CBC 03-04-1999 (2)The City Beautiful Commission held its regular meeting Thursday, March 4, 1999, in the
Sister Cities Conference Room. Chair Frank Riggins presided.
Members Present:
Frank Riggins
Randall Stocks
David Roberts
Carolyn Lawrence
Dottie Funk
Nash Abrams
Molly Satterfield
Also Present: Gayle Owens, Administrative Asst., Parks & Recreation
Bryan Day, Director Parks & Recreation
Jeff Duncan, President Alright Parking
Bill Barnes
Approval of Minutes: Minutes were approved as distributed.
Treasurer's Report: Randy Stocks, treasurer reported that our balance is $1,951.79.
There is no change except for a little interest.
Committee Reports:
• Education Committee — Molly Satterfield. No education report.
Task Force — Dottie Funk. The task force has broken up into three sub -committees;
the landscape sub -committee which David Roberts is a member of, tree preservation
ordinance sub -committee; and a hillside excavation ordinance. We seem to be
moving faster and hope to get the ordinances completed sooner.
Dottie asked David if he would like to report on the landscape ordinance review.
David said the landscape sub -committee had met twice and would meet again next
week. We are near completion on the revision. We are trying to strengthen the
ordinance, but we're also trying to make it eclectic where designers can follow the
structure of the ordinance but have freedom to be a little more creative.
Neighborhood Association Liaison — Nash Abrams. We sent a mailing out to all the
neighborhoods regarding the PAC program. We will be sending out a letter along
with a copy of the program to the board of directors asking them get behind this
project and encourage the neighborhoods in their wards to participate.
City Beautiful Commission + 500 West Markham, Room 108 + Little Rock, AR 72201 + (501) 371-4770
City Beautiful Commission
March 4 Meeting
Page 2
NEW BUSINESS
Frank Riggins reported that he has been representing the Commission on the Tornado
Disaster Rebuild Task Force. John Baker is on the committee as well. Dialog has
been started with his group. We are working on the replanting of the downtown area
as a sub -committee to the larger task force. We are starting to develop an outline as
to how we are going to approach this issue. We are going to define the area, develop
some guidelines for species of trees that we want to plant in the area, how to
coordinate with Public Works, where trees will come from, who will plant, how to
maintain. As we develop plan, I'll report back to you.
• Nash Abrams said that Keep Arkansas Beautiful would be having its annual kick off
at the end of March. The month of April is Keep Arkansas Beautiful Month.
Nash Abrams said that he had checked on the•property near the Post Office that we
had discussed at the retreat. The property belongs to the Post Office. The property is
about 100 yds. in length and 30 yds. in width at the widest end, then the property
narrows.
• Nash also announced that he and Frank would meet with Cy Carney regarding
Capitol Avenue Improvement Plan. Bryan said that when they open Capitol Avenue
up, they would continue the streetscape plan.
I%USCELLANEOUS BUSINESS
Frank introduced Mr. Jeff Duncan, president of Alright Parking. Frank said that there
is a large amount of property in the downtown area that is used for parking. This is a
very essential service that Mr. Duncan's company provides, but we have expressed
some concerns about the appearance of those properties and want to start some dialog
with Mr. Duncan in order to begin a strategy to upgrade some of those properties.
Mr. Duncan stated that although he is in the business, asphalt and yellow lines are not
the prettiest sight in the world. He said that his company owns very little of these
properties. Most are either leased or managed. Probably 75% of properties are
management operations. Some of these properties are individually owned and are the
only source of income for the owners.
Mr. Duncan discussed the effects of landscaping on small parcels of property. He
suggested instead using grass and trees instead of shrubs and bark. He said that small
pieces of trash get caught in the shrubs and no matter how many times a day they are
removed, they will still be there at the end of the day. Mr. Duncan offered to work
with the Commission to help find a workable solution. Dottie said that if we just had
two trees per block it would wonderful. Mr. Duncan said that he would write his
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March 4 Meeting
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owners to see if they would be interested in this project.
Frank thanked Mr. Duncan for coming and talking to the Commission.
• Parks and Recreation Report
Bryan Day reported that a grant proposal is being submitted through the local
Forestry Service to the U. S. Forestry Service. They will fund about $50,000 for
reforestation in the tornado affected areas. The Parks Department is taking the lead
on that. Once we get the grant, then we will have several public hearings soliciting
feedback and what people would like to see. He said he hoped that the City Beautiful
Commission would take a lead or maybe even take it on as a project. Currently an
assessment of the blocks that were destroyed, length of public right of way, power
utilities, and things that would restrict the types of trees to go back in. That
assessment will give us a foundation for a plan. Bryan said only about 20% of the
money can be used for planting, the majority for planning and assessment. There's
also some money for maintaining and repairing.
We are also soliciting proposals for MacArthur Park Plan. We want to start fresh and
pretend that there's nothing there and redo the park. Our goal would be to create
something that is a destination. We lost 145 trees 10" or larger in MacArthur Park.
We are creating a program, basically Trees for Tomorrow Campaign, in conjunction
with the Water Department where people will be able to round their bill to the nearest
dollar and donate for an urban forestry program in the City of Little Rock. We
modeled the program after Durham, North Carolina. We calculate that if 10% of the
water customers in Little Rock give a dollar a month, it will raise $190,000 a year for
trees. We will be able to use that money to plan to hire somebody or some people to
maintain and water the trees. This is only for public right-of-way trees.
Carolyn Lawrence asked Bryan if city used prisoners for labor. Bryan said that we
did.
Bryan reported that we are still trying to firm up an acquisition for the West Little
Rock park property. We are currently looking at the Ranch Property. The price is
fair, but access is a problem.
Bryan announced that the Forestry Commission would have a free tree give away in
April. We'll have hot dogs and cokes. Maybe the City Beautiful Commission can
help.
o David Roberts distributed material from the American Society of Landscape
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March 4 Meeting
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Architects. This year is the 100a' Anniversary. National has set up some programs
that they want the state chapters to implement to get publicity so that more people are
aware of what landscape architects do and who they are, and what they've done for
their communities.
One of the programs that the state chapter is involved with is called Parks 100 Years.
National has asked each state chapter to find an urban space in their state and do a
design for some entity and then turn over to the public to use. The Museum of
Discovery has a space that they would like to have a court yard down on the
riverfront next door. We propose working with them and with school children in the
community to design an outdoor exhibit area for that space.
The other thing is a Medallions Park Program. We were asked to submit parks from
our state that are historical in value that was designed by landscape architects in the
past. If a national committee chooses those, a large medallion will be awarded to that
park. There will be a ceremony and a big ribbon cutting. Four were chosen from
Arkansas. Allsopp was chosen from Little Rock.
• Dottie discussed a Planning Commission agenda item that has to do with the
intersection on I-430 and Colonel Glenn Road. This is an area that is up for
development (69.45 acres). The property is heavily wooded and highly visible from
interstate. Dottie said she was afraid that they were planning to strip the land. Dottie
asked that someone attend the Planning Commission meeting and express a concern
for this piece of property and request that the developers not bulldoze the entire
property. Frank asked if there are any volunteers. Frank said he would talk with a
planning commissioner before the meeting and bring up the issue. Dottie asked if we
could send a letter. Frank said that all we can do is to raise the issue that someone
expresses a concern about it. That puts the onus on the owner to not want any
adverse publicity as he is developing his property.
Adjournment: 10:00 a.m.