As Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort’s footprint has advanced south and east, the city has adjusted its planning map accordingly.
The Hot Springs Board of Directors approved the latest revision Tuesday night, adopting an ordinance that rezoned a block Oaklawn recently acquired as part of its $100 million build out. Bound by Chelsea and Sunnyside streets to the north and south and Sellers and Ewing streets to the west and east, the block was rezoned from a residential to a commercial area.
A racetrack, which the city considers Oaklawn for the purposes of the planning map, is allowed as a conditional use in the Regional Commercial/Open Display District, or C-4 zone, the board converted the block to earlier this week. According to the table of permitted uses in the city’s planning code, a racetrack is not a permitted use in any of the city’s more than a dozen zoning designations. It has conditional-use status in the C-4 zone only.
That status requires additions to Oaklawn’s site plan to be approved by the Hot Springs Planning Commission. In March, the commission approved the construction of the hotel and casino expansion, determining that the additions were accessory uses to the racetrack. The planning code defines accessory use as identical or customarily found in connection with the premise’s main use.
Oaklawn’s request to build a track storage facility on the newly acquired block was scheduled to go before the commission Thursday. The board’s action earlier this week was a prerequisite to bringing the request before the commission.
In July, the board adopted an ordinance that rezoned formerly residential areas of Sunnyside, Sellers, Highland and Tuggle streets as commercial areas. Ordinances adopted last month turned over the alley running through the site for the proposed storage facility and Tuggle Street west of the Highland Street intersection to Oaklawn, which had acquired property on both sides of the former city rights of way.
According to information provided to the board, Oaklawn has acquired property behind the barn area to relocate facilities, such as the staging area for racetrack maintenance equipment, displaced by the construction of the 200-room hotel and expanded gaming area.
According to property records, Oaklawn has acquired more than 20 parcels in the Fairdale Addition and Forrest Hills subdivisions east of the racetrack and Norton’s Addition Subdivision to the south since voters passed an amendment to the state Constitution last year that required the state to grant Oaklawn a casino gaming license. The ballot title stipulated the casino be located at or adjacent to the racetrack and existing gaming area.
The constitutional mandate has led to significant changes in the area around Oaklawn, including the addition of an RV Park that’s in development on Golf Links Road. The horse-racing themed accommodations that will be built on the former site of Butler Mobile Home Park displaced about 20 residents, one of the project developers said earlier this year.
The board rezoned the 3.29-acre property after the developers acquired it in May.
Planning and Development Director Kathy Sellman said with owners who have passed away or who were preparing to relocate, many of the affected properties were in transition prior to Oaklawn’s expansion. According to information provided to the board, the area mostly comprises modest single-family homes and manufactured homes.
“I think change was going to happen,” Sellman said. “As it happens, Oaklawn is the change agent at the moment.”