Philips Proposal goes to P&Z August 21st

By Dave Moore of the Tribune’s staff
Published Thursday, August 14, 2003

A 700-unit development planned for Columbia’s south side would leave a heavy footprint for the city’s infrastructure to support.

Too heavy, the city staff has concluded, recommending that the city turn down Elvin Sapp’s plan to develop the 489-acre Philips farm property.

Chief among the reasons in a report released by the city this morning were:

An interchange for the Philips development with Highway 63 is less than two miles from the Highway 63/Route AC intersection, requiring a costly traffic study, which Sapp declines to pay for unless the annexation and zoning are approved.
The development will require costly improvements to the existing roads and extended roads, but it’s unclear how much of the burden the public will shoulder.
The size of the development would require a $3 million improvement to the Clear Creek pump station and the Mill Creek outfall sewer; if voters don’t approve a sewer rate hike this November, there would be no other source of money to do so.
Plans for several parts of the development would have to change, reducing some buildings in height and increasing setbacks of buildings.

The report from the city staff is a blow to Sapp, who contracted to buy the Philips property in December 2002, with the intention of developing homes, townhouses, apartments and retail and commercial developments on the existing rolling pastureland. This is the third attempt to rezone the land since 1980. Voters defeated a plan that would have brought it into the city last summer.

Though he doesn’t own Philip’s farm, Sapp has poured tens of thousands of dollars into consulting firms to plan a development he claims won’t hurt the Little Bonne Femme Watershed, diverting runoff from the development away from Gans and Clear creeks. The proposed development has attracted opposition from neighbors and environmentalists who say it would damage the ecosystem.

The report will be discussed at the 7 p.m. Aug. 21 regular meeting of the Columbia Planning & Zoning Commission in council chambers in the Daniel Boone Building, 701 E. Broadway. Commission members will have a chance to have a more full understanding of the project at their 5 p.m. work session at the mezzanine meeting room of the Boone building, said Jerry Wade, chairman of the commission.

Wade declined to comment on the city staff’s report, saying that the matter would be discussed publicly before the whole board next week.

When asked how much weight city staff reports carry in the commission’s decision-making process on whether to grant the zoning changes, he said, "We take every bit into account." The commission will also consider the input from project proponents and opponents at its full commission meeting, he said.

The city staff regularly prepares reports on the effects of proposed developments to city services before annexations, particularly if they are large ones, said city Planning & Development Department Director Roy Dudark.

Neither Sapp nor his representatives could be reached for comment this morning.

Sapp has offered to sell between 132 and 149 acres of the land to the city so that it might be used as a park, including the property’s 40-acre lake. Mayor Darwin Hindman has expressed interest in the sales tax revenue growth that the Philips development would bring. Sapp has proposed splitting the cost of the Highway 63 interchange project, with the cost being reimbursed through a Transportation Development District sales tax for businesses within the development.

Currently, the land is located in the county and is zoned agricultural with a single-family home and scattered structures.