Work is underway on Muller Lane Parkway south of Buckeye Road.
Work is underway on Muller Lane Parkway even as county commissioners debated how to best proceed on Thursday.
Both Commissioners Wes Rice and Danny Tarkanian asked Park Ranch Holdings owner David Park straight out what it would take to move the issue forward.
“What will it take to get you and the county on the same page,” Rice asked “I hate the thought of eminent domain, and this has gone on and on and on. The county is going to be building Muller Parkway, and I would prefer it was built so everybody is happy.”
Park indicated he would be willing to work with someone to negotiate something that works for both sides.
Commissioners Mark Gardner, Sharla Hales and Nate Tolbert voted in favor of seeking eminent domain. Rice and Tarkanian voted against.
County Manager Jenifer Davidson presented options to the county commissioners.
“The county considers eminent domain as an option of last resort,” she said. “It is not a tool for arbitrary or self-serving processes.”
The question is whether the county must build a drainage ditch, which county attorney A.J. Hames said it does not.
Both he and County Engineer Jeremy Hutchings said the ditch would carry less than a 5 percent of the combined 100-year-flows from Buckeye and Pine Nut creeks.
According to the county, fixing that would best be achieved by working upstream on those two drainages.
Park attorney Nicole Scott argued that the county was absolutly obligated to build the drainage ditch.
Tolbert said he supported the county and Park working together.
“We don’t want to build a road to nowhere,” he said. “I support this motion as a matter of procedure, but it serves only as a fallback. We must commit in good faith to engage in sincere discussions to ensure the construction of this project for the benefit of this community.”
The county received the right of way for four lanes of Muller Lane Parkway, a multi-modal trail and a drainage ditch in exchange for increasing the density on the property to accommodate 2,500 homes in 2019, Gardner said on Thursday.
“They did not give us this land for free,” he said, pointing out that prior to the agreement, the Park property was zoned for one home per 19 acres.
According to the agreement, if the county doesn’t build two lanes of Muller Parkway by the end of the year it will lose the right-of-way.
Hutchings said that a conditional letter of map revision is undergoing at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which should be completed in June.
Park filed a challenge to Douglas County’s flood management with the federal agency in December the day before District Judge Tod Young ruled against a preliminary injunction trying to stop the county from building the road. Young found that while the agreement refers to improving drainage as a goal, it doesn’t discuss how that would be done. The year after the development agreement was approved, Park sold the property that is proposed for Ashland Park. The agreement included allowing the developer to “divert water from subject property into adjacent Park Ranch Holdings property,” the judge observed.
Virginia Ranch is obligated to build four lanes between Grant Avenue and Toler Lane. Â The Ashland Park segment directly north of Toler is the subject of litigation that is scheduled to go to trial in December.