Okay, good evening, everybody.

We are going to go ahead and call the meeting to order, but I would like to just go ahead and announce we are having a little bit of a technical difficulty with some of our uh with council members being able to access Wi-Fi.

So we are going to get started, and then if we need to pause, we will, though I am hopeful that situation will be remedied.

So I would now like to call the March 17th meeting of the Fayetteville City Council to order.

Clerk Paxton, will you please call the roll?

Mr.

Stafford here.

Dr.

Jones?

Here.

Ms.

Moore?

Here.

Mr.

Wheedaker?

Here.

Mr.

Berna?

Here.

Ms.

Bunch?

Here.

Ms.

Turk?

Here.

Minister Jones?

Mayor Rollin.

Here.

Please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Okay.

First on our agenda is a report from the nominating committee, which I believe council members should have in paper form.

Um is that you, Mr.

Berna, or is that Mr.

Stafford?

Stafford.

Okay, Mr.

Stafford.

I do not see that in front of me.

Oh.

Oh.

So uh the nominating committee had two days of meeting where we interviewed all the candidates.

And uh the results are as follows uh for our committees and board recommendations.

Uh for active transportation advisory committee.

We nominate Herschel Hartford for the American Disabilities Representative term ending December 31st, 2027.

For animal services, no applications were received.

Uh for board of adjustments, Sam Ada for an unexpired term, public at large, uh ending March 31, 2027.

For the Black Heritage Preservation Commission, uh two appointments.

Wendell Huggins, member at large term ending December 31st, 2028, and Nikita Mitchell, member at large term ending December 31st, 2028.

Uh Civil Service Commission, uh two recommendations.

Tommy Flowers Davis for public at our public at large term ending March 31st, 2032, and Peter Reagan, uh public at large term ending March 31st, 2032.

For construction board of adjustments and appeals, uh two positions, Ron Lord, alternate member term ending March 31st, 2031, and Jacob Sheetsley, alternate member term ending March 31st, 2031.

For the Fayetteville Arts Council, two appointments.

Bevan Baskin, Arts and Culture Resident, term ending June 30th, 2029, and William Watson, working artist term ending June 30th, 2027.

We're not done yet.

For the Food Commission, three appointments.

Marty Schmidt for the food retailer representative, term ending March 31st, 2029.

Emily Stone, citizen actively engaged in active agriculture term ending March 31st, 2029.

And Eliza Herrera, Hunger Relief Programs Representative, term ending March 31st, 2028.

For planning commission, we have uh two appointments.

Fred Goley, citizen at large, term ending March 31st, 2029, and Hugh Brewer, citizen at large term ending March 31st, 2029.

Uh and we are forwarding the rest of these nominations.

These are nominations made by the mayor and the AMP Commission and the Housing Authority.

Uh for the Fayetteville Public Facilities Board, Austin Thomas, public at large term ending December 31st, 2030.

Fayetteville Public Library Board of Trustees, reappointment of Rob Qualls, public at large term ending April 1, 2031.

And then for the Advertising and Promotion Commission, uh two positions, Elvis Moya, tourism industry representative, term ending March 31st, 2030, and Megan Tyree, unexpired tourism industry owner or manager term ending March 31st, 2028.

And then for the uh Housing Uh Board, uh the Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, Alex Brown, unexpired public at large term ending December 31st, 2028.

And that concludes our recommendations for appointments to our boards and commissions.

And make a motion to accept the recommendations as presented by the council or by the committee.

Got it.

Okay, we have a motion.

Second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second.

Clerk Packsen, will you please call the roll on accepting the nominating committee recommendations?

Mr.

Stafford.

Yes.

Dr.

Jones.

Yes.

Ms.

Moore.

Yes.

Mr.

Wheedaker.

Yes.

Mr.

Barna?

Yes.

Ms.

Batch?

Yes.

Ms.

Turk?

Yes.

And Minister Jones is absent.

Got it.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

That brings us to our consent agenda.

Which I will now read.

Item A1, 2026 USGS Joint Funding Agreement.

A2, aftermarket vehicle parts, supplies and services.

A three, purchase of replacement transportation plow trucks from Olatha Ford Sales Incorporated.

A4, 36 North Network Solutions Trailer Bid Award.

A5, Drake Field Garver LLC Master Agreement, and Task Order Number 1.

A6, Downtown Plan Consultant Contract.

A 7, acceptance of the 2026 Certified Local Government Grant Award.

A eight contract amendment with Hawkins Weir Engineers.

A nine, solid waste hauling agreement, a 10, cleanup and site preparation at the former police range.

A11, allocation of county hazmat response revenue.

And that is all.

Ms.

Moore, make a motion to approve the consent agenda as RAM.

Second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second.

Clerk Paxson, will you please call the roll?

Mr.

Stafford.

Yes.

Dr.

Jones?

Yes.

Ms.

Moore?

Yes.

Mr.

Wheedaker?

Yes.

Mr.

Berna?

Yes.

Ms.

Bunch.

Yes.

Ms.

Turk?

Yes.

Minister Jones.

Yes.

Great.

Thank you.

That brings us to Section B of our agenda, which is a public hearing.

It is a private club application for Caldi Investments.

An ordinance to approve the application of Mohammed Caldi on behalf of Caldi Investments LLC for a permit to operate the Muse Lounge as a private club in the city of Fayetteville at 7 East Mountain Street.

Kit.

Thank you, Mayor.

Whereas Act 1112 of 2017, which amended the permitting procedure set forth in Arkansas Code annotated 3-9-222 for private clubs in the state of Arkansas, requires that the city council to approve, quote, by ordinance an application for a permit to operate as a private club, unquote, before the applicant can submit the application to the state alcoholic beverage control division.

Now therefore it be ordained by the city council, the city of Fayetteville, Arkansas, Section 1, that the City Council, the City of Fayetteville, Arkansas hereby approves the application of Mohammed Khadi on behalf of Cadi.

I hope I got that right.

Well, I'm sure the chief you'll correct me.

Investments LLC, a copy of which is attached to the agenda request form for a permit to operate the Muse Lounge as a private club in the city of Fayville at 7 East Mountain Street.

Thank you, Kit.

Chief Reynolds, please go ahead.

Yeah, good evening, Mayor.

Good evening, Council members.

So as Kit mentioned, a new business, the Muse Lounge, is being proposed and going to be located at uh 7 East Mountain Street, just a couple of blocks away.

And they're requesting that private uh club permit from the Arkansas Alcohol Beverage Control Board.

As Kit mentioned, uh a couple years ago, uh the legislature uh passed uh the 3-9-2-2, which does require the city council to first approve by ordinance an application uh for an establishment to operate as a private club within uh their city.

And uh so once that ordinance is approved, the applicant can then seek that private club permit from the uh ABC.

Uh the application uh to the ABC is included in your agenda packets, and all the required documentation appears uh certainly to be in order.

Uh the applicant and owner, uh Mr.

Mohammed uh Khalid has owned and operated several businesses in Fayetteville uh over the past uh 20 years or so and uh we uh did have or or Mr.

Cleed did have four uh uh violations with the alcohol uh beverage uh control board.

I'll go over each one of those.

So at the Fez uh Hookah Lounge and Cafe, which was located on 207 North Thompson Street back on December 6th, and this was in uh 2007, he received an ABC violation for possession of unstamped and on or untaxed uh tobacco.

And then the Tangiers Mediterranean Food Establishment, which was located at 2800, 280 North College on December 28th of 2011, he received an ABC violation for selling tobacco products to to miners.

Uh then he owned Wings, uh which is on Dixon Street.

It was located at 644 West Dixon back on December 7th of 2012.

He had an ABC violation for failure to pay his sales tax and a closure uh from ABC was placed on his business at that time.

And then in June uh 14th of 2017, he received an ABC violation for delivering controlled beverages uh by another uh retailer.

Uh now that's my understanding that he basically gave his alcohol to another business when he closed, which is uh an ABC violation.

So uh FPD, the Fayetteville Police Department, we've responded uh to those two businesses owned by Mr.

Khalid.

The two businesses that he owned uh were the Cork and Keg on Spring Street, as I mentioned, and the Fez hookah lounge and cafe.

Nothing serious that we responded to outside of a normal business or a bar.

Um we had some business checks, we had a assault report there, loud music, uh, but we did have the dispensing alcohol after hours and the violation of the underage uh serving of tobacco to two juveniles that I mentioned earlier, the ABC violation.

So in addition, Mr.

Khalid uh was referred to the Fayetteville City Prosecutor for failure to pay his hotel, motel, and restaurant taxes for the Cork and Keg.

Uh and I'll give you the following dates that that occurred.

So for a an eight-month period leading up to January 20th, 2022, Mr.

Khalid failed to pay his HMR taxes, and then for a two-month period leading up to August 23rd, 2023, Mr.

Kleed failed to pay the full amount of his HMR taxes.

And then finally, on a four-month period leading up to February 15th, 2024, Mr.

Kleed failed to pay the full amount of his HMR taxes as well.

I believe Mr.

Khalid uh is here tonight.

Uh I think he has sold all of uh these prior businesses.

He can explain that and certainly answer any questions uh that the council may have about these past indiscretions, and I'll be uh standing by if you have any questions for me as well.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chief Mr.

Kleed.

Yes.

Good evening.

Yes, please go ahead.

Um questions.

Oh, got it.

You're just I didn't know if you wanted to make saying yes, that's fine.

Do we have any questions for Mr.

Khalid?

Dr.

Jones.

Yes.

Uh uh my question centers around um the uh issue that Chief Reynolds mentioned as it relates to juveniles.

Uh we have a college campus here, so if you could explain in the future, how would you rectify that?

Or how did you fix fix that going forward?

Well uh when I when I owned those businesses, I was in my I was a college student, and so I understand how it goes.

Oh, sorry.

Thank you.

I was a college student when I owned those businesses and uh and it's always mostly employees and uh doing business with 20 years, you learn how to train employees a lot better and control the situation.

So uh the last bar we had the quirk and cake, we didn't have violations like that anymore.

It was in the beginning of my business career, so I think we could control it a lot better now.

Okay, so that I'm sorry, so that took place at Cork and Cake.

Yes.

Okay, okay, okay.

I sold that like two years ago.

Okay, but we didn't have those violations to it.

It was it was in the beginning in 2006.

I was 23 years old.

So okay.

So what plan do you have in place?

I may have missed that.

Yeah, well, we we'll have a door person in the busy days, Friday, Saturday, we'll have someone at the door, and and on slow days, the button would definitely check IDs before serving anybody.

And like I said, it's a training process, and thank you.

Got it.

Do we have other questions?

Um Ms.

Turk.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I noticed that there's been several occasions where you haven't paid the HMR taxes on time, and that's fairly recently.

And uh so could you um address how you plan to remedy that if we grant you this license?

Yeah, it was just uh a financial difficulties at the time after COVID, of course, and then the first time was the uh up to 2008, but we uh we're in a better position right now.

Um my wife was in work and uh she works and so we we we we'd be able to afford paying and and so you're you're committing to paying on time every time and if you and if you don't do that, um I guess we'll hear about it.

Yes, yeah, yeah.

Well we always try to pay on time, you know.

Okay, because there were I I ran out of room here, but there were uh at least four or five uh delays in your payment, and that always causes me a little concern.

Yes, well, we we always try to pay and if we can't, and then we when we work with it, and we always call the city and work with them and pay on time.

I mean try to pay on time.

Okay, thank you.

We'll try to be more punctual about it.

So Ms.

Moore.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um so I just Chief Reynolds had stated that you potentially have sold off the other businesses, and this is potentially going to be the only club business that you're operating.

Is that correct?

Can you help us to understand that?

That'd be the only one I'd be operating.

Okay, just this one that you're applying for today.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

And and I do share, you know, the same, you know, hesitation around the HMR being not, you know, it was somewhat recently, and understand that you know, businesses can undergo like some hardships.

Um, I guess with you opening this new business, kind of similar to why council member Jones, uh Dr.

Jones was talking about about corrective actions.

I mean, do you have kind of a game plan going forward with this new business that you're opening that's got a similar model to it, right?

Just wondering what your thoughts are on being able to remit those on a timely basis.

The model might may be similar, but we we learn more from running other businesses and we have more funds I could say to sustain the business and be able to pay if you know if we have a hard month or it's slow then we'd be able to pay for my own you know savings.

So thank thank you.

I appreciate you explaining that a little bit further for us.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Um we'll now open it up to public comment so you may go you can go ahead and and have a seat.

Do we have any members of the public that would like to comment on this?

Okay.

And I do not see any, so um Mr.

Williams being a public hearing, I will bring it back to the council just as I would with any other ordinance.

Is that correct?

That's correct, Mayor.

Okay.

All right, I will bring it back to the council.

Ms.

Moore.

I just have a question.

I don't know if it's for the city attorney's office, but I mean we recognize our small businesses, right, can struggle and get behind.

Um do we have avenues or in the event that he opens this business, and that can be the hardest days when you first start a new um venture uh to struggle to make all the payments for things.

If if someone's struggling, how do they reach out to the city and like let us know if they're gonna struggle to have remittance?

I mean, is there an avenue for that?

Well, let me explain a little bit about HMR taxes.

Uh these are not taxes on the business.

This these are taxes that have been collected by the business and supposed to be turned over to the city.

And so that's one reason why we uh if that does not happen, we will prosecute uh them for doing that because they're actually taking money from the citizens and then not turning it back over to the city as they're supposed to.

Um if they do not pay their uh taxes, uh especially the alcohol taxes, then we can remove their alcohol license, and at that point, then the state would probably follow suit.

I don't think the same is true probably for HMR taxes.

Uh I don't think we've actually we've prosecuted them before, but we haven't uh closed the business down for not paying HMR taxes.

So we do have uh some power as a city council.

I think the ABC has more power, and uh so that if a place is causing problems, then the ABC will normally take some action.

But the reason I think the legislature established this procedure is so that uh the city council would have an opportunity uh to look at the record and look at recommendations and then make a decision whether or not you believe this is a a proper uh person that is seeking to get this uh ABC license, and basically that you are almost recommending to the ABC that they be granted a license.

I mean the ABC makes her own decision, they don't just listen to us, but this is the one place you really have much discretion in whether or not you believe this business should be granted a license.

Thank you, Kat.

Thank you.

Ms.

Turk.

Um I think Mike was ahead of me, but okay.

No, no.

Um go ahead.

So um Kit, um, I thought that these businesses were shut down for lack of payment of sales tax uh quite a few years ago.

So uh did the city shut them down?

How did that work?

Now the state enforces the sales tax and then they remit it back to us after they've collected it from business or remit part of it back to us, they keep theirs and then remit it back to us, but that's totally a state uh thing.

And so uh and they enforce that pretty pretty directly and quickly.

Uh there's been a whole bunch of business in Fayble through the years that have had those giant padlocks put on the door and so one last question for you.

Uh, when there's a delay in payment of the HMR tax, do we find the businesses or or not?

A fine is possible, but generally uh we are much more interested in collecting that.

And you know, it's not like this is the only business that hadn't paid HMR taxes.

Uh we are constantly uh working to get them paid, working with the accounting department, which lets us know when there's a problem, and then the city prosecutors work with them and and try to collect the money as quickly as possible.

There can be fines.

Uh, but the main goal is to get the taxes paid.

Mr.

Wheedaker.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um you know I have one question for staff, which may take a little bit of research, and that is simply are we at ground zero?

Are there any current prosecutions?

Is are the books balanced and you know we're at ground zero and ready to move forward, or are there outstanding prosecutions underway currently?

I'm not aware of any uh ongoing prosecutions at this point in time, but uh I will also say that uh a lot of that is actually fairly confidential.

The process city prosecutor has to know.

Uh I we used to have it uh published about who is not paying taxes, which restaurants were not paying taxes.

The legislature said no, you can't do that, so we don't do that anymore.

So I can't, I'm not really sure exactly right now uh what the situation is.

Okay.

Thank you.

Minister, I'm sorry, sorry, please go ahead.

Um, I I think I didn't ask the question, but um Mr.

Khalid running two businesses while he was in college.

I was gonna ask, you know, when did he sleep?

I'm not quite sure how you do that.

So um four violations over 20 years uh kind of resembles some of our driving records and you know parking tickets or speeding tickets.

So um I want to keep the time frame in mind to be fair to him in all honesty.

And this gentleman has generated sales tax for our city by operating his business, and so I'm deeply appreciative of that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well said.

Minister Jones.

Thank you, Mayor.

Attorney Kitts.

So even if the city council approves this, this is a prerequisite step prior to ADC, and they could make a choice to approve or not deny.

So we're not the final approval.

That's absolutely correct.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, so we would either need to oh go ahead, Mr.

Burner.

Mayor to make a motion to suspend the rules go third and final reading.

Okay.

Second that motion.

We have a second, either from Minister Jones or Mr.

Weedaker.

Uh Clerk Paxson.

Will you please call the roll?

Mr.

Stafford?

Yes.

Dr.

Jones?

Yes.

Ms.

Moore?

Yes.

Mr.

Wheataker?

Yes.

Mr.

Berna?

Yes.

Ms.

Bunch?

Yes.

Ms.

Turk?

Yes.

Minister Jones.

Yes.

And Norms approve the application of Mohammed Khalidi on behalf of Claudi Investments LLC for a permit to operate the Mews Lounge as a private club in the city of Fayetteville at 7 East Mountain Street.

Okay.

Clerk Paxson, will you please call the roll for the final vote?

Mr.

Staffer?

Yes.

Dr.

Jones?

Yes.

Ms.

Moore?

Yes.

Mr.

Wheataker?

Yes.

Mr.

Berta?

Yes.

Yes.

Ms.

Bunch?

Yes.

Ms.

Turk?

No.

Minister Jones.

Yes.

Okay.

Mr.

Khalidi, that permit is approved.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um moving on to unfinished business.

First is a bit of housekeeping.

Can I am being told by IT team that and by Mr.

Kirth that we are now able to access the internet?

Can you all confirm with me, members of the council?

Okay, great.

That will bring us to the old business section of our meeting.

First up is item C1.

Before we read this again, I would just like to remind everyone for the record that out of an abundance of caution, I and in consultation with the uh city attorney and with my staff, I have made the decision to recuse myself from this item.

Um it's not improper for me to still be here and preside over the meeting as I explained two weeks ago.

However, um, in the event that the um mayor's vote would be required, I will not be uh one way or another able to do that, nor will I speak about this item due to just um ensuring that there's no perceived conflict due to my husband's employer.

So um at the March 5th council meeting, the ordinance was left on the second reading, and I will uh turn it over to Mr.

Kurth to see if there is any new oh I'm sorry, Kit, we will go back to you first and then over to Mr.

Kurth.

Well, we uh need to go to a third and final reading, I think.

So if you want to read the title, you can or I can read the title.

Great.

Okay.

An ordinance to approve a planned zoning district entitled PZD 2025-5 for approximately nine acres, located at North Crossover Road and East Zion Road in Ward 3.

Kit.

Be it ordained by the City Council of the City of Fayetteville, Arkansas, Section 1 at the City Council.

The City of Fayetteville, Arkansas hereby approves PCD 2025-05 as described in exhibits A map.

Exhibit B, legal description, exhibit C PZD booklet attached to the planning division's agenda memo, which allows a development of approximately seven acres of commercial uses and two acres for detention, drainage features, and natural spaces.

And section two, that the official zoning map of the city of Fayetteville, Arkansas, is hereby amended reflective zoning change provided in section one.

Okay.

Thank you, Kent.

Mr.

Kirth.

Thank you, Mayor.

Jonathan Kurt, Development Services Director.

As a reminder to council, uh there were a few items that we touched on at the last council meeting.

Uh there were concerns that had been expressed about the future of the Chandler Crossing PCD beyond the scope of this request here.

As a brief reminder, ultimately any changes to that PCD will be subject to the city council's consideration.

That will have implications for updating this property and this project's entitlement.

There's a subdivision that's been approved today, and what's being proposed before you is to modify a portion of that PZD so that it can uh uh be developed with a grocery store and convenience store near the street.

Uh there is also a question about the design for the crossover and zion intersection, uh, which I shared that staff is engaged with RDOT about uh uh having a more uh more substantial crossing installed uh along the at the eastern portion where Zion will be extended through the property, uh designed as one of our more uh standard trail crossings as opposed to just striping on the street.

Uh finally there was some discussion about uh what would be required with a traffic study and analysis uh with staff sharing that that would be a necessary component of of this development when it comes through.

And finally, the applicant shared a site plan and drainage exhibits, which I subsequently sent out to the council.

Uh as of today, uh there were three outstanding items I wanted to touch on that had come up since the last council meeting.

Uh this included accent data uh first and foremost.

I believe it's council member Berna had asked for some uh similar uh intersections in town or comparable intersections in town, and the police department uh offered uh information about College Avenue and Joyce and crossover road admission uh as comparable or as the specified comparables.

Um if it's helpful to the council, I broke down what those would look like as it relates to the citywide data.

Uh looking at College Avenue and Joyce, uh about 2.2% or it represents about 2.2% of the injuries in our street network and about 1.7% of the uh vehicle damage incidents and 1.7% of the total incidents or car accidents citywide.

Uh crossover road admission boulevard or highway uh 45 uh if you prefer, uh that was a much lower rate as 0.8% across the board uh with no fatalities at either intersection.

Uh additionally, a question about topography and slope on the site uh was posed, uh to which I uh put together the the exhibit you see here.

Uh it is uh as the council may recall, a relatively flat site, but it does uh certainly slope to the north and northeast specifically.

Uh that amount of slope varies from about one and a half percent to three percent.

Uh however, if you visited the property, you also know that there has been a significant amount of grading work that's been going on uh and uh to come juxtapose uh what existed uh at the time of that um uh at that topography date data was collected.

Uh this is the grading exhibit that has been uh submitted to our engineering department uh to help work through some of the noise on this uh since it is a lot of information on one document.

Uh the black arrows that you can see indicate roughly the slope of the property, which indicates that they're consistently intending to maintain uh generally the same uh flow direction of uh stormwater or runoff from this property to the north and east.

As it relates to that, uh there was also a request how this property relates to uh off-site water bodies, uh which there are two prominent ones.

Uh you can see on the lower portion of the exhibit here in faint pink.

Uh, that is the property that the city council is considering for the PZD this evening.

Uh it uh as the two previous exhibits showed, the property flows to the north and east, uh, where it'll ultimately enter Hilton Creek, about 600 feet away at its closest.

Uh that flows northwesterly, uh ultimately onto North Lake Fayetteville, which is about a half mile to the northwest of this property.

Um that said, uh again as a reminder, staff is recommending in favor of this request.

Uh the planning commission forwarded it to city council by a vote of six to one.

And mayor, I have Will Kelstrom here and uh some members of their design team uh that would like to present to this item.

Okay.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Mr.

Kelstrom.

And if you could introduce the other members, I apologize.

I didn't have names.

Uh good evening, uh, council.

This is Will Kelstrom, and um this is Jonathan Barry, and this is Josh Haley.

Jonathan is from CEI, who is our engineer on the project, and ESI is the engineer for Chandler Crossing.

Um of all the questions and and concerns that have been asked on this project.

I think that some of the uh last outstanding concerns that haven't been addressed are addressed are drainage and more in particular um a a sort of combined drainage plan showing how the two developments work together.

So since the last meeting, we've had several meetings with the ESI where we've we've coordinated, put our plans together, um, and and this is what we've produced is an exhibit that I shared with Jonathan yesterday.

So what you were looking at is essentially our drainage plan combined with the drainage plan for Chandler Crossing.

Um so I I will note here that it's sort of unconventional to have two developers put their drainage plans together for two different developments.

However, at the same time, I can see why everyone had these concerns and wanted to see that.

So we we've gone through the trouble of putting that together.

Um what you were looking at again is our proposed drainage plans, which we would uh propose later in large scale development, as well as the already approved drainage plans for Chandler Crossing, which have been recalculated and have our uh drainage incorporated into it.

Um, all everything that you're looking at besides the blue ponds is highly um conceptual.

We are not here to present amended plans or preliminary plats for Chandler Crossing.

We're here to talk about our drainage plan and how it works with theirs, but again, we wanted to put something together that sort of shows a comprehensive plan.

Um and so now I'm gonna let uh Jonathan Barry sort of discuss what we have planned for our drainage, and then afterwards um Josh Daly is going to kind of explain how that works with their drainage plans hello everybody.

Uh so as you can see with this plan, uh we're focusing on our nine acres, which is highlighted in red.

Uh, we went through uh process of uh preliminary grading and uh drainage analysis to come up with this plan.

Uh we all we are draining all of our water, the full nine acres and um into the nine-acre parcel or a nine acre or the two-acre pond.

Sorry.

Um using multiple uh water quality devices from the drainage manual, including four bays, um the uh man the uh pond here at the end, and it all drains into Chandler Crossing.

Um our flows are less.

If you look up at the at the top of the page, the proposed pond for uh the market across over, our flows are less than what was pre-existing going into pond D that is already approved for per channel crossing.

Um, as you can see with the uh exhibit there on the lower right hand corner, we have reduced the um impervious area by an acre.

So we have an acre of additional green space on this base compared to the original Chandler Crossing design.

And with that said, we are coordinating with ESI.

This pond drains into their pond, and Josh is here to kind of explain any changes that we would have on that.

Hi everyone, Josh Haley with ESI.

Uh to kind of reiterate and just uh double check.

Um Chandler Crossing, we've already approved me.

We we've gone through the design process.

We have an approved drainage report and plan that is currently under grading permit and actively under construction.

Um we've been coordinating with CE to verify that their uh proposal is you know not impeding ours and making any flows worse.

They are actually reducing the flows further from what uh we were proposing with our plans and uh happy to answer any questions you may have as far as that.

Great, thank you.

Um, council, do we have any questions either for staff or the applicant or either of the engineers that are here?

Okay, then I'm gonna turn this matter over to public comment.

Thank you all so much.

Yeah, don't go too far.

We're not done.

But yes.

Okay, do we have any members of the public that would like to comment about this item?

If so, please just come up to the microphone.

Hello, uh happy St.

Patrick's Day.

Um my name's Nick Anthony.

I live on 3301 East Zion Road, and uh my property is kind of like in the elbow of that uh development that's being proposed.

Um I visited with both teams that are before this particular meeting, and I I had a conversation about about the map that you had just seen.

And you know, the the comment was made that you know this is unusual.

The two different developers or two different engineering groups are trying to merge the maps, and you know, last time we talked about marrying the two projects and how important that was.

And you know, we've talked through a few things, and uh we have uh an opportunity to to really maybe pull this thing together.

But I asked, you know, they made the statement that it is unusual, and I guess my request to you guys if you do move forward with this project, I challenge you to give unusual oversight to this project.

I don't think it's a unnecessary request or weird at all.

Um there's a lot of people that have had a lot of flooding problems with this, you know, with the water going into Hilton Creek and then on into Lake Fayetteville, and there are real concerns that this will continue if you know if this isn't handled correctly.

One thing I will also caution you, and yeah, I'm not trying to tell you all how to do your business, but maybe I am to some degree, but I'm not sure how much coordination when you do on these serve these uh traffic surveys that you actually uh work with Springdale on what they have going on because just uh a little bit east of our um location is another huge development that's going in that probably would feed water into Hilton Creek.

So I ask you to do due diligence on that project to kind of see how these projects this Chandler crossing, this grocery store thing, uh the water coming out of this other development that's in the Springdale area, not in Fayetteville, but in just beyond Copper Creek, um, how that's going to impact this overall project.

Um those are my special requests.

Um you guys have a big uh decision to make ahead of you.

There are a lot of people concerned about the future of this project, and again, I just asked you to uh really give this project oversight if you do go forward with it because this could turn ugly pretty quick.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

We have anyone else, please come up.

Hi.

Hi.

My name's Colleen Gaston.

I live at 3270 Rom Orchard Road, Fayetteville, um, approximately three miles by road from this um proposed development.

And I spoke multiple times five years ago in opposition to the development that was planned at that time, or proposed at that time.

My concerns were primarily the impact on um Lake Fayetteville, Hilton Creek, and the potential for increased flooding in this area, which is historically had a lot of flooding.

Um I'm not necessarily opposed to a grocery store store.

It might be convenient for me.

I'm also sort of tired of coming before the city council opposing things.

I you know, I support the growth of Fayetteville in the right way.

Um, but I do think that Lake Fayetteville and the water quality in Lake Fayetteville is very important to um the future of Fayetteville and um an economic source of economic benefit.

So I would just ask that the council seriously consider whether we need um you know the additional concrete that uh 50,000 square foot um grocery store would bring um and the associated stormwater runoff with that.

Um, in addition, the potential threat as with any gas station in this location.

So uh if this does pass, I'll echo what the previous um commenter said that please give the future development um plans strict scrutiny um because this is a sensitive area.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Do we have any other comments?

Gracie, is there anybody that's registered on Zoom to comment?

No.

Okay.

All right, I'm going to turn it back to the council.

And this is, I believe, on the we're still on we're on the third reading, correct?

Third and final reading.

Okay.

I'm not seeing any comments from council.

Oh, and no, you're fine.

You had your head turned.

Go ahead.

Sorry about that.

Um I really struggled with this um project.

I I heard you know that this was unusual, you know, on the drainage to work between both parties.

But historically, this was one PZD that was brought forward and was approved, the annexation and the whole drainage plan and a certain scale of project.

So I don't think it's unusual.

It's unusual when we're asked to change a PZD, right?

That we need to really look at all the circumstances around it.

Um I really struggle when I think about if any of us attended um the luncheon that I think was hosted by Urban Lands Institute.

I'm going back in my memory bank.

Um, but they looked at our um uh cities and they showed us what uh generation was happening per square foot um within our cities, and they pointed out that big box stores that have big parking lots and take up a lot of room in cities are actually not generating at the same rate.

And so, you know, I'm thinking about that as we continue to struggle with infrastructure projects, and we leaned forward with our um community spending about 400 million in bond projects, a lot of those infrastructure, right, and thinking about the strain and stress that happens with these big box retailers.

It feels to me that the scale was right when the PZD was put together originally.

Um it thought about and looked at our future land use plans, it was respectful of thinking about every um area town uh should have the ability to have walkability and livability.

Um I additionally have paused that this was looked at um as again being a smaller retailer.

There was not um the thought that let's put another gas station.

I think we've had conversations on you know what is the threshold in our city about how many uh more gas stations we need because by the very nature of what that's that stop is that someone you know whipping in and you have those points that really I'm struggling with as a mom and thinking about um wanting to you know take my kid from my neighborhood and walk and have that uh uh independence too whenever their teens um having to worry that they're having to navigate something that's gonna have a higher trip generation and at um probably um uh much more ferocity coming off of crossover um aggressively coming into a gas station.

Um so for all of those reasons and thinking about the compatibility of our future land use, um, I'm not supportive of this project in its current form.

I continue to ask the applicant to really look at being at the appropriate scale to the original PZD and hope that they'll continue to consider that and come back to us in the future.

Okay, Minister Jones.

Thank you.

Jonathan, I just had a couple questions.

I think your report that was already a drainage analysis.

Was that completed into Hilton Creek?

The yes is the short answer.

The the existing Chandler Crossing subdivision that was built anticipates draining that direction.

And then I was looking through the documents that were sent to us.

I did see um planning was six to one.

What was staff's recommendation?

I'm sorry, could you repeat the question?

I saw planning's recommendation was six to one.

What was staff's recommendation?

Staff is recommending in favor.

And then my last concern was he brought up some information about working with Spring Jet Springdale and other product projects.

Is this something unnormally that you would do, or is this unusual?

I don't think it's normal or abnormal.

I think that bears guardrails around it that we cannot impose our requirements on developments in Springdale and vice versa.

The standards that this council has adopted for development in Fayetteville can only be applied to Fayetteville.

Uh, whether our standards are more rigorous or subject to more scrutiny, uh, does not mean we can uh coordinate requiring that with Springdale, if that makes sense.

Uh our standards apply in Fayetteville and their standards are probably apply in Springdale.

Uh and generally in most municipalities in Northwest Arkansas, we do not have the ability to require a developer to correct an existing issue.

They can simply not exacerbate it, if that makes sense.

Okay.

Um Mr.

Wiedaker.

Thank you.

Um I appreciate the environmental concerns regarding um gas stations.

Um I think I'm probably more concerned about the previous um phosphorus from the poultry industry in Springdale actually being our single greatest environmental concern for Lake Fayetteville.

I look at um the grocery store.

It is not a uh council member is correct.

The generation of revenue per square foot does not equal the downtown area at all in a in a big box, but it greatly exceeds the sales tax generation or tax that comes to the city from residential.

And so I think that I'm looking at the original property owner selling land, knowing that it's going to impact their PZD, having full knowledge of what they're doing and choosing to say, perhaps I need a capital investment if I'm going to build the housing that I want to build, and selling this piece of land, much like a farmer buys an entire, you know, section of land and sells a corner off to be able to afford to farm the rest of it.

So I'm looking at this as an opportunity to gain a grocery store and to spark the development of housing in that area.

And so for those reasons, I look at the trade-offs and say it it works for me as a project.

Thank you.

All right.

Um Mr.

Burner.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I look at this and it looks looks to me like the developer has uh really gone above and beyond to listen to us as a council and listen to us as a community to uh address the concerns we have.

Um I've heard multiple times about uh you know a walkable community, and this particular piece of property will be a driver to allowing a walkable community to develop behind it.

Um there's commercial all around this particular property presently, except for a cross uh crossover road, and we can't really control that uh crossing uh at this point.

We can't get the state to uh we can't we don't know if the state would approve uh agree to approve that or not.

So I look at this and I I think it's it's a good trade-off uh for that piece of property.

Uh and I will support it, but I will also support the neighbors uh uh concerns and uh desires for us to scrutinize this going forward to make sure that we do develop this, and I would caution and and challenge the developer to continue to listen to to the to the people to make sure we are addressing this in the proper way.

But I'm gonna support this because I do think it is a good project for that particular piece of property that I pass every day of my life going to work.

So I think it's a uh uh a good spot for what they're proposing.

So I will support it.

Minister Jones.

Thank you, Jonathan.

I'm coming right back to you again.

Um what I heard you say was that we can't require developer on an existing issue from another city to comply with our zoning.

Is that what is that correct?

Just want to make sure I'm in line.

Yes, and good question.

I may have melded my comments.

Uh I think it was two parts.

We cannot require development in Springdale to follow our standards was one piece of it.

And it's a general legal standard, which I hope Mr.

Williams will correct me if I get this wrong.

It's a general legal standard that it is difficult to require developers to address existing site issues.

Okay.

Uh generally our standards are limited to not exacerbating any exacerbating any issues.

Thank you for clarifying that.

So what I hear you say is the neighbors that are there now have concerns about flooding.

If this is built to standard based on the current developer, and matter of fact, I think you I think the presentation earlier said the developer was addressing the detention ponds, and it was above and beyond what we requested.

Is that correct?

It is.

There was two components, I believe, to what he said.

One was uh they're proposing to go above and beyond, and the second piece is the existing Chandler Crossing subdivision had its drainage design based on certain assumptions of how much imperviousness, parking lots, roofs, and the this PZV that's before council tonight reduces the assumed amount of imperviousness with the project.

So their assertion is that the net amount of imperviousness will be less with this project than if it were developed under the Chandler Crossing subdivision.

Thank you.

And I think my last comment is I agree with my co-counsel is I think we do need to continue to have oversight and concerns around any issues that come up because developers build and leave and neighbors are stuck with the bill when it comes to flooding.

I don't know if that um Jonathan would be the city of Fayetteville's oversight if some another development causes flooding in our area.

And that's my last question.

Unfortunately, that may not be the case.

A significant amount is in unincorporated Washington County.

Development in Washington County occurs under a different set of standards.

I would describe them as less rigorous.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr.

Stafford.

Thank you, Mayor.

I've kind of been on both sides of this for a while.

But I have to uh I guess rely back on the old adage of don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

And there is some good here.

Um there's a lot of good here.

I think that uh number one, we don't have a grocery store up in that north northeast corner, and I think this can actually reduce some traffic down to Michigan and Crossover over to uh Joyceon College uh to the Walmart uh super center down there.

Uh I do believe that this can bring in tax dollars from surrounding areas to the east and from South uh Springdale benefiting our tax base.

Uh it's not perfectly walkable, but it is somewhat walkable.

And uh for those reasons uh I'm I'm following on the side of supporting this and we'll support this.

Thank you, Bob.

Ms.

Turk.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um so I have a question.

Um, you know, we can't if if this development goes through or um that we can't exacerbate uh a flooding issue and already existing issue, but how do we really monitor that?

How do we really know that this development is not adding to the flooding?

I mean, we have numbers here, but these are theoretical calculations.

They're not they're not real numbers, it's all modeled.

And so I'm I'm just asking a legitimate question because I think we have issues like this all over town, and I'm not aware of any monitoring that's going on.

If that question was directed at me, I'm I at the risk of answering a question with a question.

I'm not sure what you're proposing as an alternative and what makes the the model numbers illegitimate.

They're not necessarily illegitimate, they're just not verified.

And so it's the verification that I'm kind of looking for because I don't I don't think we do any kind of remote sensing or any kind of monitoring uh of whether whether the stream levels will rise or are be diminished or remain the same if we have a project like this.

And as you probably recall, Jonathan, because we were here when we had an extensive conversation about the the Chandler crossing PZD five years ago.

I mean, I still remain very concerned about Hilton Creek.

Uh and um and also with this gas station being there, you know, runoff, fuel runoff, um, and also other kind of uh, you know, parking debris, pavement debris running into the uh Hilton Creek, I think is also uh a concern of mine.

And finally, um, you know, this was sold to the council five years ago is a walkable community.

And I don't think having a large box store there is walkable anymore.

I think it actually is the uh the antithesis of what we all think about as a walkable community, especially in this in this particular location.

So for those reasons, I I I still do not think our drainage manual is um is rigorous enough.

And certainly when we don't monitor our impacts, um I I leaves me very concerned, and so I'm I'm not gonna be in favor of of changing this.

Thank you.

Okay.

I'm not seeing any more.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Ms.

Bunch, thank you.

Um the council has brought up some really good issues tonight.

And um one of the things I I am torn on this because I keep thinking about what we went through five years ago.

Uh it was exhaustive.

And one of the reasons I voted to uh to allow the PZD to begin with.

We put a lot of time and effort into that, but we annexed the land because if if this was going to be developed, I wanted it to be developed to Fayetteville standards, not Washington County standards, because we could have, I don't remember how many acres were included in the Washington County part of it, but it they could all be on septic tanks, not you know, not on a municipal sewer system.

So that was a something that I put a lot of thought into.

I never anticipated that this would be come back before us and be we'd be requested to look at this for a big box store.

Now the other side of this is I I think when we talk about walkable neighborhoods, I believe it was strong towns that that issued a challenge uh several years back about walking to get your groceries.

And I tried that from my neighborhood, which is right in the middle of Fayetteville, but it's on a hill, you know.

And so one of the things that we do all the time is go to the grocery store.

And when we talk about walkability, walking to get your being able to walk to get your food is a big deal.

And so I think this could actually spur development behind you know the continued development of the Chandler Crossing and allow people away to walk to get their groceries.

And in addition to tax revenue for the city and people passing through there and getting business from Springdale and people going to work in Springdale, that sort of thing.

So I'm kind of I'm still kind of torn on this issue because I think about the work that we put into it before, but I also think times change.

Five years have passed, things are different now.

Um, and this could possibly, you know, promote development in the area and provide something for people to actually walk to.

Thank you.

Okay.

I'm not seeing any more comments from the council.

So Clerk Paxton, if you will please call the roll for the final vote.

Mr.

Stafford?

Yes.

Dr.

Jones?

Yes.

Ms.

Moore?

No.

Mr.

Wheedaker?

Yes.

Mr.

Barna?

Yes.

Ms.

Bunch.

Yes.

Ms.

Turk?

No.

Minister Jones.

Yes.

So it passed, Mayor.

And that passed.

All right.

Thank you all so much.

And we will move on to the next item of unfinished business, which is C2, RZN 2025-71 on South Willow Avenue.

An ordinance to rezone the property described in 2025-71 for approximately 1.8 acres located at 416 South Willow in Ward 1 from NC neighborhood conservation to UN Urban Neighborhood and RIU residential intermediate urban.

At the last meeting, this was left on the second reading.

Thank you, Mayor.

Be it ordained by the City Council, the City of Fayetteville, Arkansas, Section 1.

The City Council, the City of Fayetteville, Arkansas hereby changes the zone classification of the property show on the map, exhibit A and the legal description, exhibit B, both attached to the planning department's agenda memo from NC neighborhood conservation to UN urban neighborhood and RIU residential intermediate urban.

And section two, that's the City Council, the City of Fayetteville, Arkansas here by a men's official zoning map of the City of Fayetteville to reflect a zoning change provided in Section One.

Great, thank you.

Mr.

Kurtz, do you have any updates on this item?

Somewhat, yes.

It includes about 1.8 acres of land at the just east of the intersection of 4th Street in Willow.

It's an hourglass-shaped piece of property with one portion of the property immediately adjacent to Willow before it narrows down and expands outward into a uh center of the block uh scenario.

It is all currently zoned in C neighborhood conservation.

And the applicant initially approached the request for to uh rezone the property to UN urban neighborhood for the entirety of the site.

Uh staff had reservations about this and ultimately recommended denial uh with an alternative to rezone the corner uh of the property to UN and the remainder of the property to RIU.

Uh that was based on the available legal descriptions at the time of that planning commission meeting.

And ultimately the planning commission uh agreed with that recommendation and forwarded it to City Council by unanimous vote.

Having had the opportunity to evaluate the implications of that change to their development, uh the applicant engaged with the surveyor to develop a modified request, a a third uh uh option, if you will, uh to rezone the overall portion of the property, about half of it uh immediately adjacent to Willow to UN urban neighborhood with the balance of it interior to the site to RIU residential intermediate urban.

Uh, after evaluating the requests, and uh in light of staff's overall concern with the original one being the inclusion of non-residential uses interior to the block, uh we are recommending in favor of it.

Uh you were provided uh alternative exhibits uh by email in advance of the agenda session.

Uh those were also attached to the final agenda.

Uh I have copies for any council members who did not have an opportunity to review those.

And so what I am asking of council tonight is to modify the request to the applicant's alternative proposal uh and uh approve it this evening if the council feels appropriate.

Uh with that, I'm happy to hand it off to Z Neederman Mayor as the applicant for the item and can take questions after that.

All right, great.

Mr.

Neederman, do you have a presentation?

Okay.

Umederman here.

Um I don't have a full presentation.

I think uh you guys have seen it before.

I did want to make one comment though.

Uh last time we were uh called discourteous for not providing the information in advance.

Um but I just wanted to recall remind council that on uh the previous meeting 217 we had presented the option um in front of you all too, so for the record, we did have that.

It just wasn't we just didn't have the legal description, so I just wanted to clarify that we've been doing our our best to uh share with council uh as best we could.

Thank you.

Available for questions.

Right, thank you.

And so, Jonathan, to clarify you're seeking an amendment from a council member, is that then appropriate next step?

If the council looks favorably on this all this alternative, yes.

Okay, great, thank you.

I'll make a motion to uh amend the presentation as presented by Jonathan.

Second, second.

This would be to amend exhibit A and exhibit B.

So move.

Okay, and just uh um clarify uh for the clerk, it was a motion from Mr.

Berna and a second from we say that again, Ms.

Mr.

Stafford, Dr.

Jones, okay, from Mr.

Stafford to amend Kara.

Were you able to catch that in time?

Okay, okay, great.

Um so will you please call the roll?

Mr.

Stafford.

Yes, Dr.

Jones?

Yes.

Ms.

Moore, yes.

Mr.

Wheataker?

Yes.

Mr.

Berna?

Yes.

Ms.

Bunch?

Yes.

Ms.

Turk?

Yes.

Minister Jones.

Yes.

Okay.

So the amendment passes.

Do we have other now questions for the either the applicant or to Jonathan before we go to public comment or kit?

Actually, should you read again the revised?

Is that why your light is on?

Oh.

Oh no.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Not seeing any other questions.

I'm going to open it up to public comment.

Do we have any members of the public that would like to comment on this item?

Okay.

I believe we have uh someone on Zoom.

Gracie.

We do Clark Eccles.

Okay.

Mr.

Eccles.

Whenever you're ready.

Clark, are you able to hear us?

Okay.

Hopefully everything is okay.

I'm going to bring it back to the I'm going to bring it back to the council.

It is on the third reading.

Okay.

And I'm not seeing any further comments.

So Clerk Paxton, will you please call the roll for the final vote?

Mr.

Stafford?

Yes.

Dr.

Jones?

Yes.

Ms.

Moore?

Yes.

Mr.

Wheedaker.

Yes.

Mr.

Barna?

Yes.

Ms.

Bunch.

Yes.

Ms.

Turge?

Yes.

Minister Jones.

Yes.

Okay.

So that passes.

Thank you.

That brings us to our third item of old business.

RZN 2025-69 on South Dead Horse Mountain Road and East Goth Farm Road.

An ordinance to rezone the property described in RZN 2025-69 for approximately 42.31 acres of a 157.05 acre parcel located on South Dead Horse Mountain and East Gough Farm Road in Ward 1 from RA Residential Agricultural to UN and NC.

At the last meeting, this uh ordinance was left on the first reading.

Kit.

Unless there's a is there a motion to suspend the rules?

Mr.

Stafford, is that why you're like that motion?

Second.

Okay.

I'll say, well, I was going to say, but we have a motion and a couple of seconds to choose from to suspend the rules and go to the third and final reading.

Okay, well, we have a motion and a couple of seconds to choose from to suspend the rules and go to the third and final reading.

Clerk Pagson, will you please call the roll?

Mr.

Stafford.

Yes.

Dr.

Jones.

Yes.

Ms.

Moore.

Yes.

Mr.

Weaker.

Yes.

Mr.

Berna?

Yes.

Ms.

Bunch?

Yes.

Ms.

Turk?

Yes.

Minister Jones.

Yes.

And ordinance to rezone the property described and rezoning petition RZN 2025-69 for approximately 42.31 acres of 157.05 acre parcel located on South Dead Horse Mountain Road and East Gulf Farm Road in Ward 1 from RA residential agricultural to UN urban neighborhood and NC neighborhood conservation.

Jonathan, do we have any changes or updates since the last time we heard the item?

I do have two items, Mayor.

Thank you.

As a brief reminder for council, uh, this property is further out in Southeast Fayeville, uh South a little ways southeast of the intersection of Dead Horse Mountain Road and Goff Farm Road.

Uh despite the large acreage that's listed in the rezoning request.

Uh this is ultimately a proposal to rezone it to about 42 acres of the overall 157 acre property with about 37.65 acres to NC neighborhood conservation and about four and a half acres to UN urban neighborhood.

Uh when last I heard from council on this uh request, there were two items I was left with to update you all on.

Uh the first is the River Meadows and Huntsville's traffic signal potential that I brought up at the meeting.

Uh specifically, this was brought up given concerns that the Dead Horse Mountain Road does have a uh record of periodically flooding and that adding additional housing in this area may exacerbate any access issues.

Uh we I shared at the previous meeting that we have engaged with Rot with uh the potential to have a signal installed in that area, and there's requests for more clarification of what that looks like.

Uh this is uh in a very reductive sense a three-step process.

Uh the first is that we request RDOT to perform a warrant analysis.

Is there justification for a traffic signal to be there?

Does it meet RDOT's spacing requirements to not have too many signals back to back to back?

Uh if uh RDOT finds it's appropriate, they'll perform that warrant analysis.

Uh and that can have two outcomes if it's determined that the signal is warranted.

Uh the first is that we install it at our expense.

Uh RDOT acknowledges that a light is needed there, and they are happy to let us uh uh do it at our expense.

Uh alternatively, a middle road is to do it by cost share.

Uh and the uh final option is for R Dot to do the installation.

Uh the reason this particular intersection is intriguing is because R Doc currently has a project that's underway and uh widening and upgrading uh Huntsville Road Highway 16.

And so our hope is ultimately that there's an opportunity for R DOT to absorb uh some of the costs in that project's budget.

As to where we are in the process, so unfortunately we're still in the first stage of that.

Uh we've requested the warrant analysis, and to date it's not been performed by RDOT.

Uh the second item uh that I was asked to touch on was some public comment was shared from the subdivision to the north of this property with concerns about water pressure.

I engaged with our utility department engineer, and they found that there is no indication that there are any systemic water pressure issues in that area.

Uh most of that neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhoods are at around 160 uh PSI, which is very high, but Fayetteville is known for having high water pressure.

Uh their suspicion is that perhaps that property owner may have an individual property issue.

It may be plumbing specific to their house.

Uh a lot of residences in Fayette will have pressure reducers on their property that may be a result of that.

Uh discussing it considering the concern and a more systemic issue.

Uh, our utility engineer did share that there have been uh there have been significant improvements in this area to the water system.

Uh first and foremost is that an 18-inch line was installed in 2025 in association with that Huntsville Road project that I described.

So that's further to the north, uh, not immediately adjacent to this property, but a system improvement.

Uh additionally, uh and I believe I wrote west here.

I apologize.

There's a booster pump station uh installed further east, is how that should read.

Uh what the resident may be referring to is that there have been concerns about access to water or water pressure along Mally Wagnan Road east of here.

Uh that had to do with prep pressure plane issues with the ability to get water up to that level, and the utility department feels that that booster pumping station has alleviated that concern.

Finally, uh and perhaps most prominent for our utility engineer is that this project and its potential to install an eight-inch water line in this area uh between subdivisions to the southwest and northeast could effectively double uh the existing six inches water capacity in this issue, creating an interconnectedness that makes for more not only more uh more reliable water pressure, but just more reliable water uh altogether.

Uh with that in mind, uh staff is recommending in favor.

Uh the planning commission forwarded this item to city council recommending it uh by vote of eight to one.

Um happy to take any questions, and mayor, I believe Blake Jorgensen and Mark Marquis are here as the applicants.

Okay, got it.

Mr.

Jorgensen, do you would you like to present to the council?

Yeah, good evening, Blake Jorgensen, and also Mark Marquis as Jonathan said.

Um I don't have anything else to add to the previous uh presentation, but I know some members may have not been present.

So if y'all have questions for me, I'm happy to answer them.

Thanks, Blake.

Thanks for all this time.

Do we have any questions for the applicant or for Mr.

Kurth?

Minister Jones.

I just have one from Mr.

Kurth.

I know you read that there was some um concerns from neighbors once again from flooding, but I think you'd my question is water flow.

Where would the flooding possibly come from?

The drainage concerns I've heard are manifold, depending where you are in this area.

The one that I mentioned previously in the presentation is the West Fork of the White River, uh, periodically floods above the elevation of the ridge uh that crosses the Dead Horse Mountain Bridge.

Uh I believe uh with this request and uh previous requests, there were uh concerns expressed by some of the neighbors adjacent to the golf course to the northeast about standing water and and some backyards.

Um otherwise uh generally the water on this property tends to flow to the northeast, so towards the Cooper's Cove uh area before going northward towards the West Fork of the White River onto the White River.

Does that answer your question?

It does, thank you.

Do we have okay?

Not seeing any other comments from council, so I'm gonna turn this over to public comment.

Do we have any members of the public?

Yes.

Please come on up and state your name and um be mindful that we have three minutes.

Thank you.

Um yeah, my name is Abel Tomlinson, and I actually didn't plan on speaking on this.

I'm wanting to speak on another issue too, but uh um about the Drake field.

But uh I do have something to say about uh development in Fayetteville because uh you know I've been here since 2001.

I went to the school University of Arkansas and studied horticulture.

I took a lot of environmental classes.

The best class I ever took was soil science and uh with Dr.

Miller, and uh I'd really urge everyone to read the book Out of the Earth, uh, which is one of the books that's uh it's by a soil scientist that did uh um is is one of the books you have to read for this class.

And it really dig digs into the history of soil over you know human history and how civilizations have fallen because they've abused their soils, and uh whether that's uh mass erosion or uh salinization of soils, um, just destruction of soil because the most important thing for humans is food and water, clean water.

And we we don't think about that in our economy very much.

We don't think about it in a long-term perspective.

We have a very short-sighted uh perspective in our society and our economy.

And uh, you know, after reading that book and learning how civilizations have fallen and how it takes thousands of years to form a healthy soil, and it's not easy to replace.

Once you scrape that away, it's not easy to bring back.

And uh, you know, especially this issue here is talking about converting agricultural land to uh urban, and what does that mean?

They're gonna scrape away all the soil and put all these uh cookie cutter houses that are not pretty.

Go to Europe and look at some of the villages, they're beautiful.

And a lot of our development here is not beautiful, it's ugly.

And uh, and when they scrape away all this soil, it's it's an impoverishment.

We're making ourselves poorer.

And and a smart visionary development would be to design a neighborhood where you preserve some of the agricultural soil so people can build make community gardens in the future.

I mean, with this war in Iran, we're we've already seen the price of oil double.

It's a lot of experts I listen to say it's potentially gonna quadruple to two or three hundred dollars a barrel.

That's gonna mean uh you know, eight, ten dollars a gallon or more, all the price of food's gonna go up.

People are very likely gonna be needing to grow food uh in their communities and their neighborhoods, and uh, we're really impoverishing our neighborhood and our city when we don't preserve some common area for people to be able to grow food.

Uh during the Great Depression, we had victory gardens, people grew a lot of their own food.

We need to really be thinking about that because uh uh you know, a lot of poor people may not be able to afford very much food in the near future.

And um, you know, uh yeah, I just really think we need uh better development uh planning because it's really I cringe every time I see a huge field of of soil that could grow food being scraped away and replaced with Bermuda grass.

I'm a professional gardener, and Bermuda grass is not good, it's the worst thing for gardening.

It's a nightmare to weed out.

We talk about getting rid of invasives, get it rid of Bermuda grass.

That's your time, Mr.

Tomlinson.

Thank you.

Do we have other members of the public that would like to speak on this issue?

If please, if so, please go ahead and come up to the mic, stage your name, your address.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Dunn.

Hello, thanks.

Uh my name is Bruce Dunn.

I live at 1629 South River Meadows Drive.

And first of all, I'd like to say to the mayor and the council members, um, just God love y'all for doing this because there's no way I could sit here and do this.

So thank you for your service to this community.

Um, my wife and I moved to Stonebridge Meadows in 2003, and I'm not speaking against the development.

I am very much pro-growth.

Um, if it goes through the planning commission and gets through the council, we know it's probably gonna be pretty good in Fayville, Arkansas, right?

I would like to encourage the traffic and to come on out um between about 7 and 8:30 uh Monday through Friday, and then in the afternoon, let's uh say 4 p.m.

to about six, and then Saturday morning as well.

The development has really blown up out there.

That's why we moved there because we love the area, but the traffic is something.

I do know that um our great people at parks are going to be putting in a new trail system.

Um we ride our bicycles almost every day, and so we love our area out there.

I just would encourage the traffic thing.

I think if we all know that traffic has certainly been a thing that we all need to address, it's just something I hope we can work with to get some sidewalks a little bit better um access out there, and so thank you for your consideration and the work you do.

Thank you.

Okay, I'm not oh, yes, please come on up.

I'm short.

My name is Andrew Williams.

I live at 2687 South Angels uh Fayetteville, Arkansas, in the Riverwalk subdivision, which is right across the street from where this uh is proposed to be built.

What we're concerned about is just like what Mr.

Dunn just said, I agree with him on that, but it's a single lane road that was a country road that goes to McGara Farm, River Crest Farm that's literally on the other side of our subdivision.

Has he said stated about the time of day the yes, the city, someone come in and put a new regular traffic light right there?

It's got a limited amount, like three or four cars deep.

Your tail into your car is sticking out in the curve.

The way the level of the ground is, it goes towards the bridge.

That ground is covered periodically at least four times a year where we have to drive through the backside around over Armstrong or go through his subdivision that he's talking about, and that channels all that traffic through there.

Now they're wanting to put 180 more houses in there that basically has two cars each in it.

And someone had said that there was two easy accesses in and out of that.

There's not it literally comes out in the curve right at the end.

If you look at that photo y'all had Saturday morning, we had over 400 cars in that, and they were coming all in front of where our subdivision is and blocking all the entrances to our subdivision because there's nowhere for them to go when they have their festivals and stuff.

We love that we want that farm to stay there.

We want them to do good.

That is beautiful there.

Um, but that single lane road that's inadequate now, it does not have any kind of shoulder at all whatsoever.

They're putting through uh the greenway to come through there.

I have the fear of God of coming over that hill either way, and there'd be a bicyclist because just to the end of our subdivision, it's where the city limits is, and from coming around the curve from Armstrong and that black oak over there, they do anywhere to 55 miles an hour while they come flying down through there and they're building on the other side of the river over there, and those dump trucks just come flying through there.

Um we want to know about the inadequate road, but the excessive water drainage, and I have photos if anybody wants to see them afterwards or see them now of at the top of the hill where they just came in and put their drainage pipes, it's flooding all in front of Royal and History Street and Cobalt.

All that there was I have pictures where the road is flooded, and that's with their brand new drainage in there.

And I think they've put four ponds on that property, if I'm correct.

And that's your time.

Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you.

And it's not right.

Thank you.

Okay, are there other people?

Yes.

Please.

Okay.

Melane Tyree.

I live on River Meadows.

Um when we were talking about this in the planning committee.

We have never actually seen the plot, the design for all these houses.

I I did dig around and find one.

These houses are 12 to 1,500 square feet.

There are 40 row homes on Golf Road, which is the entrance to the neighborhood.

Um I'm objecting to both of those.

Uh would it be possible to put the row homes at the back of the neighborhood where we don't have to look at them?

Um the place that it floods is actually between Guelph Road and the bridge.

It's the pasture in between is for floods.

Um I have driven back to the new the neighborhood that is already being built.

He's assured us that the golf course will remain, but the extension that comes across there comes out right in a golf hole.

So I would like for him to address that because it doesn't sound like he intends to keep the golf course.

Thank you.

Oh thank you.

Do we have other members of the public that would like to speak on this issue?

Or Gracie, do we have anyone that has called in with their hand raised?

No one has their hand raised.

Okay.

I'm gonna bring it back to the council.

And um it is on the second reading, or no, we suspended the rule, so it is on the it is on the it is on the final reading.

Minister Jones.

Yes, this is a question for Jonathan.

I um you started out your discussion talking about installing a light, and um we could do it.

Um it could be shared costs, but I didn't hear any um discussion about um extending the lane, which is now I'm hearing that as a concern.

Um, is that something that the developer is going to own, or is that something the city then because we've talked about this before, not not extending it until they build and they come, but do we 100% own that extending that street, or is it a shared cost with the developer?

That will be determined at the time of development ultimately.

We have a conceptual layout for the subdivision that was provided in the traffic study that's in the staff report.

If if you heard some reference to where the streets were were being proposed, uh that traffic study's findings were that the development will not exacerbate any traffic issues in the area, nor does it recommend any improvements.

Uh ultimately, as a part of uh our development review, that is an independent assessment that staff needs to make as well.

So the short answer is I'm not certain that any street improvements will be required with the development.

Uh, if they are and the scale of development justifies it, that is ultimately the developer's responsibility to build.

Uh sometimes we identify improvements that are necessary that exceed the impacts of the development, but we find there to be a justifiable public good, and in those instances we bring cost share proposals to city council to consider, so ultimately it's it's it's this body's uh ability to approve or turn those down.

Um does that answer your question.

So what I heard you say is if the scale of development exceeds what they've already presented, that the developer developer could be responsible for the increase in the street in the changes.

And it yes, I think that's a fair summary.

It also depends on which of the improvements you heard described.

I heard I heard several items described by the public.

Uh I think one of the most prominent ones, if I was following correctly, was concerns about Dead Horse Mountain Road specifically, uh, which is uh one subdivision to the west of where this specific project is being proposed.

I also heard that some of the concerns may relate more to events being held further south in the county.

Uh and it may be that we could not require if this broad if this sub if this rezoning were to be approved and the subdivision were to be proposed, it may be that we cannot require the subdivision to offset the impacts of of that.

And what I heard was Royal.

I heard cobalt and another one, but I didn't hear.

History.

You're right.

It says history.

That's my handwriting.

Um history.

Those were those were the three that I was looking at because she brought those up.

Just trying to see if we are having issues there, if this development causes additional history, additional issues that the skill of the develop development, the developer could be responsible.

They could.

I being completely candid.

I do not anticipate from what I've read in the traffic study that there would be off-site street improvements further south along Dead Horse Mountain Road.

Uh the trips that the traffic study imagines uh vehicles leaving this proposed subdivision would be to the northeast or northwest, so towards Dead Horse Mountain Road or towards River Meadows.

Uh as a result, we as staff and our standards lose the tangible connection between an impact and a required improvement in those instances.

So unless the design of the subdivision or uh an updated traffic study suggests there's traffic going south on Dead Horse Mountain Road, that may not be a requirement that we can make of this development.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ms.

Turk.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, just to kind of follow up what um Minister Jones um requested or commented on.

So if that traffic light at I guess it's riverfront or river bend uh road is is installed and the state will not pay for that, what does that what does that typically cost?

A stop light right there or a signal light.

It varies uh is the short answer.

I believe that intersection would be a three-way stop.

Uh I don't believe there's a yeah, there's not a street on the north side of it.

Uh traffic signal can vary in cost.

I think the 10 round numbers that tend to be shared are half a million, three quarters of a million for typical traffic signal.

Um I believe our city engineer, if he's here and has some comment and feels that those numbers are inaccurate.

I'd encourage him to come up and correct me.

That's that's quite a bit uh with a new development.

Um you kind of mentioned uh the traffic study there that uh you know that uh appeared to not, which is surprising to me, not exacerbate or create a problem there.

I mean, if you've driven out there at the right time of day, uh those streets are very narrow, and there are a lot of there are there is a lot of traffic and back up.

So who ultimately decides when you go through large-scale development?

Do you just take the traffic studies opinion or does staff actually do sort of an independent review?

And how does that work, Jonathan?

Staff does do an independent review.

That's typically done through a it's primarily done by our engineering division, but with input from our planners in particular.

Uh a lot of assumptions go into a traffic study about uh background traffic, like the traffic as it is today, and the traffic study builds upon those assumptions with the the project and and directions of traffic that people will go from that.

Uh in that regard, our engineers in particular identify other projects that may be happening in the area, future uh RDOT projects, whether or additional developments that need to be incorporated or considered into that.

And then um a couple more questions.

So um, you know, this is so close to the county line, and obviously there's some extra projects out there with the county.

Do you all ever I mean I know you've kind of lost your ability to do the extra um you know area outside of town, but do you call them up and do you uh the traffic engineers or the city engineers try and uh discuss and address maybe widening of the street and and other features that way?

We we do monitor projects happening in the county, our input is no longer sought though.

But do you offer it?

Do you I mean don't you have kind of a working relationship with some of your counterparts over there or friendly relationship?

I'm I'm just I'm just trying to understand because I think here we've got a lot of convergence and development that that are impacting streets.

Yes, there is a working relationship with our counterparts in the county.

I do need to give the caveat that there is no longer a requirement that they meet any city standards whatsoever.

So like even if the county and city staff agree that there is a concern if the city requirements don't if there are no city requirements, as is our situation today, and the county's requirements don't address them, then we're not really we're not afforded an avenue uh to solve them.

Do you ever um put forward grants uh together collaboratively for a project such as this?

I'm not familiar with one that we've done just the City of Faville and Washington County.

Uh we do periodically work through the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission.

That tends to be the conduit through which federal highway dollars come from which is the largest uh one of the largest buckets of transportation money that we have available to us um periodically municipalities municipalities and counties do submit uh uh shared applications or grant requests I'm not familiar with one in this area though I mean I just really remain concerned about the increased volume um irrespective of what the traffic report says I mean I've driven out there a lot and and then I've heard a lot from the residents that traffic is really bad and we're gonna add uh a significant more number of units there so um I just think that really improvements uh widening improving the the area is is really important to maintain the quality of life and and develop um smartly out there so thank you for answering all my questions thank you Ms.

Moore thank you mayor and this is for the city attorney it sounds like uh my colleagues um asked the questions that came up from uh the public except for there was one that just mentioned the status of the golf course and what was going to happen with it we're not really looking to rezone that is that anything that the applicant team can talk to can we ask them that question at all in regard to the golf course I think probably uh the city council needs to just basically concentrate on the land right now that's before you that's being sought to be rezoned rather than looking at outside land.

I mean you can look at what is currently zoned and what's currently used for but I don't think it really will help much to speculate what's going to happen to that.

I think you need to concentrate on this land.

Thank you thank you Kit I just was gonna see if we could get their question answered um in my conversations I've been under the impression that um Stonebridge being a public golf course from the current ownership is that you know it's very important to them that this is a jewel in our region um that it creates um much like our Fayetteville ethos accessibility and access for you know lots of folks of you know every variety and background and so I think they have a desirability for it to continue forward is what I understand.

But you don't have to you don't have to use me as gospel that's what I I understand at this time.

Thank you Kit my comments um about their project though is um I appreciate the the conversation that's been had about the challenges that are in that area and I think we do have to take that under advisement continue consider especially as we are looking at our infrastructure dollars um one of the things we always have to consider is that we've had pressure of lots of development that's can be going to our east that's really putting pressure on our roadways for our R DOT monies as well as our water um and sewer infrastructure dollars as well as as we've had developments really push into Elkins.

And so um you know we're gonna continue to see pressures to sprawl and so I think we always go back and forth about those conversations about where it's more fitting for housing to go within our city.

And so at first blush I always as I look at our east and our west you know sides it's not desirable right to think about we're at the very edges as set for um the precedent is already there that we put this set of housing developments around a golf course and it's become a desirable area we already have pressure heading towards the east and so would we rather it be controlled within the city of Fayetteville would we like our partners in Washington County or in Elkins instead to uh regulate that and help to control that I think we probably want that in the city of Fayetteville.

I also the parts of this project that I really appreciate is that it's not homogenous.

I think that it's um being respectful of like our future land use goals to have different types of housing.

I'm excited to hear that townhomes are there and the accessibility to be in that area and to uh try to create um a variety of different um individuals that can enjoy the amenities that I understand this um uh area is going to be looking to invest and provide other um amenities ongoing that um really encourage more walkability and access to things close by um so I'm looking forward to supporting this but also being cautious too and knowing that we need to watch on the flooding and the um the transit um the the transportation corridor being very mindful that we um adopted towards vision zero and I think that's incredibly important to honor you know folks at our edges that they're able to um be safe in the ways that they're accessing our spaces and so and knowing that we're gonna uh have to think about that with future projects thank you Ms.

Moore Mr.

Stafford thank you mayor um uh I'm generally supportive of this project I I remember when this came through in 2023 slightly different I think a lot a little bigger uh and so I I will thank the uh uh developer for for making listening and making adjustments uh I do think that uh this is even a better project I don't think that you you know I understand the traffic concerns I don't think those those will be fixed until you get more traffic out there until there is more growth out there and and then there'll that need will be more obvious and then that need will be addressed.

I don't think that you you know I understand the traffic concerns.

I don't think those those will be fixed until you get more traffic out there until there is more growth out there, and and then there'll that need will be more obvious, and then that need will be addressed.

Um I think uh it was it was stated, and in my understanding as part of the the thought of this project, uh this is our only uh public golf course left, and by building homes in the 1200 square foot, 1300 square foot range, we are giving accessibility uh to you know, this isn't good.

This isn't the country club, you know.

We're giving accessibility to to people that can afford those starter homes.

Uh we're giving them accessibility to that public golf course, and I think that's fantastic.

Um I will be in support.

I I do agree that there's issues out there, but again, I don't think those issues are ever gonna be aggressed until we have uh the growth that forces us to address those problems.

Thank you, Mr.

Sta thank you, Mr.

Stafford.

Minister Jones.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I want to acknowledge that Mr.

Tomlinson brought up a good point.

Um in I have seen since I've sat here for a year a lot of development in ward one.

Um, not very mineral, very many residential agricultural changes, but I would like to see us look at some community gardens, some residential gardens.

If we say that food insecurity it we're number one in the country in food insecurity, and we want to tear up our agricultural in ward one to put in urban neighborhood and neighborhood conservation.

Why aren't we thinking through some community gardens and a request maybe be maybe be to the developer?

I um also want to acknowledge that I've had this discussion with Jonathan a year ago today about golf courts around um neighborhoods because my my car was hit by a golf ball over off of in West Fayetteville, and when I called them, there's no liability to that developer to any car, any kid or any person that's hit by a golf ball, and I and I brought this up to Jonathan that I'd like to see this address if we continue to build around golf courses, because if I was an elderly person driving at 30 miles an hour and a golf ball hits right in the driver's side of my car, that could have gone a whole lot of different ways.

And they said it's not our responsibility, sorry.

You were driving on a public street.

So I'm glad that we're talking about golf courses around new housing because we need to address that issue before we continue to develop around there.

So I wanted to address the golf course, community garden, residential gardens, but I thought I think the community and residential gardens are an investment and they are an amenity, and we have to start seeing like that when we know that individuals cannot get to let me be clear.

We're building in what we would call a food desert.

We're gonna build more than two miles away from a local grocery store, and people are gonna struggle to get there, and we're not gonna build sidewalks and we're not gonna develop the roads, but we're gonna take away some agriculture there in that community.

So I really want us to think about that as we do this.

Okay.

Um I'm not seeing any more comments from council.

And please remind me we are past the public comment stage, correct?

Yes.

Okay, and so it is on the third and final reading.

Clerk Paxson, will you please call the roll?

Mr.

Stafford.

Yes, Dr.

Jones?

No.

Ms.

Moore?

Yes, Mr.

Wiedaker.

Yes, Mr.

Berna.

Yes, Ms.

Bunch?

Yes.

Ms.

Turk?

No.

Minister Jones.

No.

Okay, so that passes.

Um, yes, thank you all so much.

Now we are on our third and final item of old business ordinance to rezone the property described in 2025-75 for approximately 0.34 acres located at 900 East Ash Street in Ward 3 from RSF 4 residential single family to NC, neighborhood conservation.

Um, this was left on the first reading at the last city council meeting.

Mr.

Williams.

It's okay.

You it was on the last more on the second reading?

Um correct.

It was left on the first reading.

Does anyone if if Ms.

Moore?

I'll move that.

We uh suspend the roles and go to the third reading.

Second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second to suspend the rules and go to the third and final reading.

Clerk Paxson, will you please call the roll?

Mr.

Stafford.

Dr.

Jones.

Yes.

Ms.

Moore.

Yes.

Mr.

Wheaker.

No.

Mr.

Berna.

No.

Ms.

Bunch?

No.

Ms.

Turk?

No.

Minister Jones.

Yes.

So I'll just read the body of it because that did not pass.

Uh be it ordained by the City Council, the City of Favel, Arkansas, Section One, at the City Council, the City of Favoral, Arkansas hereby changes its own classification of the property shown on the map, exhibit A and a legal description B, both attached to the planning department's agenda memo from RSF4 residential single family four units per acre to NC neighborhood conservation.

And section two that the city council, the city of Faivil, Arkansas here by amends the official zoning map of the City of Favel's lecture zoning change provided in section one.

Mr.

Kurth.

Thank you, Mayor.

Sorry, allow me a moment here.

There we are.

Thank you.

As a reminder to the council, this property is in East Fayetteville in Ward 3.

It is at the northwest corner of Ash Street and Juneway Terrace.

When last this item was heard, there were two prominent items that were brought up by the council that I wanted to take a moment to touch on.

The first was a question about the midtown trail, Ash Street section that is potentially planned to go through this area.

Several on the council expressed uh interest in hearing more about this and understanding specifically how it would potentially interact with this property.

Uh starting at a high level, uh first and foremost, this is uh potentially the last section of the midtown trail uh to be worked on.

There are other uh gaps that need to be closed as this trail goes east to west through the city.

Uh but between the potential for a Raymu Junior High being built west of this property and the existing old wire old wire trail uh east of this property.

Uh staff has begun exploring conceptual alignments for a trail to go along Ash Street to connect those two and ultimately provide a route uh for people in East Fateville and Central Fayetteville and and even into West Fayetteville to connect to each other along a multi-use trail.

Uh the second item I want to touch on, which was a much more prominent piece of the conversation in the last council meeting, uh, was a a matter of setbacks.

Uh there was a very specific inquiry about uh how this property's development would interact with the potential for a trail.

Uh if the council were recalled there was an exhibit shown in the applicant's uh uh presentation uh that was uh a screenshot of the trail connection, and Councilmember Wheedaker asked specifically what amount of buildable area would remain available on this piece of property if that were to occur.

Uh in an effort to diagram that and without hopefully getting too much into the weeds, uh the potential to rezone this property to NC neighborhood conservation would create the possibility for a roughly 4300 to 4400 square foot lot.

Uh this would be situated between the trail, uh which you can see uh on the just below that blue square and would terminate at the yellow line, uh roughly north of the the blue square.

Um please don't take this as scripture.

This I don't have a survey I'm working with, so this is an effort to give the council as high level uh perspective as possible.

Uh within this 43 to 400 square foot potential lot is the possibility to develop an area of about 3300 square feet, so uh certainly the majority of it.

Uh this takes into consideration a five-foot setback to the west and to the north under the NC neighborhood conservation zoning designation, as well as a build two zone to the east, which would allow a house to be built up near Juneway, uh, and also a required uh three-foot shy distance, uh, which is our our uh city standard for uh the the distance necessary to be set back from a a trail.

Uh I thought it was important to juxtapose this uh since it was highlighted at the last meeting with what could be done with the property today.

And if you'll uh watch the screen as it changes, it gives you a bit of a dynamic of what that looks like.

Effectively, the buildable area shifts to this.

Um it's not significantly different.

It's situated slightly further into the site.

Uh this is what could be built today, uh that whether that includes uh demolishing the existing house and moving it closer to the street, making an addition, pulling the house out to the street, or as has been discussed of the potential for an accessory dwelling unit alongside the existing house today.

Uh of note, and you may recall this uh drawing from the last time I presented uh this neighborhood does have very large front yards.

Uh that is certainly acknowledged.

Uh however, the set box allow much more uh buildable area on any of these properties.

Uh any of these houses today could be demolished.

There are no uh protections, historic district or otherwise that would prevent them from being demolished and being built closer to the street.

So in staff's estimation, the concern about a house being unusual or having an odd appearance does not necessarily constitute a compatibility issue from our perspective.

And that is one of the main factors that we are recommending in favor of the request.

Alongside that is what we find to be excuse me, a very close consistency with our long range plans.

If the council recall, among those plans, one of the main items or among the the city plan 2040 goals, one of the main ones is the need to achieve attainable attainable housing.

And it's not meant to be done on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis.

This is intended to be citywide.

Uh, if the council's had the opportunity to read that document recently, uh that was a very prominent piece of it, is that we need more diverse housing and we need it citywide.

Doesn't necessarily need to be mean five-story multifamily buildings need to be injected amongst single family uh residential neighborhoods.

And uh we find that the potential to allow one small lot uh with one small house in a neighborhood uh uh makes is very appropriate and allows opportunity for uh households that may not otherwise uh be able to afford to live in the area.

Again, uh staff is recommending in favor of the request, and it is before the city council uh by planning commission forwarding of a vote of five to four.

And I can take any questions that the council has.

And mayor, the applicant uh West Bates does have a presentation he would like to share.

Great, thank you.

Mr.

Bates good evening.

Um we're both here.

Um tried to have more visuals, less text, we were told.

Uh this all began with some raccoons over on Mount Comfort Road.

You guys might recall those raccoons.

Um it starts there because we remodeled that house, and the agent that sold us that house, she kept calling me and she said, I have this house on Ash that's on the market.

You guys should really take a look at this house.

And she saw what we were doing in Mount Comfort, and she supported that.

And I said, The house we just I don't know, we don't buy houses near Gully Park.

That's we buy houses in South Fayetteville.

Uh we went and looked at the house, we made an offer on the house, and turns out the uh agent lives right next door.

That's why she wanted us to buy the house and remodel it.

She said it'd be great to have a really nice house next door.

So I said, okay, let's buy this house.

Um next slide, please.

So what we're hearing, and Jonathan already kind of talked about this is that you know, we plan to build a house in the front yard.

And we're gonna build it as an ADU or we're gonna build it as a fee simple house.

The main difference between the left as an ADU and the right as a lot split after the rezone is that property line between them.

It's it's the same house that we plan.

Uh it's just a matter of if we're gonna have to, you know, we we talked about this, how much more capital we'd have to bring to build it as an ADU.

And I'm not gonna bring up all the comments that were made in public comment last time.

Uh next slide, please.

Oh, this was your slide.

So sorry.

Yeah.

Wes is Wes is stealing my thunder here.

Um next slide.

So we're actually sorry, you're great too, Jonathan.

Um, so the the image on the left here just shows the existing tree canopy.

Um, and we just want to kind of point out that there are no trees in the front yard.

There's a small holly tree.

Um, but the existing trees are in the backyard there.

Um, the image on the on the right is kind of overexposed, taking a golden hour, but there are six sliding doors all facing the backyard.

There's a six-footer, another six-footer, an eight-foot sliding door.

Um, this house was architecturally designed uh as the backyard being kind of focal point of the space.

Um we don't have a picture of the front of the house to show you uh because we're just trying to make this a little bit shorter, but there are three windows that are very high up, uh, allowing privacy for the street and privacy to potentially a future home being built uh in the front yard.

Um we just want to you know say that we you know we work with local architects who are passion about infill housing.

Um primarily we work with Catalpa architecture.

Um we also work with a designer, Michael Cochran.

Brian T is our civil engineer.

Um we consulted our team about this project and provided planning commission with a rendering of the project.

Um, and based on what our team and I discussed, we believe that the optimal location uh on this property could be at the front of the front yard.

Um, and so we think that based on our decision, we're helping to preserve trees and also the architectural character of the existing home.

Next slide, please.

So I wanted uh Marley made a comment at the last meeting talking about that every neighborhood needs to experience a little bit of change, but no neighborhood should experience drastic change.

So this is I kind of centered on my house in South Fayetteville, and this is showing new construction permits and demo permits over the last two years.

So 84 for call it South Fayetteville.

And I went over to you know, centered on the 900 East Ash, if you go to the next slide, please.

And 43.

And you can kind of it's hard to see, but there's really nothing going on right around that house.

I think we have the one permit for um the remodel there.

Right in that neighborhood.

Um next slide, please.

All right, uh, these are the city 2040 plan goals.

Uh I just wanted to point out that we kind of believe that that this type of project meets all these goals, each each one of them.

Um we believe that we're kind of revitalizing the original house on the lot.

Um we also uh believe that we're meeting four and five, especially now that there's a city trail planning to go through um uh uh the front of this property on Ash Street.

Um and then number six is Jonathan uh touched on.

Uh we we believe that this creates more opportunities for attainable housing.

Um next slide, please.

So the question we're ultimately left with is if this if NC isn't appropriate here, which you know we're showing where NC is around this area, then what else is appropriate here?

If one small additional parcel is not appropriate, and if that's not making Intel a priority, then just tell us that it's not um because we're really struggling on this one.

And you know, we really would like to um see a vote tonight because we just need to we need to know and we need to move on to other projects ultimately if this one's not going to work.

Um I think Conrad has one more slide.

Yeah, next slide, please.

Yeah, we just wanted to show um a house that uh we built behind the blue house in the photo.

Um the image on the left uh is uh image from the interior of that of that home.

Um next slide, please.

Uh this is the rendering that we showed the planning commission.

Uh and after um showing them, we decided you know to kind of come in here without kind of showing the rendering until tonight.

Um but we just wanted to kind of show what what our plan is.

Um like Wes said earlier, by right, we can put this home where it where it is in this rendering as an ADU.

Um, and we're kind of are committed to building uh another home on this parcel, and so we uh ask you all uh to just be able to put that on its own lot so we can sell it to somebody, please.

Uh thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, do we have any um questions for either of the applicants?

Don't go too far.

Um, or Jonathan, before we open it up for public comment.

Mr.

Berna.

I just have one question, uh Jonathan, because I I'm not seeing maybe I'm missing it, but once you overlaid your area that uh they could build on, what is the depth?

I don't see any markings that tell me the depth of the of that buildable area and the width of that buildable area.

That's a good question.

I did not put them on there.

That was not deliberate.

Allow me, let me pull it up real quick and I can measure that for you.

And for clarification, Councilmember Burney, are we asking just either drawing generally?

I'm sorry.

We're asking either drawing generally, what is the width and depth?

If you could uh just give us the area, looks like you've got five foot setback from the property line, and then your three foot setback from the uh bike trail.

Am I looking at that right?

Just that's that uh square there rectangle you've got there.

What's the depth and width of that?

That is about 33 feet by about 100 feet.

Okay, thank you.

So one sorry, 33 feet north south, 100 feet east-west.

Ms.

Turk.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um Jonathan, um, right now, could they theoretically put two ADUs um on that property as long as it doesn't exceed 1200 feet total?

Yes, that's correct.

And then what's the maximum if um if we granted the uh the NC uh of the square footage of a house that could be built uh there?

Well, I know that that there's some limitations in terms of setbacks and things like that.

So um it's almost kind of uh to what uh council member Burnham was getting at in terms of the the available buildable space, and so if there are there's like they could put a 3,000 square foot house there or 4,000 that could go up to three stories, is that accurate?

That's correct.

Both both the existing and the proposed zoning district allow three stories, right?

But with an ADU they would only be allowed up to 1200 square feet.

That's correct.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, I'm not seeing any more questions from council.

Do we have any members of the public that would like to speak on this item?

If so, please come up, states your name and address.

And you have three minutes.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Elizabeth Bainbridge.

I live at 1735 North Wheeler Avenue, and I've spoken twice already, so I don't want to be redundant.

Um in general, the house, the original house that's there right now looks very nice.

They've painted it, they've put in new windows and doors.

It's a very beautiful house.

Um the front yard doesn't have any trees, as they stated, and we're just concerned with ash being a main road between old wire and college, that putting a structure like that in the front yard, it's covering it, it would cover at least two-thirds of the house.

You won't you wouldn't be able to see it.

And it just seems like an odd location.

It seems like not the most appropriate place to put one of these.

Um, so I and several of my neighbors are not opposed to infilling ADUs and uh small tiny houses.

Um, but we just feel in this location with it being so exposed that it does seem to look it, it seems like it would look odd.

The image that they presented doesn't really show you how much of the original house will be covered up.

Um so I just you know that is my opinion, and I just wanted to to express that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Barbara Cowan.

I live at 1751 North Wheeler.

I spoke uh last week, and some of the feedback that we had was that change is scary and uh or it's hard.

And I wanted to comment on that a little bit.

I uh I don't I think we're focused on a couple of the wrong issues here.

Uh my last four houses before the house I live on Wheeler were a 3,500 converted barn on 28 acres, a 400 square foot high-rise apartment in downtown Chicago, and the top two floors of a four-story house, two-family house in San Francisco, and something in China that they call the house.

I drive an electric car that drives me.

Change is really not what brings me here.

And so I was trying to decide why that hit me so hard and what is really the issue, and I started thinking about the fact that this little neighborhood we live in, it's probably actually the perfect neighborhood for ADUs and tiny houses because we not only need entry-level housing that's affordable, we've got a lot of elderly neighbors, and people who are trying to figure out how they're going to age in place, or they're gonna have some income property that will keep them from having to uh live in someone else's front yard.

And I wondered if we're not stuck on an issue here from the neighbor's side that is this is the first house that came for sale that the developer has brought the proposition for rezoning to.

So we find ourselves really focused on this property, and it's not probably the best representative of what could be done if we were taking a strategic view.

In that neighborhood, I bet you there's 30 or 40 opportunities for ADUs.

But the people that our neighbors, our older neighbors particularly, they have no idea about this ADU program or the in fill program.

And I just wondered if we didn't take a more strategic view and do some educating and find some ways to help them.

They have no clue how to get an ADU on their property, how they would finance it, what kind of nightmare that would be, but it could be the solution.

There's all kinds of gaps and places to put in ADUs.

I've driven this neighborhood 50 times the last three weeks.

So I guess my proposal here is I don't know where we're going with this one.

I still think putting it in the front yard, if we only want people to get excited about in fill and ADUs and separate units.

I think we want them driving by stuff that looks great and is exciting and goes.

Is this something I could do?

I'm sorry, you're at time.

Over I I apologize.

That was on me.

That's okay.

I'll be go ahead.

Um my name is Lark Hodzik.

I live at 820 East Ash Street, Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Uh, just southwest of the proposed ADU.

This is my third time at City Hall and fourth meeting about the proposed construction.

I'm a single mom, and I've set aside time to say that I don't love this.

The first meeting I attended was an informal one where we met with Wes, and he said, This is happening.

We don't get any input.

It's just a matter of how he's gonna get it done.

My neighbors and I were like, why do we come here?

We felt bulldozed.

The last city council meeting, people highly personalized ADUs.

So I'd like to speak to that.

Wes is not a neighbor building something for his kid with autism or his uncle with Alzheimer's.

My uncle has Alzheimer's.

I might eventually have to build an ADU for him, and I think my neighbors would not object to that.

I'd build it in a way that doesn't change the aesthetic of the neighborhood.

And even though my uncle sadly won't need parking, I'll make sure the little house has a parking space because I want it to be viable for the future, and a small house probably would need a parking space in front of it.

Um the Midwest hasn't come so far that we don't need cars to get around.

And this proposed construction doesn't have a parking space, and I don't think that that's a great example of what this could be.

To counter what has been suggested, I would like to dispel the idea that I am against change.

Um I've lived in 13 cities, seven countries.

I've only lived here for um eight years, I think.

And I like NFL when it's done well.

And I like tiny homes.

They're the standard in most places I've lived.

I can say that I've never been a fan of sticking brutalist architecture in period neighborhoods.

That is the same in Chicago or Sarajevo or Istanbul as it is in Fayetteville.

It looks out of place, and I like when I walk into a neighborhood and it feels historic.

And while MCM architecture might have a vibe yet, I think that it did to me in this neighborhood spoke to me.

I actually have the ugliest house on the street.

I'm at 820.

That monstrosity with the big roof.

I'm glad it's hidden.

Um previous meetings, someone said, if not here, then where?

Our street has had an increasing amount of traffic.

It takes me about seven minutes to get out of my driveway.

I can't see how a little house could easily maneuver without having its own parking spot.

I'm excited about a trail going in.

I think I'm excited about the junior high, but this is a lot of change all at once for my neighborhood to just shock absorb.

So if not here, then where I suggest aiming for people who are flipping houses and looking to build value to those houses they are flipping using properties that have more intuitive ADU or extra structures in them.

I can be in support of NFL and not in support of this particular project.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, Council.

My name is Ross Tomkins of 1701 North Old Wire Road in Fayetteville in Ward 2.

A question was raised uh last meeting, if not here, then where with the context of affordable housing.

To address this, let's first look at the larger picture of Fayetteville, and then we can bring it down to this very specific request here.

According to Lady This Housing Study, we see a need for 6,400 households paying rent or a mortgage of $850 a month as a need, and 5,000 of those meaning to pay $500 a month.

Using single family homes purchased by developers to split lots will do nothing to help this issue.

This is not a plan.

It's a random activity based upon opportunistic marketing of developers.

It's a lot for a house, not an RSU.

Two recent tiny house examples show this very clearly.

Both are rented, none were sold.

One listed for 1,600 a month, the other today.

I've looked this afternoon is 1,450 a month for rent.

Neither were sold.

Two to three times the level that's called out in our own housing study.

The answer lies in the larger developments that we see at the last meeting and even in the agenda item before this.

What a great opportunity with the 46 acres or 40 acres plus the other hundred in the future there near the golf course.

That is where we have integrated mixed price housing opportunity where we can make a real change, not by trying to slice up existing lots.

Looking at the specific rezoning, we heard from neighbors who've lived here 10, 20, and up to 40 years in this neighborhood.

These people have contributed greatly to shape Fayetteville.

The purpose of the zoning is to maintain a great way of life while at the same time focusing on new developments to meet the evolving needs of the city.

Let's focus on the new.

As we've heard, the site's not consistent with the neighborhood site lines, the trail, traffic visibility, and other concerns that we've heard.

I asked the council not to rely on random opportunistic development across Fayetteville, but to try to focus on the significant opportunities and new developments or partnerships between the city, its needs and development to actually solve and make a difference to our housing needs.

Thank you for your no vote.

Do we have any other members of the public that would like to comment?

Okay.

Hello.

Hi.

My name is Ella.

I live at 617 East Edna Street.

And I oppose this project.

And I yeah, I agree with the people that have spoken before me.

So thank you.

Gracie, do we have anybody on Zoom?

Yes, we have two people on Zoom.

Okay.

Clark Eccles.

Okay, Mr.

Eccles, can you hear us?

Yeah.

Clark.

Okay, yes, please go ahead.

Oh.

Hold on.

It's like flashing.

I don't know.

Can you can you guys hear me?

We can, yes.

Please go ahead.

Uh so my name is Clark Eccles.

I live at 95 East Madrid at Ward 3, so not too far from this development.

And uh I would just encourage you guys to support it.

I I think that you know, our city should be focusing on you know infill developments all throughout the city.

And you know, there's been a lot of talk of you know, incremental change and not big change all at once.

And when we force, you know, these tiny projects to go through such a deep um, you know, process with so much chance for them to fail, it just makes it really, really hard to see that type of incremental development.

And and you know, what ends up happening is we get the massive, you know, block-sized apartment complexes that have the capital and the you know, the time uh to to make it through, you know, deep regulatory processes and and so we as a city we've said we want to see more infilled development and we we want to do that.

And I think everyone across the shit, the city should do their part.

Um, you know, I don't think you know a small 500 square foot unit is gonna radically transform the neighborhood.

Um, and there was talk of you know, there being other potential options for ADUs within within the neighborhood, and I think this could be a good example of you know, someone who um maybe doesn't have the cash, but they've got a lot of land, you know, it could be a way for them to you know get build an ADU or split a lot and build something for their kids or for their elderly parents.

So um, you know, I think this is exactly the kind of thing we should be supporting, especially with its proximity to uh the old wire trail um and the the new trail that I hear you guys talking about and Raimi and Junior High.

Um I I think this is exactly the kind of stuff we should be supporting.

And and you know, if we want to call ourselves a welcoming city for all, I I think we all need to play that part.

And and you know, I don't think it's fair to say, you know, I want to welcome new neighbors, but just not next to me, you know.

So I'd love for you to support.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Okay.

Aaron Caldwell.

Okay, Aaron.

Uh Aaron Caldwell, 4261, Northeast Meadow Creek Circle.

Um, you know, I just kind of want to focus the city council on this being a zoning decision.

You know, I think there's a lot been said about you know where this thing is built, how it may impinge on a um, you know, future proposed trail, um, fire, sewer, water concerns, and you know, I just want to, you know, kind of remind the council that those are usually permitting problem, right?

So if those are concerns, those can be addressed administratively later.

Um, and I would also say that, you know.

I kind of view this project as a as the rezoning would be a conservation project to best conserve the neighborhood while also adding housing stock.

You know, as it currently sits right now, there is nothing keeping someone from buying this property.

Um, you know, say some other developer and just building a bigger house there and extending out like I mean, think of that that small AD or that small cottage being built in the front there as just an extension of the home.

There's nothing from stopping someone from doing that exact same project there.

There's also nothing stop from what I've been able to read and kind of calculate.

There's also nothing stopping anyone from buying that same property, building two ADUs in the front yard of that property, uh, and then providing no parking for that property, right?

So those would all be permitted uses here.

And I I just think it would be a really bad precedent to set by council to not approve this rezone or a project that from what I can see on paper is something that it would best conserve this neighborhood as it currently sits while also being a gentle infill project that would provide a really small affordable unit for the neighborhood.

Um so you know, I I would just say to council, you know, please consider you know what the parameters of a zoning decision are and also consider what could be the alternative to this project.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, I'm gonna bring it back to the council.

And we are on the and it's on this left on the second reading.

Okay.

Ms.

Moore.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, it sounded like the applicants tonight were hoping that we'd have a vote.

So I hope that my colleagues will indulge me.

I'd like to make a motion uh to move it to the third reading and then have our discussion.

They are asking for finality.

It sounds like the neighbors as well have been, you know, coming to many meetings as well.

It sounds like everyone would maybe like finality.

So I hope that you'll be supportive.

Um, I'd like to make a motion to suspend the rules and go to the third reading.

Second.

Okay.

And I don't know that just I don't know that a rule suspension is actually needed to go to the third.

It will just roll on to the third.

Correct?

Yes.

So uh so go ahead, kid, if you would.

Oh, yeah, that's a pro appropriate to make that motion.

You can you can do that.

Okay, so it does.

Okay.

Then forgive me.

I apologize.

Okay, we have a motion and a second as well from Minister Jones Clerk Paxton.

Will you please call the roll?

Sorry.

Mr.

Stafford.

Yes.

Dr.

Jones.

Yes.

Ms.

Moore.

Yes.

Mr.

Wheaker.

Yes.

Mr.

Berna.

Yes.

Ms.

Bunch.

Yes.

Ms.

Turt.

Yes.

Minister Jones.

Yes.

And in order to rezone the property described in rezoning petition RZN 2025-75 for approximately 0.34 acres located at 900 East Ash Street in Ward 3 from RSF for residential single family four units per acre to NC neighborhood conservation.

Ms.

Moore.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um so I we've had a lot of discussion uh the last council meeting and continuing tonight.

I think really what this comes down to, and we've heard it from the owners of the property, they're going to build something in the front yard.

We either can rezone it and do it in a way that allows for this to potentially be a property that becomes viable on the market, um, or it's gonna have to be an ADU absorbed into the project, probably at a much um higher cost because of the way that it'll have to be financed.

And that's really the decision we're making.

Um I have sensitivity and and understand that there um continues to be this conversation about where the placement is um for this unit, but current zoning today um with single family allows for an ADU that can be placed in these in these ways.

And so our current regulations don't allow us to say no to that.

It's illegal for us to do that.

Um, and so um, you know, the other thing too that um I that Jonathan showed us about the um the build twos that are available in that neighborhood is that, and I think one of the um neighbors, you know, brought up that this is one of the first projects coming in this particular neighborhood is that you know, I live in a neighborhood of a similar age, and we are starting to see where there is redevelopment.

And so you do end up finding that you have a myriad of things that happen.

You might have somebody that puts multiple units, um, or you might have somebody that takes down the property entirely and puts um a house that takes up the majority of the land there and can feel much different too in the way that your neighbor has has the feel.

You might have somebody that puts multiple units or you might have somebody that takes down the property entirely and puts um a house that takes up the majority of the land there and can feel much different too in the way that your neighbor has has the feel and so there's a variety of of things that can happen if we leave it in the current zoning.

Um these um individuals that are developing this property have shown that they are um in good faith, they are you know preserving that current stock, which is in line with our 2040 plan to try to preserve um historically attainable housing, um, and then they're adding additional stock.

And so I hope that we'll consider to leave all the available avenues for the way that this unit could potentially be used, so that gives lots of flexibility.

Um, these are also developers in our community that have a strong track record of being good neighbors, and if you think about too on their financing structure, if we're tying up more of their funds, um they can't potentially be a good neighbor to develop in another part of town to help um in our housing crisis, and I think that that would be unfortunate.

Um again, I continue to be empathetic to the concerns raised by the neighbors.

I live again in very similar neighborhood.

Um I've had a lots of redevelopment where I've had um short-term rentals come into my neighborhood and change the character.

I've had um very, very large houses come in and I've had ADUs.

Um, that's all in the last 15 years that I've lived there, but mostly it's happened in the last five.

And so our change has come very rapidly in my community uh where I live every day.

Um, and so um, as was shown earlier about the number of projects in that particular area of Ash, um, this area hasn't experienced um nearly uh the development pressures that we've seen, say in South Fayetteville.

Um, and really across the whole city, we are gonna have to see that redevelopment.

And I appreciate the comment that was brought up about giving accessibility to the other um uh properties.

And I think that the clock wasn't working.

I think it didn't start.

Oh, it's okay.

So sorry, I don't know where I'm at.

It's sorry, I'll wrap I'll wrap it up, but it's okay.

I'm I'm at my the end, I promise.

Um I really appreciate it was brought up about giving people accessibility as well to having the tools of how do they redevelop their own properties?

I absolutely agree.

I've said developing for dummies, like let me understand and give me an easy one, two, three about how I can go do that as an everyday person is incredibly important.

I've made a note of that.

I'm gonna talk with the staff.

I think I think we can get behind that.

Um, but uh one of the things is that we don't get to pick and choose, right?

We can't tell neighborhoods and communities and people we respect their property rights of what they can do, and so we'd love to encourage that neighborhood to look into that and to be a part of adding that gentle density that we need so much.

And I feel like the heart of this community wants to do things like that, and I look forward to chatting with you guys further.

And also those new neighbors you have in your community, those developers, they're always very willing to share their tips and tricks always, and so you might hit them up too for for ways you might look at your own property.

Thank you, Miss Moore.

And can I just want to check in with IT and make sure that we can know if it just for everyone, yeah, to if we could go ahead and start the clock at five when we do council comments?

Thanks so much.

Um, I think Dr.

Jones, you were next.

Yes.

Uh Jonathan, I have a really quick question.

How much how much time has staff invested in this?

I I don't have that information on that.

I'm sorry.

I mean, has it been quite a bit?

Has it been I mean this proposal has it been a lot of back and forth?

How would you quantify it?

If you could.

I again I'm sorry, I'm not sure that I can rezoning's take very variable amounts of time to work on uh some like the one that was considered under old business as alternatives that are worked out.

Uh this was the request that the applicant brought before us.

There was no uh staff felt it was appropriate and move forward with it.

There was not the uh the significant amount of discussion suggesting alternatives, if that's what you're asking.

Okay, what was what was the vote?

Okay, there was a five to four vote that was the planning commission correct.

That's correct.

Okay and staff of course staff is recommending in favor, yes.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dr.

Jones.

Okay, I'm not seeing any more comments.

Do we go to uh do we need to go a second time to public comment when we have both back to back that way?

We do not.

Okay.

All right.

So hearing no other comments from the council, I'm going to ask Clerk Paxton to please call the roll for the third and final vote.

Mr.

Stafford.

Yes.

Dr.

Jones?

Yes.

Ms.

Moore.

Yes.

Mr.

Wheedaker?

No.

Mr.

Berna.

No.

Ms.

Bunch.

Yes.

Ms.

Turk?

No.

Minister Jones.

Yes.

Okay, Mayor, that's passed.

Nope.

No ask.

I thought it was five for uh can we can we clarify the account?

I think it was five three.

Okay.

Either way is fine.

I just what I recorded as the vote.

I have Mr.

Stafford, Dr.

Jones, Ms.

Moore, and Ms.

Bunch with yes.

And I have Mr.

Weedaker, Mr.

Berna, Ms.

Turk, and Minister Jones with no.

Okay.

Yes.

We did pass five to three.

Okay.

So that passes.

Okay.

Thank you all.

Moving um to D new business.

Very exciting.

Our first item of new business, and I want to thank our Norwegian friends for their abundance of patience this evening.

Is a resolution to approve a five-year lease agreement with OSM Aviation Academy, Arkansas LLC for the hangar located at 45 4578 South School Avenue for rent in the amount of $1,900 per month and 3,026 square feet of office space in the airport terminal building located at 4500 South School Avenue for rent in the amount of $3,782.50 with an option to renew for an additional five-year term.

Mr.

Halland.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'm going to start by sharing my screen.

I just want to verify I've got this correct.

All right.

Perfect.

Thank you, Mayor.

Good evening, Council.

My name is Devin Howland, Director of Economic Development.

And I also wanted to acknowledge another team member who's here with us tonight who's worked a great deal on this project, our airport director, Jared Rayburn, and he'll be here to answer any technical questions we have.

Council, the item before you is the consideration of the approval of a standard airport lease agreement for five years with OSM Aviation Academy.

It includes an option to renew for an additional five years at facilities located at Drake Field.

This vote does more than execute a lease agreement, and we're going to talk a lot about that tonight.

It enables the city to secure a transformational aviation workforce development project.

It repositions Drake as an economic development driver by placing a globally recognized commercial aviation training provider right here in South Fayetteville.

OSM's Aviation Academy would bring students from around the world and across Europe to Fayetteville for nine to twelve months while they undergo their studies.

And beginning next year, residents of Arkansas would be able to enroll into the program for training as well.

Council, this commercial airline pilot training program is going to bring a great deal more benefits to the city beyond simply a new career pathway at which our residents can explore.

This is going to create an immense amount of quality jobs in South Fayetteville at Drakefield as well.

The school doesn't just create new jobs though, it also generates revenue for Drake Field.

That enables it to reinvest in itself.

While the vote on the lease agreement itself, I just wanted to acknowledge before I've continued my presentation.

This vote impacts so much more.

But one of the most key factors they shared with us about why Drake was Fayetteville, because of our community.

You see, they are asking their students to uproot their lives from a different country, students with diverse backgrounds, etc.

And to come to a strange place.

Proximity to downtown Fayetteville was just as important to this group as proximity to the University of Arkansas students and being able to locate at Drake Field.

They found that welcoming environment here, and they found it coveted and stitched with a quality of life that we all know and love.

And so what could this mean for us?

Well, by the end of 2027, OSM Aviation Academy could scale their training fleet under this proposed lease to 25 training aircraft that would host up to 192 international students annually or students annually, excuse me, and bring 80 to 100 new full-time jobs to South Fayetteville.

The estimated annual regional induced and indirect economic impact, those are derived through modeling firms with Remy and M PLAN.

They use economic multipliers very much like a traffic study in engineering.

We use those same type of tools in economic development, and that's where those were derived from.

One of our most important aspects of this project, though, was revenue generation for Drakefield Airport without capital investment from the city.

The $877,000 shown over the five years is a very conservative number because it makes the assumption that the fleet won't grow over 25 aircraft.

And 515,000 of that revenue is net profit from fuel sales in.

This is significant because what it does is enables Drakefield to reinvest into its operations, its maintenance and its facilities that actually lifts up the entire airport and all of the other tenants.

These broad-based benefits are the reasons the project aligns with the Drake Field Master Plan, which stated that we were expected to see a 25% increase in aircraft operations between 2024 and 2028.

It also stated that we needed to explore new revenue generation lines for this airport, which this does too.

Beyond fuel sales, there's a different line of revenue, and that is lease.

The corporate hangar is being leased at $1,900 per month, and it includes a 3% annual escalation.

The office space in the terminal building has been proposed at $15 a foot across the 3,000 square feet.

But rent payments would not begin in that office space until they recoup their airport director approved investments and tenant improvements into the place.

This is not a blank check.

The airport director will be involved in every step and serve as our check and balance there.

I think one of the things I really wanted to note to y'all is the office facilities inside Drake Field have not generated revenue to the city of Fayetteville in over 20 years.

This is a new revenue line.

Beyond $25 a day.

And lastly, item three, you can see is ramp space, where the 25 aircraft will be stored.

A couple more things before we leave this item that I wanted to touch on.

Council, this lease makes a lot of sense from staff standpoint because one, it helps secure a commercial aviation workforce training project.

It leverages private investment to actually upgrade and lift public facilities that we will retain ownership of when this is done.

It generates direct airport today and it maintains strategic flexibility in the future for the city to change its mind and make additional decisions, while giving OSM certainty to make significant investments into these facilities.

Council, this is another one of those projects where the benefits continue to grow beyond municipal revenue, jobs, or even the extended economic benefits.

Indirect and induced regional economic benefits from this project will support growth across a lot of different sectors, suppliers.

We'll generate local sustained revenue from staff and students and instructors that spend their dollars right here in Fayetteville.

Bringing international students to Fayetteville strengthens and enriches our community, and as Mayor Ron stated in her state of the city, we are a welcoming community that prides itself in being so.

And approval of this lease means students with diverse backgrounds and experiences from different countries will come here for their studies and not just for their studies, but to become part of our community.

And we welcome them in so as they enjoy our parks, our trails, and spend their money at our businesses.

Lastly, I wanted to touch on there are no new neighborhood impacts that will be expected of this.

These training aircraft are some of the most fuel efficient and quietest in the world, and they will be some of the they will be the quietest planes that use Drakefield Airport.

Boeing's 2025 pilot outlook projects that global demand for commercial aviation pilots is 660,000 new hires needed over the next 20 years.

And this lease agreement before you represents a very rare and very unique opportunity for a city of our size to capture on that.

I've not seen an opportunity like this in my nine years serving as the director of this city.

And we have a chance to capitalize on it by passage of this lease tonight.

And council, since we often don't talk a whole lot about the Federal Aviation Administration, we just wanted to briefly touch on a couple things that talks about delineation of roles.

Between the city of Fayetteville as the fixed base operator that runs the airport and the FAA with the administration and the regulations from the federal side.

The city manages the airport itself.

While the FAA provides oversight, establishes regulations which govern the airports, aircraft, and airspace.

This included management of air traffic control.

Aircraft movements and flight paths are not controlled by the city or the airport.

Council, the item we are requesting passage tonight is a straightforward resolution.

Staff is recommending approval of a resolution that authorizes a five-year lease agreement with OSM Aviation Academy so that we can begin realizing these benefits that we outlined in this presentation starting today.

And in closing, I want to thank you for your consideration with this item.

And I also want to thank OSM Aviation Academy for believing in Fayetteville, Mayor Ron, for her leadership on this project.

And I'm happy to answer any questions.

And again, Jared Rayburn from the Federal Aviation or from the airport is here and happy to answer any technical You haven't left yet, have you?

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you so much, Devin.

Um, and thank you, everybody who works so hard on this.

Um I will open it up to questions from the council.

Minister Jones.

Yes, I have a question for Jared.

He he mentioned that you have um in your master plan a 25% increase at Drakefield.

Is this something that was shared with the community around that could possibly impact the noise pollution to those neighbors?

Uh yes.

So the the 25% number that comes from a uh uh projected growth in the region.

There's a lot that goes into that number.

Uh and there were uh several open house uh opportunities for the master plan as it was developed.

Uh the master plan is not fully finalized with the FAA, it's in the final draft version right now.

Uh but the forecast chapter has been reviewed and approved.

And uh again, those numbers came from several several factors regionally, not just Fayetteville.

And you say it was shared with all the neighbors in that area.

Yes, there were multiple open house opportunities on that.

Thank you.

I do have a question for you.

Um more um, I know we talked about this um having a tuition cost of possibly 499.

Am I close?

I cannot speak, I cannot speak to tuition costs.

Um, so I'm gonna talk to economic development then.

Um because I spoke about how do we ensure that tuition costs and workforce grants are available to ensure this program is available to underserving marginalized community members.

Like we don't just want to target one population to come to the school and or be aircraft air plane mechanics.

How do we target and include that all means all for this aviation school?

Absolutely.

Thank you for the question.

And I think the first thing that comes to my mind, and I'm gonna give a little background for other members of the council because I know you know more about this too.

First step in this is once this aviation academy begins open up.

My first step is making sure that we make sure they become an eligible training provider with WIOA in our workforce system so that we can at least begin accessing.

That's the first low-hanging fruit of that.

Additionally, is this if this lease passes and we look?

I think there's a lot of other opportunities for community partnerships, corporate partnerships, et cetera, that look at Pell Grants or other opportunities to get this in.

I think that's the cool thing about this project is it's a color, it's a it's an academy, or we can look at that.

Furthermore, it's beyond the commercial airline pilot training.

There will be other education and workforce lines that come from this company.

And one of the things that we were just talking about today is their need to establish registered apprenticeship programs and other pathways that can actually bring in that funding that can help subsidize that.

Workforce development's a big passion of mine, given my previous role.

And so we plan on using every trick in the book on any new school that comes into Fayetteville that we would see eligible, that's where we run.

We may not know all the answers, but it's at top of mind on where we go, and those are the bare minimums that steps that we'll take.

Do you see any other development in that area with other businesses, maybe a coffee shop there, any other economic development in that area?

I have received lots of word that we need a restaurant in that area and another thing, and so yes, in regards to lease space available, et cetera.

I would have to talk with Jared.

But I think bringing a demand and employer of this scale there coupled with the students creates enough activity where that becomes viable for a business where they can actually make profit to sustain themselves.

One of the things that we can do with that, and our colleague Chung Tan is in the crowd, she works a great deal on targeting certain retail and restaurants into certain places, and this is just gonna give her another target.

And then I'm glad you um said it good leads into my last question about sustainability and risk.

What happens if they don't hit their goals?

What happens if they don't get them amount of students to enroll as expected?

Well, I can tell you on this one, I think that that point you'll have a conversation.

We'll be able to report that back to council.

This is step one of an agreement.

We know they have other ambitions and goals.

Those amendments will have to come back before this body for consideration.

And so we'll be able to check in, et cetera, and report back out on those economic outputs.

I think that I'm confident that we can not only hit those but exceed, but that's gonna be up to student demand, etc.

Um, but in regards to their demand, those numbers that you saw, that demand is already in limbo with this company.

They have that coming over.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Dr.

Jones.

Um Thank you, Devin, for your presentation.

My question is when will uh if it passes, when will it uh I guess when will classes begin?

Um if this lease were to pass, and this is kind of the sequencing of events the council could expect.

If this lease were to pass, you will see on the morrow or in a couple days jobs jobs begin posting so that they can begin local hiring, et cetera, for various positions needed.

Um if this lease passes tonight, I think we could potentially see our first round of students from Europe in late April or early May.

Okay.

What will it look like?

And I think this goes back to Minister Jones' question about local students, right?

Uh the opportunity for students here, uh FAVIL students or just students in Northwest Arkansas, having the what does admission criteria look like?

There is an admission test that does this just much like any other school on that.

They can speak more to that if you wish.

But in looking at when you talk about other partnerships, one of the things that this company asked for, they asked for a lot of various help when they first came over.

You know, they're 4,000 miles away.

We have to help them find housing, help them find transportation, look at various things.

One of the other things that was at their forefront was partnerships with schools, partnerships with other educational institutions.

Um I can't speak for favorable public schools, they're coming to my mind.

I know there's interest in University of Arkansas, but that's those are the steps that they want to take.

And so I think there, I think the partnerships that will help merge this aren't even formed yet.

They're to come.

Um they have uh I guess campuses in other parts of the country or the world.

Yes, they have um a base in Port Lauderdale, they have a base in Sweden, and I believe they have a um base in Norway as well, their hometown, where this is where OSM is headquartered.

So if this passes tonight, Fayetteville will be the second base in the country.

That is correct, sir.

Okay.

Okay.

And my last question would be how long is the program?

Nine to twelve months of training.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Ms.

Moore.

Thank you.

I also want to uh thank uh the uh staff for the robust conversations that we've had on something, a five-year contract, and you know, the influx that this business will bring will be you know very changing to the city of Fateville.

So I appreciate all the conversation and back and forth.

Um I wanted to make sure, Devin, I didn't quite catch, but you were going fast on some of that, and I was trying to write, sorry.

Um I heard you say something about when they're gonna start taking Arkansas students.

What did you say on that?

Sorry.

Middle of 2027.

Okay.

And then um one of the great things I've gotten to learn in this project is all the fun FAA regulations.

That's some light reading for you.

You too.

Um, still still working on that, but I've started to bite that off, and boy, that's super fun.

Um, so going back to you know, we only have certain regulatory right, and then really the FAA.

And I've heard a lot about, and I really appreciate this aircraft, the first 25 that are being invested in.

Um, it is not detailed in our contract that they only can use those aircraft, though.

And so I guess that's my question too, is um, is there anything to stop in the future on the expansion planes that they would bring that they might potentially go to?

You know, some other cities that, like in Arizona, that do united commercial um, you know, they have had complaints, right?

Because some of the noisier uh planes.

So is there anything?

Is it just a gentlemanly agreement and in good faith we're hoping they'll continue to invest in these planes, or in the event that there was some constriction to uh their budgets?

The FAA regulations would allow for any kind of craft, I would think, to be able to be used for aviation school.

Would that be correct?

That's correct.

My response on that would be um again, this is kind of phase one of looking at this project, and you know, the Technum P mentor Trent plane, that's the plane they're buying out of Italy.

It's the training craft that's the why we've been able to say this has been a very fuel efficient purchase on that technum.

And you are correct in saying no, there's nothing than the lease that would cause that would allow them, and that is to protect us from FAA grant assurance number 22, which is economic non-discrimination.

Um so on that front.

But I would say I would say this though, because I know they want to come back and because I know they want to have further conversations with this council, I have a feeling that's gonna be the crafts that um they're gonna have to report back to you, and so they'll do what they say.

Okay, thank you, Devin.

Thank you.

And I'm hopeful they'll be successful and we can continue to invest in the planes and have optimistic and have that runway for um the fuel, et cetera, that we've kind of chatted about sustainability goals.

Um I also just wanted to understand in the event, because you know, we talk a lot with our community, and it was asked by Minister Jones about um talking to the neighborhood folks know that they live close to a neighbor uh to an airport.

Um, however, right, they've been used to a certain volume of traffic that's gone on and have had voice concerns here and there.

I just wanted to double check because we are complaint driven in our our city in the event that we ran into that we were hearing things from neighbors.

Just what is the process?

Like what do we do to address because there is the city versus the FAA, and just wanted to understand how we'd navigate, you know, anything that we might need to put in place for like friendly skies or any kind of policies that might need to be more neighborly.

How do we navigate that?

I'm gonna ask Jared Rayburn's.

Okay, thank you.

Sorry, Doug.

Absolutely.

So uh if I understand your uh question correctly, you're asking about noise complaints and how do we handle those, correct?

Correct, because we're hoping we're gonna use these quieter planes, and I'm gonna uh lean into that in good faith.

But if we do get into that, we're hearing things from neighbors, like what avenues do we have available?

Sure.

So right now there's no formal process.

Uh most airports don't have one.

Uh there is uh growing trend in a lot of West Coast airports called Friendly Skies, which is more of a uh voluntary program where base tenants would agree to you know certain certain traffic patterns, certain uh uh voluntary hours of operation.

As of right now, we average roughly three to four noise complaints a year, uh, which is uh very small.

Uh there's there's airports out west that average you know hundreds a day in some cases.

Uh and I do want to reiterate uh almost any training aircraft that uh OSM or or any flight school would uh would purchase are all going to be on the very quiet side of what uh what uses Drake Field.

Uh we currently have four flight schools on the field already that are much smaller.

Uh the aircraft they are using are probably louder than what OSM is proposing.

Uh and like I said, I think these would be almost zero impact uh as far as the neighbors are concerned.

Okay, thank you, Jared.

Um, and then as far as um one I've had this conversation, I know it's been answered, but I know the public maybe might want to better understand the contract does read that this is for you know, aeronautical, trying to go back to a language that kind of encompasses aeronautical business activity.

Um that can encompass a lot of different types and varieties of things, right?

But it as we're understanding it currently, um, this company only is pursuing commercial um aviation school.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

So uh Devin mentioned it earlier, grant assurance number 22, and those come from our grant assurances from all the federal grants I bring to you guys uh every every week.

Uh that specifically mentions uh aeronautical non-discrimination or economic non-discrimination, meaning we cannot tell uh users of the airport, yeah, we cannot ban a certain class or type of uh aircraft or business type.

Uh and that basically says that public airports have to be open to the public and all of the public.

So what that means for somebody like OSM, um they can uh absolutely as they grow as markets change.

You know, uh we've talked about potentially apprenticeship programs and the maintenance part.

That is a separate regulatory book uh within the FAA.

Any major changes that would come about uh would have some sort of oversight from this council from the airport board, uh, but ultimately no, we cannot stop any one aviation user uh from any one particular type of business.

Okay.

Thank you, Jared.

Minister Jones.

Yeah, I think Jerry, either you or Devin can answer this, and you just spoke to it.

You um my question was will this attract some apprenticeship programs around?

Maybe part-time jobs, temporary jobs, maintenance and mechanics.

I'm sorry, can you repeat the question one more time for me?

Yes, will the apprenticeship program attract part-time jobs, temp jobs, maintenance or mechanic roles?

Is it just airplane?

I mean, like pilots, is it just for pilots?

Oh no, the I think what you're and even talking with uh the company at lunch today, you will see apprenticeship programs go into the technician side, the maintenance side, those other things.

You know, when you look at a company like this that wants to scale their operations, and some companies um take this, they train their own workforce and they do that through apprenticeship programs and they do that through pipelines, especially when they have a very specific need that may not be so dense in our market here.

And so on those side, I would say those will be full-time focuses on those as well.

I'm not aware of a part-time program on an apprenticeship, at least not one that's been registered with the Department of Labor ever.

Thank you.

Okay, I'm gonna turn it over to public comment.

Do we have any members of the public that would like to speak on this item?

If so, please come up to the podium, state your name and address, and it's helpful uh for us sometimes.

One of the reasons we asked to address anyone is welcome to comment, but if you could let us know if you live in Fayetteville inside the city limits, and you have three minutes.

My name's Abel Tomlinson.

I live at 60 West Smith Street, uh, Fayetteville.

Um my wife and I bought a house next to Drake Field in 2018 at the tail end of when poor people could actually afford a house in Fayetteville that needed severe repairs in our case.

Uh we worked very hard in the last eight years repairing it with our own hands to make it a home we love.

We knew we were going to experience some noise at the airport and a highway there and the train tracks.

And we got used to finally uh to the daily buzz of a few airplanes and rich folks and their private jets and the constant hum of vehicles, and even the extremely loud train horn in the middle of the night.

However, the noise has gotten more unbearable in the last two years.

We now have an extremely loud F-35 warplanes shattering our ears and scaring our kitties from Fort Smith's ebbing foreign pilot training program.

Yet the worst of all is reaction motorsports drifting events, where one whole weekend a month during the nicest months of the year, from March to November, starting this weekend, we hear very loud sports cars reving their engines like crazy, big gas guzzling engines squealing their tires non-stop for for eight to twelve hours a day, straight, all day long.

One weekend a day, a month is a lot to bear.

An entire weekend a month is an injustice.

And this now they plan to do three days a month every month uh this year.

We work very hard all weekend long, all week long physically, and enjoy our time in the sun, inviting friends and family for meals outside, working in our gardens, but these excessive noises are making it impossible.

It's an invasion of our personal space.

Also, it generates large amounts of climate emissions for no practical purpose, which doesn't mesh with Fayetteville's progressive ecologically conscious culture.

Now we also have Swarm Arrow set to manufacture AI killer robots next to us, which thousands of AI experts and world leaders want banned.

And the U of A is gonna help them along with their nuclear weapons program, two internationally condemned weapons systems.

This renders the UA mission statement about building a wet building a better world a falsehood or a lie.

Now we have a proposal for a hundred commercial airplanes, bringing more noise pollution.

Uh a council member, or they they say they're small prop planes, but as people have said, the legislation doesn't include any restrictions, so they could be jet planes in the future.

The proposal also mentions aviation cluster developments that includes drones tying into swarm arrows, stated desire to test their uh drones at Drake Field.

What are the real values of Fayetteville?

Killer robots and nuclear weapons, pointless fossil fuel emissions, limitless noise pollution for your southern neighbors.

Someone once said, love your neighbor.

Please vote now for more noise pollution.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, council.

My name is Mark Goodman.

I'm with at 10 North Ranch Drive.

But tonight I'm representing the chamber as director of economic development.

On behalf of the chamber, we do support this project.

And tonight, and Devin did a great job.

I'm just gonna cover a few points here.

I've been studying some of the economics around this and share some of that research with you.

But the evolving technology involved, plus the wages paid to what is a skilled workforce here.

The civilian aviation sector supports a large supply chain and economic impact.

Keep in mind that this includes aviation maintenance, which we've been talking about, which means constant need for people, parts, service, and workforce training.

A few points here.

Nationwide flight instruction and related employment has grown between 10 and 16 percent uh nationally over the last since uh 2020.

And civilian aircraft craft maintenance employment is also hiring, but our research has found that due to retirements, the sector is projected to have a deficit of 30 to nearly 50,000 workers uh by 2028 nationwide, and there's a need to replace them.

Wages in this sector in the aviation occupations generally run much higher than average wages of the overall economy to the tune of 120 percent of average wages to four times average wages.

The economic impact, probably the report that they provide uh recognizes that.

In short, this is a high-paid, high-skilled workforce regarding economic impact.

Uh in real life, economic impact uh and of projects uh accumulates quickly.

It's just a matter of counting it.

Um I understand they used Remy, which is probably the best model out in the system now to run their economic impact.

From my experience on models are a great predictor of impact, uh, but they generally undercount the actual impact.

It's our role to count that, and our role as a chamber, we would be working with the company to really quantify that for you.

Finally, I'll close uh with this.

It's exciting for me, also.

I do see the connections with the Fayetteville High School and area community colleges regarding workforce training and students connecting them into a workforce pipeline into the middle class.

And to the airport and South Fayetteville.

As Drake Field strengthens, it serves as an anchor to the city.

And much like a mall, the stronger its anchors are, the stronger the businesses are along its corridors.

For those reasons, we do support this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

My name is Jenny, J-E-N-N-I-E McDonald.

I live at 328 North Parker Avenue.

And I'm nervous.

This is the first time I've ever done this.

So bear with me.

I live in Greenland.

I live directly parallel to the um runway.

I hear the airplanes all day long when I'm home.

They're mostly right at the end.

And I'm so sorry, Ginny.

I'm gonna ask us to pause time.

If we could have the people that are in the audience just to please just be quiet while others are speaking to be respectful, that would be great.

Okay.

All right, we can start at the time again.

Please go on.

Thank you.

Um I just found out about this earlier this afternoon while I was at work.

I'm not on social media very often.

So somebody texted me and said, hey, you might want to know about this.

So I've been doing a little research while I've been waiting to come up here.

Um I'm not about the noise.

I'm used to, I've gotten used to the noise living there for eight years.

When I first moved there, I was like, oh my God, I'm gonna die.

There's an airplane in my driveway.

Um I'd learned about the military that comes in and does their drills, and I'm like, okay, I can handle this as long as they're done by 10 o'clock.

Um I've gotten used to hearing the airplanes come in, especially during football season.

I think that's great.

It's economy, it's bringing money in, it's bringing money into Greenland.

Um, which we need.

We're super excited a little bit about that, but my concern is just the noise.

What are gonna be the concerns going forward?

Um I heard somebody say something about was were the residents notified of noise ordinances, and I haven't heard anything.

This is the first thing I've heard of anything about this.

So that's one concern I have.

Um somebody brought up another question about what other businesses or resources might come in.

Um, and I heard somebody say something about the mechanics school.

My husband, who's now passed on, actually went to a mechanic aviation school that used to be at Drakefield way back in the day.

So what would keep that from happening again?

Um you know, a school coming in and then leaving.

Those are my concerns.

So sorry, I'm nervous.

I don't ever do this, and this is a really long meeting.

Um, I don't know how y'all do it.

Greenland, it's like done in an hour.

Um change is scary.

I get that.

That's why I'm here is just to get answers and find out resolutions, and I just hope everybody makes the best decision tonight for everybody, Greenland and Fayetteville who are surrounding Drakefield.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Do you have any other members of the public that would like to comment?

If so, please come on up to the podium.

Good evening, Mayor Ron, members of the council.

My name is Jeff Amrine.

I am the founder and managing director of Startup Junkie.

I'm here representing Startup Junkie.

I do live at 2233 South Plumarosa Drive, just outside of Fayetteville, and I enjoy on occasion the noise from I-49, more so than the planes.

But I'm here to stand in support, strong support of this initiative.

Economic development has three is a three-legged stool.

Business creation, business retention, and business attraction.

And business attraction in some ways is like hoping that you get a winning lottery ticket.

It's exceedingly difficult.

When you win, and this is a win, you've got to take the win because it doesn't happen every time.

Highly competitive.

I viewed this opportunity as a direct path to establish Fayetteville as a place where people are going to think about advanced mobility, advanced air mobility, something the region has stated as something that is important to the growth and vitality nationally and here in Arkansas as well.

I have personal connection to this.

My dad was a poor Kansas farm boy.

Aviation and become a pilot changed his life and ostensibly changed my life.

My son-in-law is a pilot.

My business partner is a pilot.

Aviation has changed their lives in material ways.

Something like 62%, maybe a little more, in Washington County, are not going to get a four-year bachelor's degree.

That's 62% are key candidates for this kind of skilled training that can change their lives.

We need more pilots.

We need more aviation mechanics.

We can't change the direction of the modern world, which is all about faster and more efficient mobility.

So I stand before you tonight in strong favor of this lease and this program.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm Charles Wallace.

I am a 30-year resident at Drake Field as an aircraft owner and hangar tenant.

I live at Ford 91 South Ray, so I'm also a Fayetteville resident.

And I'm very attached, as you might imagine, to the life growth development of the airport.

Our airport board is an air is an advisory committee.

And one of the things we're charged to do is to give you input involving information and opinion about things that are going on at your airport.

Well done.

Very clear.

We've asked what the things that might be wrong would be and how they might go wrong.

That's our job.

Who uh Rich Rost, who's uh another another loyal member of our board.

This is a good idea.

In the years that I've been associated with airports, and I've been flying since I was 16, and that was a long time ago.

I have seen many of the things that come and go at airports.

This is the best planned in these very early initial stages of any plan I've seen for a new business in the airport.

This is a group that has a successful history internationally.

And what more can you say than if we are able to improve our airport and provide more services by providing the space for an academy such as this?

It's going to help Washington County, Fayetteville, and our airport.

So I'm here to urge you to approve this lease.

Let these folks get started.

We will be paying a lot of attention to what they're doing.

And I'm pretty confident that it's going to be good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, I just wanted to be where United.

The whole board is behind this.

I want to compliment you on tackling the FARs.

That's not anything that doesn't know, it's a book about Yay Thick.

I didn't say tackle, I said I started.

Anyway, the the entire board is behind it recommended.

Our airport has a lot of room to grow.

All the other airports in the area are pretty much landlocked out.

So it's an opportunity for us with this school and also in other areas and more activity at the airport.

Thank you.

Yes, please just come on up.

And if you all want to, if there are others and you want to go ahead and line up, you're welcome to.

Short meeting tonight, huh?

You know, there's one thing about it is that I can remember.

I uh sorry, sir.

Will you please state your name?

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm uh John Ross, known as Pat Pat Ross.

Uh I came in front of the city council back in 1994, asking for permission to start, you know, a flight school.

And it's Ross Executive Aviation.

I've been at your airport since 1994, just like Doc.

There's one thing constant change.

And that goes with airports life.

I can remember driving up on old highway 71.

I live in Fort Smith, so I drive back and forth every day.

And uh you know, 49 isn't 71 anymore.

Change.

You know, what is that?

Uh field of dreams, build it now.

I mean, this is nothing but a win win 100% win for for Fayetteville.

Umise, noise is noise.

I mean, it's everywhere.

Um SM's been around a long time to come, you know, to come here to Fayetteville and want to put in and invest in this and invest this amount of money is incredible.

And it needs, I mean, uh, I'm uh I'm 100% for it.

And you know, and I've I've talked with uh these people and uh they're they're solid.

And you know, the the enthusiasm that for the city to be supporting this is I've never seen this kind of support before, and I think I've told that uh to one of your people, but uh I don't see any negative here at all.

I mean, the airport, how long's the airport been here since 1943?

Long time.

Airport was here before I a lot of people were here, so you know, so I don't mean it as a slide or anything, but uh the the fact is the airport will grow, it gives economic stability and good impact.

So, anyhow.

I'm bored 100%.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Okay, if we don't have any more comments from members of the public in the room, do we have any on Zoom, Gracie?

No.

Okay, so bring it back to the council, Mr.

Stafford.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, first of all, I want to give thanks.

Uh my first thanks is to uh Sarah Moore uh for pulling this off of consent because this is gonna be one of my proudest votes that I get to say I made as I serve on city council.

I want to thank Devin, Jared, uh the our airport board, the chamber, and I want to thank OSM for considering us in the first place and for coming here.

I am so excited and supportive of this project in so many ways.

Uh the economic opportunity for Drake Field.

This is gonna be a game changer for Ward 1 in South Fayeville.

This is gonna be incredible.

It's gonna be good, high-paying jobs.

Uh it's gonna support our tax base.

Um I I do want to there seem to be a few concerns, mostly environmental and noise concerns.

Uh, I want to address those really quickly.

Um, my understanding is they're gonna start out by this basically with two planes that I know of.

Uh one is the P Mentor from Italy, it's a single-engine piston aircraft.

It is one of the safest, quietest and most fuel efficient trainers available.

It operates at 3.2 gallons an hour.

That's about uh a standard trainer aircraft in America, is generally a Cessna 172.

It gets over twice the efficiency of a Cessna 182.

It can also uh operate not only on Avgas but on regular motor gas on unleaded gasoline, which the airport does not now provide.

But with OSM coming in here, it'll create the the potential need or ability for us to start selling regular unleaded motor gas again, and that'll have the added benefit of there's lots of aircraft at Drake Field right now that can operate on that fuel, but don't because it's not offered.

So I think there's a uh a real benefit there uh environmentally.

Uh noise-wise, these are really quiet fuel-efficient planes.

Uh the diamond, the double engine, the twin they're gonna be flying, the diamond DA-42, exceptionally quiet and efficient.

It gets the same efficiency as a twin engine that the Seston 172 does as a single engine.

So again, very uh great planes, safe planes, quiet planes.

We can't do anything about the F-35 slant through.

Uh my understanding is that the drifting is probably not gonna last forever.

The the reaction motorsports, the that they'll they'll be gone at some point when we look at our master plan and the work that's being out there, we won't be able to host them out there forever.

So that noise will leave.

We can't do anything about the train station.

Um so um again, so excited, so happy to be able to vote on this, so happy to have you here.

This is a win-win.

And and I think it'll last because there is a huge international compute uh commercial pilots shortage that's not gonna get solved anytime soon.

And if you want two pilots sitting up there in the cockpit instead of an autonomous system, then you want aviation schools, you want pilot schools, and these are gonna create great high paying jobs.

And DeAndre, they'll accept almost anybody.

I I uh I I have uh I I'm not saying they have low standards, but but I did I was able to work towards my pilot's license.

They accept the the FAA accepted me and said you could learn to fly, Bob.

So uh yeah, not saying y'all have low standards, not at all.

Um I think that's all my post.

I I'm so happy and I'm ready to vote on this.

I won't quit my day.

Thank you, Mr.

Stafford.

Um Mr.

Berna.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I like Bob or uh am excited about voting positive yes for this.

Uh number one, I'd like to welcome our Norwegian uh new friends, and you're getting a big old dose of uh Arkansas Fayetteville democracy tonight, because you're getting a big you're getting to sit here and watch it and play.

But we uh I'm I'm thrilled to uh be able to vote yes on this.

And and as I sit here tonight, the biggest thing that jumped out at me is many nights we have sat here and listened to how we have a housing crisis in Fayetteville.

And uh almost every time we hear that, we hear well, we can't fix the housing crisis if we don't also fix the wage crisis.

And uh this is a perfect example of doing what we can to fix the wage crisis.

So I am extremely excited about being able to vote yes for this, and I hope everyone else will too.

Thank you, Mr.

Berna.

Mr.

Wheedaker, thank you, Mayor.

I too am excited, and um, you know, people from Norway and Sweden, uh I don't speak either language, but I lived in a subdivision in Texas when my children were young, surrounded only by people from Norway and Sweden.

And the mothers would stand on the front porch calling the children home for dinner.

I thought they were singing, but you know, they were telling those kids if you don't get home, I am gonna beat you within an inch of your life.

But the language was so beautiful and melodic.

I just I thought they were singing.

Welcome to Fayetteville, welcome to Northwest Arkansas.

We're thrilled that you're here, and um I want the single best pilots I could possibly have on any aircraft that I board, and that starts with mechanics, and I would envision in the future that uh the cost of maintaining aircraft that have to have their engines torn down and rebuilt annually, that it would behoove them to grow their own workforce.

And uh I'm just thrilled that they're here.

Leaf blowers are the noise that we're concerned about.

Getting silent train whistles by creating safe crossings so they don't have to sound their whistle under federal law would be a great savings to all of Fayetteville, to be honest with you.

I lived in Burbank with a commercial airport with real commercial aircraft, and it is something that you acclimate to.

I do have to say it's shocking your first month there, but eventually it's just part of the background noise.

So I am I'm ecstatic that they chose Fayetteville mayor.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Wheedaker, and I will remind the council that this is a resolution.

So I'm so sorry, I didn't I apologize, Ms.

Bunt, it's a please.

It's a resolution.

So we need to pass.

We would need to I'd like to make a motion that we pass the resolution.

Yes, okay.

We have a motion to pass the resolution and several seconds.

Clerk Paxson, will you please call the roll?

Mr.

Stafford.

Yes, Dr.

Jones.

Yes, Ms.

Moore, yes, Mr.

Wheedaker.

Yes, Mr.

Berna.

Yes, Ms.

Bunch, yes, Ms.

Turk, yes, Minister Jones.

Yes.

All right, wonderful.

Congratulations.

Thank you so much, Blake, Jared, Devin, Chris, Terry, everybody at the airport that worked on this.

I appreciate it.

And it was so lovely to meet you all today.

And um, I'm sorry that I cannot join you in celebration, but there's really no place I'd rather be than right here.

So you all can celebrate without me.

Yes, yes.

Thank you.

And travels yes, travel safely.

Okay.

We are going to move right on in to item D2, police department policies.

A resolution to approve amendments to Fayetteville Police Department policies 41 41.3.8 body worn camera and digital mobile video recorders and 52.1.1 Office of Professional Standards.

All right.

And Chief Reynolds.

Can't believe everybody's looking at the case.

Kind of cleared out.

They'd be excited about police department policy.

So once again, good evening, uh Mayor.

Good evening, Council.

And so as uh the Deputy Chief of Police Tad Scott mentioned last week, we've proposed a few amendments that we brought to your attention for our body worn camera and DMBR policy, and then also our Office of Professional Standards policy as well.

I uh I really thought that uh Deputy Chief Tad Scott did an outstanding job last week of answering some questions, and then late this afternoon.

Um I answered a series of questions uh that we got from council member more last night.

Uh I sent that to all the council members.

Sorry it was so belated.

Uh, had a busy day, um, but I uh tried to get that to you before your meeting.

Uh so I had I hope you had a chance to to review that and uh really um beyond that I'm I'm here to answer any additional questions that uh the council may have.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, and thank you, Chief, for the responses back and for sharing those with the other council members.

Um as I mentioned to Deputy Chief Scott, um, while this had um changes that were happening that are highlighted, you know, this whole policy, this two policies have not been in front of this body um since I think 2020, and so we look like a different body, obviously, today.

Um a couple of follow-ups that I had, and and I did quickly get to review over, so thank you for getting it over, um, that I wanted to check on is that um in regard to the OPS standards, um, at the um the end it states you know that the uh statistical report, you know, can be provided um if it's requested.

You know, I know Fateville loves to strive and achieve to do kind of the best and lead, and so I guess that's my question.

Is that not something we could potentially can put out on to our you know our website or you know where we're putting the weekly reports or something that could be accessed so that folks wouldn't have to make the request?

Yeah, I think there's uh there's a there's a ton of information that we compile.

I mean, as you know, we're part of CLIA, and so we have CLIA standards and we're clearly accredited, and with that comes a lot of annual reporting that we do, whether it's uh you know OPS reporting, uh Office of Professional Standards, or whether it has to do with use of force, vehicle pursuits.

We track all of this information.

So, in short, to answer your question, I I think there is some room for uh improvement, and I guess uh some of the discussions I've had with my staff uh most recently we we've had some command staff changes over the last uh year, year and a half, and everybody's kind of getting settled into their position is an annual report, and I think that that would be something that I would strive for and hopefully something that we could accomplish uh for this year and provide an annual report with to the public that would include uh that analysis of OPS.

Okay, and and that really probably goes into other questions just about reporting and wondering.

So if you go to a yearly report, it could be um it could report on all of the different areas that are tracked on the different policies that you could do through Calia.

Sure.

Okay, there's a number of things that we could report on.

I mean, everything from calls of service to crime uh rates to uh our community outreach efforts, um, you know, so a number of things to highlight.

Sure, certainly you know, the officers' uh achievements and awards that they've gotten, accolades and and and a number of things.

Okay, so um as far as that being able to be reported yearly, potentially, that doesn't need to be something that's codified.

I mean, that can just be a policy, I guess that just exists within your department that you would potentially provide that.

Yeah, sure.

I mean, it doesn't need to be codified or anything like that.

It's something so that we could certainly strive for most police departments have annual reports, and uh, I think uh you know, we used to oh gosh, I'm gonna date myself.

Uh the last time I recall having an annual report, and and I think Chung, she left.

She actually helped the the police department with that back in.

I think it was 2004-2005 time frame.

Okay, thank you, Chief.

Yeah, you're welcome.

Okay, I'm not seeing any further questions, so I'm gonna open it up to public comment.

Do we have any members of the public that would like to comment on this item?

I'm not seeing any inside council chambers.

Do we have any that have logged in on Zoom?

Okay, I'm gonna bring it back to the council.

I would move to pass the resolution, Mayor.

Okay, we have a motion from Mr.

Wheedaker and a second from Buncher Turk.

I mean Berna or Turk.

Yes, okay, Clerk Paxton, will you please call the roll?

Mr.

Staffer, yes, Dr.

Jones, yes, Ms.

Moore, yes, Mr.

Wheedaker, yes, Mr.

Berna.

Yes, Ms.

Bunch?

Yes.

Ms.

Turk?

Yes.

Minister Jones.

Yes.

Okay.

So that passes.

Thank you, Chief.

Item D three.

A resolution to approve ADM 2026-1 and amend the Master Street plan by modifying the alignment of a planned neighborhood link connection between East 19th and East Pump Station Road and Ward 1.

Jonathan.

Thank you, Mayor.

Apologies.

My presentation pulled up while I do that.

I will describe where we are.

We are in South Vayville for this item.

It is a planned Master Street Plan Street, located south of 15th Street, between 19th Street to the west and the intersection of Morningside and Pump Station Road to the east.

Zooming in somewhat, you can see on our Master Street plan where that Plan Street connection is intended to go and its alignment.

This was reaffirmed in a more recent Master Street plan but upgraded at the time.

Well, it was previously adopted as a collector street, which if you think of one of our mid-tier streets as far as collecting and distributing traffic.

Staff's recommendation at the time was to upgrade it to an arterial street, suggesting four lanes and additional throughput of traffic was necessary.

In revisiting the connection uh more recently uh with our current Master Street plan that came to council in 2020, uh staff reversed their previous recommendation, finding that uh many of our goals revolve around trying to accommodate uh less uh less fewer wider streets and and focusing on uh uh a wider or I'm sorry, more dense connectivity of street networks.

Uh and that was ultimately adopted.

And bringing you to the most recent uh state of the property, uh if the council will recall a planned zoning district was approved at the east end of 19th Street.

Uh as that project is entered development review, the development team for them requested to remove the master street plan connection altogether.

Uh staff had significant or has significant reservations about this and uh advise the applicant that that is not something that we would be able to support.

If nothing else, uh this connection would make the only east-west route uh between 15th Street and Willoughby Road to the south, which is a two-mile stretch with very, very little in the way of connectivity.

Uh we did, however, acknowledge that there might be potential to realign the street.

Uh so we evaluated the existing alignment as it was today.

Uh first of all, it does have that odd jog because there is a portion of existing public right-of-way along that southernmost portion where it flattens out, uh, which is part of the rationale for connecting it uh all those years ago.

However, that alignment takes it across the northern spur of uh country club mountain south mountain, depending what name you'd like to use for it, which does include some topography that would make it challenging to uh complete the street connection in that area.

Conversely, we identified that the exist or previous rail bed that runs to the north of the property has an approximately one percent slope, which is much more viable for street construction as as you can likely imagine.

Similarly, that route would allow it to avoid the uh floodplain and floodway associated with the town branch trail to the north, uh, which it was important to try to thread that needle in this area between the topography to the south and the floodplain to the north while also preserving the potential for that connection.

All told, uh, we recommend a an alternative alignment uh for this master street plan connection, uh and that is why we're before council today uh with a staff initiated item.

Uh as a part of this, we did advertise the potential change with the property owners that would be affected by it.

Uh there were several who uh are concerned about this connection as the council often hears with Master Street plan uh plan streets are discussed.

Uh we do not this is not a design street, this is not a funded connection.

Uh the city's intent is to see the connection made as the properties in between develop.

Uh, we've advised these property owners that if the if they if they do sell their properties or redevelop them, there is the potential that uh the connection could be made.

Otherwise, there are no immediate plans for it.

Uh otherwise the feedback is that this route is preferred to the alternative, uh given it follows routes that are less uh uh impinging on those properties or the structures on them.

Uh all told uh staff is recommending approval of this alternative alignment.

Uh when it came to the planning commission, they recommended unanimously in favor of it.

Uh as a master street plan amendment, uh this does have to take a slight uh diversion to have to go into the planning commission to the city council's transportation committee.

Uh when it was heard there, the Transitation Committee uh saw favorably uh to forward it to the city council, also recommending in favor of it unanimously.

Uh with that, I can take any questions the council has.

And as the applicant for the item, uh staff is the applicant for the item.

There's uh no additional comments or presentations.

Great.

Okay.

Um do we have any questions for Jonathan?

Yes.

Um, I don't know who is first, so I'm going with Minister Jones.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Jonathan, I just had a simple question.

You said that was challenging to pop topography.

Um, how much tree removal would had to have have to happen to make this a good question, and we only have a high-level evaluation of that at this point.

We do know that the canopy that's in the former rail bed is relatively new.

Uh that trail spur was only removed in recent decades, whereas the canopy that's along the current alignment that we're proposing to change, is much more mature coming off the slope of that hill.

Okay.

Thank you.

Ms.

Turk.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um Yeah, I just wanted to um you probably said this, and I'm sorry I might I missed it.

Why why are we talking about this right now?

Is there is there something that um preceded this?

It's a good question.

Apologies if I did not explain or explain.

I think it's probably me, so I'm sure you explained it, Jonathan.

The uh oftentimes when we have these planned streets on our master street plan, they we seek during the Master Street plan process to identify the best alignment.

But the reality is when projects come through, we often have to revisit the the more specific realities of the ground, whether they identify wetlands or terrain or or sensitive tree canopy, whatever the condition may be.

In this particular case, a planned zoning district was approved at the east end of 19th Street, and as they've come through for development review, they expressed an interest in removing this connection, uh, to which staff uh expressed we would not be able to support, but we uh were willing to entertain or consider an alternative alignment that may meet the needs of the developer as well as the city.

Thank you for explaining that.

Um and then um I was told, and I'm sure this is is probably uh maybe I misunderstood, but I thought that uh railroad lines that it was very difficult to get them to be vacated, and it sounds like this is on an old rail bed.

And uh how is that vacation possible?

I mean it it sounds like an ideal place to put a new street, honestly.

I that's a good question.

I don't know the history of how it was vacated, but it is not currently uh deeded as railroad right away.

I know there was a period in the 2000s, anyways, when the city came upon some railroad right-away that they were seeking to divest themselves of.

Um if that's something that's of interest, I can dig into a little bit more into the deed history if that was simply vacated by the railroad when that spur was removed.

Uh, but by all indications, that area where the railroad spur was within the deeds of the the current property owners, not the railroad.

And not the city.

So the city does not own that or have clear.

Okay.

Thank you.

I don't need any further information.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Okay.

Not hearing other questions from council.

Do any members of the public have comments about this item?

And we don't have anybody who has called in.

So bringing it back to council.

Yes, Mr.

Burner.

Mayor I make a motion to uh approve the resolution as presented.

Second.

Okay.

We have a motion and a second.

Clerk Paxton.

Mr.

Stafford.

Yes.

Dr.

Jones.

Yes.

Ms.

Moore.

Yes.

Mr.

Wheedaker.

Yes.

Mr.

Berna?

Yes.

Ms.

Bench?

Yes.

Ms.

Turk?

Yes.

Minister Jones.

Yes.

Okay, so that passes.

Thank you.

Um item D four, an ordinance to rezone the property described in RZN 2026-1 for approximately 0.8 acres located at 3513 West Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard in Ward 1.

From C1 neighborhood commercial to UT Urban Thoroughfare.

Kit.

Thank you, Mayor.

Be it ordained by the City Council, the City of Faithville, Arkansas Section 1.

That the City Council, the City of Fettville, Arkansas hereby changes the zone classification of the property shown on the map, Exhibit A, and the legal description, exhibit B, both attached to the planning department's agenda memo from C1 neighborhood commercial to UT urban thoroughfare.

And section two, that the City Council or the City of Fayetteville, Arkansas, hereby amends the official zoning map of the City of Fayetteville to reflect a zoning change provided in Section One.

Jonathan.

Thank you, Mayor.

This property, there are the property that is the subject of this rezoning request is in southwest Fayetteville.

Specifically, it is due south of the intersection of Didensmore Trail and Martin Luther King Jr.

Boulevard.

It includes roughly 0.8 acres on the south side of Martin Luther King, and it's currently developed with three uh metal buildings or warehouse in character.

Uh the request is to rezone them from C1 neighborhood commercial to UT Urban Thoroughfare.

Uh staff and the planning commission are recommending in favor of the request.

Uh first finding that the request is compatible with the surrounding land uses.

The UT Urban Thoroughfares zoning district is intended for, as its name suggests, thoroughfares, and staff finds that the application of the zoning district along Martin Luther King Jr.

Boulevard is appropriate with its allowance for not just residential uses but also non-residential uses of of greater intensity, uh including building height and higher densities as appropriate and as feasible.

Where staff's findings uh became more mixed uh was in reviewing our our long-range planning documents.

Uh first and foremost, the future land use map designates this property as a natural area.

Uh that is because uh this property and much of the surrounding properties uh were formally and are still partially within FEMA floodplain uh during our future land use map exercises during the adoption adoption of City Plan 2040, many of the areas designated as FEMA floodplain receive this natural area designation, which uh with an intent to preserve those properties and and not see them developed.

Uh conversely, uh there are a number of attributes that suggest this property is appropriate for redevelopment.

Uh that includes uh both uh proximity to a fire station, access to water and sewer, uh proximity to parks and trails, uh as well as transit and uh grocery stores.

Uh and looking at the additional issues on the property, uh it would reduce the tree preservation requirements if it was redeveloped.

Uh it is at 20% today under C1 and would shift to 15% under uh UT.

Uh as I noted before, FEMA floodplain is a consideration on this property.

Uh worth highlighting is uh the amount of floodplain that was removed on this property during the most recent FEMA FEMA floodplain remapping.

Uh so what I've shown here on this slide is on the left-hand side is the FEMA floodplain as exists today, whereas the green areas were previously uh FEMA uh excuse me, designated as FEMA floodplain.

Uh that can occur for any number of reasons.

Uh uh FEMA does uh uh reevaluated these flood maps in terms of topography, recent development, recent uh flooding trends, and and as well as uh uh closer study and evaluation.

Uh but ultimately uh finding that the front half of the property is not uh within floodplain now, staff feels that UT in particular represents a potentially uh positive alternative to C1 because it would require the buildings to be located near the street outside of that floodplain, where C1 today uh uh allows that as an option, but also affords the ability to put buildings uh further to the south of the within the property within the floodplain itself.

Uh as I alluded to, uh staff is recommending in favor on the balance of these considerations.

Uh the inconsistency we find with our uh adopted land use plans we feel is balanced out by the existing development on the property and the uh existing development in the wider area.

Uh Planning Commission, when they heard it, forwarded it to City Council unanimously, and to date we've not received any public comment on the item.

And I can take any questions the council has, and Mayor Phil Swope is here as the applicant on this item.

Okay, great.

Um, Mr.

Swope, are you available for questions?

Should the council have them?

Okay.

All right.

Do we have any questions either for Mr.

Swope or for Mr.

Kirth before we go to public comment?

Ms.

Moore.

I just I have a city attorney question about the future land use.

Um I must have missed that earlier in the packet, so it kind of threw me there.

Um, but just I'm sorry, it's not for you.

I apologize.

It's just for city attorney.

Um that was my fault, Mr.

Swap.

Uh I just I wanted to check and see.

I know with these already being certain zoning designations, whenever we talked about anything that would be considered a down zone, you know, that would be seen potentially as a taking.

And so I'm just curious how we execute if we've put for a future land use natural areas, but they currently have a higher designation like a C1.

What are the available avenues the city has to try to go to the future land use?

I mean, is that gonna be that the city would have to potentially purchase it?

It'd have to be a wrap part of our green space that we might allot funds.

Uh I just for as we look at these in the future, if we might have others going forward, I just city I'm I'm sorry, if the city decides to down zone some property, in other words, uh reduce its value by making it more difficult to develop or not develop at all, then certainly we would be susceptible to uh have the property owner say that we have condemned their property.

Uh uh inverse condemnation, where even if we don't condemn it officially, and they can still sue us and say we have condemned it, we'd have to pay them the money value damage uh from where it was zoned before to what it's what you're would be doing to stop it from being developed.

So there is that danger any time you do uh down zoning.

Is that does that answer your question?

Yes, it partially answers.

I guess I just was gonna see if you had, and maybe this might be a Jonathan question too.

I don't know, and and maybe it's just a future agenda session question, but as we look at those areas for future land use for not the natural area, just wondering what are those available pathways to go towards that future land use, which I think that's probably gonna be some of our most challenging to execute those for future land use.

That's all.

And maybe that's just something I'll bring up for agenda session in the future.

Well, certainly the city council has the right to do future land use maps.

Uh there's they're not all over the state, but what the Supreme Court has always said is that the future land use map is a plan.

It's nothing in stone, and it can't justify really uh a down zoning uh unless the city is willing to pay for it.

So it's doesn't, it's not uh it doesn't affect the property right now.

Uh you could use it as a guide and say and justify the city spending money if you felt like it was important enough to be able to actually zone it in a way it can't be developed, but it's it's just a plan, it doesn't really give us any cover from being sued if we decide to in fact downzone and make it where it is gonna be a natural area.

Okay, I'm gonna open it up for public comment or for anybody who is called in.

Okay, so bringing it back to the council.

We are on the first reading.

I would move to suspend the rules and go to the third and final reading.

Second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second to suspend the rules and go to the third and final reading.

Clerk Paxton.

Mr.

Stafford, yes, Dr.

Jones?

Yes, Ms.

Moore, yes.

Mr.

Wheaker, yes, Mr.

Berna.

Yes, Ms.

Bunch?

Yes.

Ms.

Turk?

Yes.

Minister Jones.

Yes.

In order to rezone the property, described and rezoning petition RZN 202601 for approximately eight tenths of an acre located at 3513 West Martin Luther King Jr.

Boulevard in Ward 1, from C1 neighborhood commercial to UT Urban Thoroughfare.

Okay, Clerk Paxson, will you please call the roll for the final vote?

Mr.

Stafford?

Yes.

Dr.