion of the casino.