CBT’s View: Council at crossroads in dilemma over Crosscreek

The Columbia City Council will decide on March 3 whether to approve the commercial development plan proposed for U.S. 63 and Stadium Boulevard.

The owners of Stadium 63 Properties want to build infrastructure and structures for more than a dozen businesses on lots that cover about 70 acres, an area roughly the same size as the Columbia Mall.

The businesses would include a First National Bank branch, an MFA Break Time convenience store, a Taco Bell and a Machens Toyota dealership, while other buildings are designed for retail stores and restaurants.

The development is planned for an environmentally sensitive area, where the north and south forks of Grindstone Creek adjoin. It’s also considered by many to be a gateway into the city and a tone-setter for future development along Stadium, which will extend to Interstate 70 in the coming years.

Jerry Wade says the development is one of the most important issues he’s faced in his 16 years on the Planning and Zoning Commission and the City Council, and the scope is indeed the largest since the mall development in the early 1980s.

The main point of contention is the car dealership. The developer wants to change a plan previously approved by the council, with the blessing of the nearby neighborhoods, which allowed for the construction of a hotel and listed a car dealership as one of the excluded uses.

But the issue has expanded into a kind of referendum on development. It’s a line in the sand to many of those who believe Columbia’s development has been haphazard in past years. And it’s a litmus test to those who tend to support developments of all kind and believe a “no” vote would signal that the council has indeed become anti-development and should be expanded to include at-large wards.

The P&Z Commission voted 5-3 against the development plan after neighbors criticized the plan’s lack of landscaping and proper architectural aesthetics, its tall lights and the expected noise from the dealership’s intercom system. Commission members also expressed concerns that stormwater runoff would pollute the creek and that agreements with neighborhoods should not be broken without their blessing.

The council was on the verge of voting against the plan at the Feb. 4 meeting when Mayor Darwin Hindman persuaded his colleagues to put off the decision for a month.

Hindman and others have referred to the expanse of bare dirt at the intersection as the “moonscape,” and during the meeting he said “a spectacular amount of grading took place on the basis of speculation in order to make it as developable as possible.”

The council could follow the lead of newcomers who believe in “smart growth” and that previous decisions led to unsightly suburban sprawl, and vote “no” to send a loud symbolic message to the development community while punishing Stadium 63 Properties for clear-cutting the land.

But that would not be smart.

The council could vote “no” and wait for developers to come up with a plan for a magnificent gateway to Columbia, and something better than a dealership. That would make opponents happy, including one woman who wrote in an e-mail to the council, “The developers have made Columbia ugly enough.”

But that would be unfair.

With a few caveats, the council should vote “yes” and allow the development with a car dealership for the following reasons:

The project complied with the land disturbance ordinance and rules for tree preservation, which call for maintaining 25 percent of the area’s oak and hickory trees. It complied with the new stormwater ordinance, the stream-buffer ordinance, the lighting ordinance, the noise ordinance and road standards. Maybe the rules were inadequate, but as Hindman and council member Laura Nauser pointed out, then it was the fault of the city and not the developer, who was following the rules.

A car dealership is absolutely appropriate for this intersection, which is destined to become one of the most intensely commercial properties in the city because of high traffic volumes. It would generate less traffic than a hotel and probably more tax revenue.

As for the gateway argument—it’s specious. As Nauser pointed out, the gateway to Columbia from the south will be the Gans Road interchange now under construction beside Discovery Ridge, and the gateway from the north will be wherever Stadium intersects with Interstate 70.

To allay neighborhood concerns, Stadium 63 Properties agreed to:
• replace language to clearly exclude the possibility of a used car dealership locating at Crosscreek;
• reduce the aggregate square footage of buildings, the maximum building height, sign height and total number of signs;
• require lot owners to install and maintain lot perimeter landscaping and install landscaping in median islands;
• require public address speakers at the dealership to be directed to the interior of the lot; and
• add ramps to make roads safer, wider sidewalks, shoulders for bike lanes, and a trail easement.

The developer’s attorney, Bruce Beckett, said the declaration of covenants would impose an obligation on each lot owner to establish landscaping in accordance with the plan.

Council members were correct to question whether the declaration of covenants would be enforceable.

To make the declaration of covenants meaningful, the council should follow the advice of P&Z member Mike Holden, who said the neighborhood associations should be made a third-party beneficiary of those restrictions.

Beckett should come up with a few more enticements when the council meets on March 3—such as a better dealership communication system without loudspeakers and the elimination of pole lights—and the members should vote in favor of the development.

Regarding future major developments, city planners should be more involved in the early negotiations between neighborhood associations and developers so the council is not left to clean up messy compromises that are not always in the city’s best interests.