Attempt to halt: Veterans plan press conference at cemetery

Local veterans held a press conference at Fayetteville National Cemetery to address what they call a "crisis" — the potential sale of the old Washington County Sale Barn for apartment development.

BY ROBIN MERO Northwest Arkansas Times-The livestock sale barn is closing after its final sale Thursday. Veterans are trying to raise $2 million to buy the 9 acres south of Martin Luther King Boulevard and west of School Avenue, but there’s already a contract for sale between owner Billy Joe Bartholomew and Campus Crest LLC of North Carolina. The contract is contingent upon a rezoning request to allow apartments.

The cemetery will outgrow its 14 acres in 2023, said Jim Buckner, and the only direction to grow is east onto sale barn land. The first task is to stop the rezoning he said, then a funding campaign could begin.

Buckner said Bartholomew and Campus Crest have not told him the contract price, but "someone whispered $1.8 million, so we’re going with $2 million."

Through small private donations, $2,475 has been raised so far, Ron Butler of the Regional National Cemetery Improvement Corporation said Tuesday. The RNCIC has nonprofit status to collect and hold the funds.

Bartholomew has said veterans never approached him about buying the land until after the contract was entered. He wishes he could afford to give the land to the cemetery, but needs to sell, he told the city’s Planning Commission in May.

Planning Commissioners supported the rezoning, but the City Council tabled the request June 16, saying they need more time to consider the issue.

City Attorney Kit Williams said the City Council’s decision must be based on compatibility.

Aldermen can’t decide based on who they want to own the land, only whether the rezoning request, Downtown General, is compatible with the neighborhood, which is largely residential.

"The City Council can’t abuse their discretion and say, ‘We want veterans to be able to buy, so we’ll rezone residential agriculture’ to exclude apartments," he said.

The issue is complicated because the current zoning is Industrial-1, so the request is actually a downzoning to less intense uses.

A sale barn and industrial zoning may not be proper next to residences, but that’s the result of a massive citywide rezoning in the early 1970s, Williams said.

"Zoning was invented so properties don’t have detrimental effects on each other, and I don’t think that rezoning was done the way we’d do it now. Zoning gets modified, adapted and approved over time," Williams said.

Williams said he doesn’t envy the decision aldermen face.

"If I was an alderman, I’d wring my hands and say, I wish I was city attorney so I didn’t have to vote," he said.

Campus Crest LLC apartments will appeal to university students, and Buckner said cemetery officials are concerned students will abuse the cemetery, the burial ground of almost 8,000 veterans