We are gonna get started on this evening's agenda session.

It looks like all right.

So the first thing up next week at the regular meeting, we will be um recognizing some of our fire department personnel for their service.

So that'll be a great way to kick off the meeting.

We'll then swear in the newest um uh appointees to Fayetteville Youth Advisory Council, and Judge Stevenson will be here to do that uh oath of office.

We had record applications uh for to serve on the youth council, and um it's really fun to go through those and get to talk to those kids.

Um and then also we will have the sales tax and monthly financial report from Steven and the consent agenda, two sets of minutes on the consent agenda.

Um the first resolution is to approve the purchase of a Peterbuilt container carry uh carrier for 202,350 from TLG Peterbilt of Northwest Arkansas.

This was sourced through a source well uh co-op purchasing contract and will include freight charges and delivery fees up to 10 percent.

This and the next one, two, three items are from Ross, and they are all at fleet.

So if at any point you have questions, Ross is here and he can come up and answer.

The second second one is a work truck replacement for the water and sewer department.

This one comes through National Auto Fleet Group.

It's 500, sorry, $55,155.32 cents.

It's also through SourceWell Co-op and includes um and and then we're plus any applicable surcharges, freight charges, and delivery fees up to 10%.

And then the third fleet item is a resolution to approve the purchase of a hydro cedar trailer from Vermeer Mid South Inc.

in the amount of 45,523 dollars pursuant to, and I'm not for sure why that one frankly is even on this agenda, um, because we don't have to take that to council, but we're doing it maybe because of the contingency up to 10%.

Uh pursuant to a source well co-op purchasing contract, plus any applicable taxes, surcharges, freight charges, title, licensing, and delivery fees up to 10% of the original purchase price.

Okay.

Looks like we don't have any questions for fleet.

The next item on consent is a resolution to approve amendment number one to the professional services agreement with Kimley Horn and Associates and the amount of $810,500 for additional design services associated with the safe streets and roads for all project.

I believe Justin Bland is here to speak to this per key.

Yes, he's delayed.

So Alan Pugh, can you mention the bring this up real quick?

And Alan, while you're coming up, my question was gonna be is this for multiple streets?

And could you kind of list those if there are multiples?

I'm assuming.

Thank you.

And unfortunately, I may not know the answer to that because I've not been uh really involved in this project, but um you haven't really you haven't been in dropped involved in the um Kimley Horn safety improvements on Joyce.

Okay, well then let's not I then there's no need, I don't think, for you to I mean, I think we need to wait on Justin then.

Okay, so we either need to pull this item off to a different agenda or wait till he can get back.

Yeah, we can do that back at the end.

I don't want you to have to, that's not fair to you, Alan, but thank you for being willing.

A seven, a resolution to approve amendment number one to the contract with OPW Commercial Services of Arkansas and the amount of 47,000 for additional fire hydrant painting services.

Um this is something that we began doing, I think either this spring, um, just painting and repairing all the fire hydrants around town.

Um Teresa.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I remember us having this conversation about what a low price this was, and so I guess I'm wondering um have they actually gone in and repainted some fire hydrants and what um has the workman um good and suitable?

I'm assuming that since they're coming back up here, but I thought I'd at least ask.

Yes, that is true.

They were by far the lowest bid of all the bidders.

Uh they have almost completed a thousand fire hydrants, done a great job.

They all look good.

So we asked them if they want to do another thousand for the same price, and they said they would.

So that's why we're bringing this amendment for the same price.

It'll make the total contract 94,000.

And Tim, how many more fire hydrants are there out there that need to be repainted or or will that catch us up for for right now?

No, this'll get us up to 2,000.

We've got about 6,000 to paint.

So thank you.

About a about a third of them will be done after this part.

Okay.

Um and Clerk Paxson, if we just want to pull A6 from the agenda for now, and we can uh bring that, we can add that to a subsequent agenda.

Um a resolution to approve and adopt the updated City of Fayetteville emergency operations plan.

Chief Harden, if you want to speak about answer any questions about this, or Rusty, if if if you've got that.

I know this is something that needed updated, and thanks to Keith and the fire department and Shane Wood and everybody who this is one of those things you hope you never have to reference, but certainly want to have up to date and in good working order in case you do.

Yeah.

So uh Shane Wood would be presenting this.

He had a uh family emergency.

Uh so I but I'm here and I'm very much familiar with it, and I can explain it to you.

Uh whenever we uh when he first took over that position, it was one of the things that I put in his lap, and I'm like, hey, I want this to be a functional document, like uh cooking cookies, right?

I mean, I want a recipe.

If something happens, this is step one, step two, step three.

Uh we had an emergency operations plan.

It was over 300 pages.

Um it was a lot of repetitive over and overs saying the same thing.

Uh really falls in line with many of your federal documents was what it was.

And uh so he has rewritten it and it is very easy to manage.

You can sit down and spend just a little bit of time with it and and understand the steps.

Uh the first portion of it kind of lays out the plan uh that's gonna apply to any emergency, what it is, you know, regardless of what it is, it's about 30 pages and it just A B C here's what we do.

Uh, and then it gets down into individual annexes that that expound on what each of those uh you know steps are, but it's a really good document.

If you get the opportunity to go through it, I would highly encourage you.

It's it's great.

Great.

Thank you.

Yeah, Ms.

Turk.

Thank you.

Um I just skimmed some of it and it looked really straightforward.

Um, my question is are you gonna have sort of um uh are are you gonna have a drill or something to see if you operationally can accomplish those things and things go the way you haven't planned out?

Uh well, we absolutely do train on that.

We do that quarterly uh with with not just here, we do it regionally because I mean on any big event like that, you're gonna have uh, you know, uh help coming in from all over.

And uh yeah, every quarter we do that with uh the neighboring departments and and work through those steps.

Um as far as something what something I've spoken with Keith about and uh that that I would very much like to see uh is to try to get all of our decision makers up to the National Fire Academy to go through.

They've got a little two or three day uh event that where you really get to train well on it, and and I think that would be very advantageous for us.

Um so this is the first step in that direction, and and yes, I would like to do that at some point.

I think it's really important.

I I um I participated in um the disaster relief center recovery uh for Hurricane Wilma.

That's been about 20 years ago, but it it's very eye-opening um how a hurricane can really devastate a whole community and a whole region.

So yeah, thank you for for updating that, Chief.

You bet.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you.

Um we have four items of new business that we will be going over.

Um the first Mayor, I apologize.

I've had my hand up for the last item in the first one.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

I don't, I'm not able to see that.

I apologize, Ms.

Moore.

Which I uh for the emergency operations.

Well, I can cover that first if that's okay.

If I don't know if Chief is still there, I is yeah, what was the other one?

Oh and then I just I had question on the fire hydrants.

Oh, okay.

Go he can.

I think Tim is also still here, so whichever you want to do first.

Okay, thank you.

Um, Chief Harden, um, I had a question on, I'm sorry, I'm gonna bounce between screens here being mobile.

Um, but on page uh 12, and and first I want to say thank you.

I appreciate that you guys have gone through and made this so much less cumbersome, hundreds of pages down to 30 is very helpful.

Um, but in the section that talks about public information unit prioritizing delivering accessible, culturally appropriate and multilingual communications and utilizing like multiple formats for our messaging.

I was just I didn't know.

I know Washington County had done some discussions and talked about um potential like languages and other access.

And so I hope that maybe we could hear more about that tonight or in the future, kind of about what that might look like because I know there were some unique challenges too to be able to deliver on that.

Okay, so your question is specifically with uh whenever we have language barriers, uh trying to communicate that is that what I understand.

And just how we are gonna make sure to disseminate to work across barriers for non-English speakers, I think is what I'm hearing you say.

Is that right, Sarah?

Well, and cultural cultural groups, um, you know, that it is what it mentioned.

I know that um in Washington County, um, I think they recently passed something that um was going uh to allow for the top I know languages, I believe, that are designated um through like voting records that they would be putting out um emergency communications in those languages, and I just didn't know um with our planning if that was in coordination with Washington County and kind of how we had had evaluated and looked at that portion.

So I can't specify I can't speak specifically to the exact uh page number that you quoted there.

Uh that I wasn't really prepared to do that, but I I can tell you uh, you know, from past experience, uh, we did work with Washington County, and they they had pamphlets uh for the various things like working through COVID.

Um we had a lot of things like Marshallese, for instance.

Uh, we were able to get in there and and uh provide them different pamphlets about uh you know safety precautions and whatnot.

Okay, thank you, Chip.

Thank you.

Tim, I think the next question is about hydrants.

I yes, I just um I appreciate um the information that was provided because I was wondering, I I was in our just walking around um in the downtown area.

I was curious about where we're at on hydrant.

So thank you for the update.

One of the things though that I was curious about, because I thought I heard you say, Tim, that um they're painting them, but did I hear you say too we're identifying that they potentially might need some level of repair as well or some kind of adjustments made?

Because I'm seeing some in the downtown that look like they might be challenging to use or getting wilted, or um, just they look pretty pretty beat up.

So I was just curious too if there's potentially another item coming or if that's absorbed within the budget that we're gonna have to make repairs to some of the hydrants.

Oh, that's a good question.

Uh the fire department did go through and inspect all our hydrants and gave us a list of the ones that needed repair, and we've been repairing those steadily ever since.

So uh there's no budget item or anything.

That's something that we do as a matter of operations is to repair the fire hydrants.

Okay, do you do you remember about how many seem like they needed repairs, Tim?

No, I I don't know what that number is, but there's always fire hydrants to repair, though.

Okay, all right.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

Sure.

Great.

Thank you.

Um okay, jumping back to B one.

This is the North School Avenue structure.

This is one that it's been a little bit.

It was um tabled on June back on June 2nd, and it's the raisin removal of a dilapidated and unsafe structure on the property owned by Stephen and Greta Smith, located at 20 North School Avenue.

Um it if Billy Bryant is here, Mr.

Bryant, if you could give us a little bit of info about I think there was something we were waiting on while we tabled it for two months, and if you could kind of update us on what happened since then.

Certainly.

Thank you, Mayor, City Council Billy Bryant, Code Compliance Supervisor.

Um since the June 2nd council meeting, staff has had multiple conversations with the property owner.

Uh the owner has scheduled the disconnection of utilities and hired an engineering firm to design the retaining wall uh to support the parking law on the south side of the property.

The property owner has obtained the finalized engineering plans for that retaining wall and is applying for a grading permit through our engineering department.

Once the grading permit is approved, the property owner can remove the structure to build a retaining wall, uh, barring any setbacks or new information.

Staff may recommend tabling.

I can answer any questions that council may have.

I don't think we have any.

Thank you.

Or actually, can we see Keith?

Are you able to see um let me go to panelists if umore has her hand up?

I don't see anyone on the okay, great.

Thank you, Jonathan.

Okay, great.

Thank you, Billy.

Um the next one is these next three are the ones that our um housing and community services um department worked with planning to bring forward.

The first one is an ordinance to amend the definition of a through lot in section 151.01 definitions of the unified development code.

This was tabled before going through any readings.

Um Kit, does that mean it's still on old business or will we put it on new business?

I I think you can probably say old business for that.

Nothing happened, but it was uh on the agenda.

Okay, so it'll be on the first reading when we when when we do hear it.

Okay.

And Keith, do we have Marley via Zoom for this one?

Yes, she's on Zoom.

Okay.

Um Jonathan, do you and or Marley, are you all both available for questions?

Is Mar, does Marley have a presentation?

Uh yes, I have a short one.

Pardon me.

I have a short one that I can share now.

You have a presentation.

Okay, yes, great.

Please go ahead.

That would be great.

And so we're on through lot.

Are you presenting on all three, Marley, or just one or two?

Yes.

Okay.

So similar to last agenda session.

Okay, great.

While you're pulling that up, um B3, just to refresh your memory, is an ordinance to reduce the minimum lot width for residential dwellings from 18 feet to 12 feet in RIU, CS, UT, MSC, and DG zoning districts.

That would be amending 161.12, 161.22, 161.24, 161.27, and 161.28 of the unified development code.

And then the third one is an ordinance allowing the planning commission to grant additional parking reductions for residential uses by amending 172.05 standards for the number of spaces by use of the unified development code.

Okay, Marley, back over to you.

Thank you.

Um week before last, I introduced a set of our staff recommended code changes, um, really with the intention of supporting our smaller scale housing development teams in Fayetteville.

Um tonight, I just wanted to share a few of the key findings from the 2026 housing assessment, um, really just to further underscore the need for solutions that focus on this segment of our local housing market.

Um, so I wanted to start off with just an overview of um vacancy rates as of the end of 2024 and kind of that historical trend.

Uh vacancy rates for both owner-occupied housing and rent and the rental market are key metrics that we monitor annually.

So that's something one of those headline metrics that you'll hear quite frequently.

Um, really, in the most basic sense, it's a rough measure of competition in our local housing market.

Um, so as a reminder, a healthy vacancy rate for the homeowner market is somewhere between one and two percent, and within the rental market is somewhere between 5% and 8%.

Um, another key item I wanted to point out here um rental vacancy in Fayetteville on the right hand side of the screen reached an all-time low in 2019.

So that's a 76% drop in available units in less than a decade's time.

Uh Fayetteville's renters in particular have really felt that squeeze.

Um, in 2024, around 45% of renters were housing cost burdened, with around half of those folks being severely housing cost burdened, meaning they pay 50% or more of their income on housing cost.

Um, while we won't have 2025 uh federal estimates until later this fall, um, I do believe that our 2025 and 2026 housing production data suggests that this trend towards a healthier vacancy rate will continue.

That's something we'll continue to monitor and communicate to council.

Um I think the the really the key to success in continuing that trend is ensuring that we remain committed to bringing new housing choices to our market.

Um, and I think a variety of housing choices.

So really the key message here is not wanting to repeat the pattern that that got us into the situation we were in at that sort of all-time low in 2019.

Um, you know, so well, while we talk a lot about the importance of our future housing needs in terms of the aggregate number of homes we need to add in Fayetteville, I think it's also really important to think about housing needs in terms of size and scale.

Um I think that's something we're hearing come up with some frequency and some some reading recent rezonings that have come before council.

Um Fayetteville households.

This is something we talked about last week, really skew smaller in terms of the number of people in a home.

Um, I think we often think about students driving that sort of household size trend in Fayetteville.

Um, but we're really seeing kind of emerge over time in the data post-2019 is that that pattern also holds for family households.

And so just as a reminder, family households represented around 80% of our net population growth since 2019.

Um, so really we're thinking about that kind of smaller household size for both non-family households and family households who across the board.

Um, around 70% of Fateville households citywide are one person or two people.

Um, just sort of again to drive home that point.

Yeah, nearly two-thirds of our occupied housing units are two bedrooms or three bedrooms.

Um, I'd say in a lot of cases, um, for folks, that's just too much house for smaller households.

Um, and it often comes with a higher price tag.

So something to kind of think about how these dynamics are interconnected.

Um, what we like to talk about is this really resulting in a kind of structural mismatch that we've sort of outlined in that yellow color here on the right hand side of the slide.

Um, in that one-person households are competing for limited studio and one bedroom options, um, and that's not just apartments as a reminder.

Um, while two-person households face a market that has too few homes scale to their size and budget.

So really seeing that kind of increased competition across the board.

And that's something that we need to be thinking about.

So when we think about the impact of the structural structural mismatch, it's really directly impacting affordability by creating increased competition in Fayetteville's rental market across the board.

Rental units priced under a thousand dollars, which is roughly the affordable rate for Fayetteville's median earning renter, are predominantly one bedroom units.

So you'll see that in the sort of yellow part of the graph here.

Studios remain a relatively small share of our rental market mix in Fayetteville, despite being a more naturally affordable option for a lot of smaller households, which I think presents a clear local supply gap in our rental market that we need to be thinking about how we're we're talking about with the development community as a whole.

Units with three or more bedrooms, um, so that's that green color in the graph.

Um, those tend to skew towards the highest price tiers, reflecting the cost associated with larger types of homes, um, which I think are just historically more abundant in Fayetteville because of that that trend and sort of gravitation towards single family building patterns.

Um also wanted to talk a little bit about entry-level homeownership need.

I know that's something um that started to come up in in some of our uh conversations that we're having with residents, and I think ones that we're also seeing um increasingly at council in in conversation.

Um so while the housing assessment itself um is sort of intentionally broken out into an analysis of our own ownership sort of submarket and our rental submarket in Fayetteville.

Um, we know that these submarkets are inherently interconnected in a variety of ways.

And so I think when we think about this more simply um without a consistent supply of those smaller starter homes on the market, which can come in a variety of forms.

Um, some households are really forced to rent longer than they might otherwise prefer, creating additional competition with lower income renters who um might otherwise not face that competition.

Um, in 2024, the median home value in Fayetteville was somewhere just a little bit under 350,000.

Um, so under current market conditions, we estimate that a household would need to earn somewhere around 108,000 a year to afford a medium priced home in Fayetteville, um, which is above our citywide median household income.

Um way that I kind of like to think about about this is really with fewer entry point homes available on the owner-occupied housing market, higher and earning renters are unable to transition into homeownership, really intensifying uh competition within our rental market and squeezing lower income renters the most.

So again, um these sort of different segments of the markets um are certainly interconnected.

Um, you know, really just want to reiterate again, we know that removing barriers to local local smaller scale home builders is mission critical for delivery and the types of housing that Fayetteville needs most for providing that variety that we really do think over time can unlock affordability through additional housing choices.

Um, this is particularly important when we're thinking about encouraging missing middle housing types that we hear a lot from residents.

So those are things that they would like to see.

Um things like duplexes, townhomes, and ADUs.

So just as a quick reminder and intro to the set of ordinances, um, what you're what's on the agenda um for next week is modifying the definition of a through lot, reducing the minimum lot width to 12 feet for dwellings in urban residential and mixed-use zoning districts, and ensuring that the planning commission has the discretion to write size parking requirements for residential developments.

Um so with that said, I'll hand it over to Mr.

Kurt if he has anything he would like to add.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you, Marley.

And mayor, I don't have anything in particular to add on that.

I didn't just want to afford the opportunity to council if there were other items that you've thought of between the original agenda session presentation that uh would help inform your decision.

The please let me know.

We can make sure that's included in the presentation on Tuesday.

Okay, looks like we have some questions, Bob.

Go ahead.

Yeah, uh, do we have access to that presentation that was just given?

I I can work with I can make sure it gets sent out.

I don't think it has been, but Blake and I can do that this afternoon.

We we can get it and send it out.

That'd be awesome.

Absolutely.

Or Marley, you're welcome to just go ahead and send it out now if you want to.

Well, okay.

Um, sorry, Teresa.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, Jonathan, we talked about this, I think a couple of weeks ago.

If you could provide some examples um for many of these different um changes.

And then with the from going from 18 to 12, could you um identify on a map where that will occur?

I know it's a a different um, you know, it's obviously on the different zoning, but how many um how many units that will affect um would be very helpful by each different uh class, like main street center and all those different ones that you're proposing to go from 18 to 12.

Okay, I think we could put that together.

Council Mr.

Weediger had asked for a map exhibit.

So we we've got that put together, but I'll see if we can do one that includes some of that more fine-grained detail.

Like a spreadsheet, that would be really helpful, and maybe with some percentages on there in terms of because we always see the RSF four as a percentage of what our um zoning is, and it would be nice to see these other ones as a percentage too.

That's a clarifying question.

You mean as a percent of the overall city's land area?

Okay, perfect.

Thank you.

And also think, Teresa, we'd asked for some photos, both asked for some photos of examples that I think that we have, and and we have a good example, I think, that we can show for at least some of that.

So thank you.

You're welcome.

Okay, I'm moving on.

Um that takes us through.

Man, and if we go as quickly at council as we're going tonight, we'll just it'll be an early meeting.

Teresa, go ahead.

I'm sorry.

You were you we were jamming, and then I just remembered that I had one other question.

Go ahead, though.

So before uh before we made those parking changes, uh was that like eight or nine months ago.

Could you would it be possible to have um a spreadsheet about what the parking percentages were before we made those changes, what they are now, and what you're proposing?

Yes, I think we can do that.

I had I think what was shown at the agenda session last week was what they are today and what we're proposing, and you're asking for like what came before that.

Is that correct?

That's correct, Jonathan.

I think we can do that.

Thank you.

Okay.

Moving in to new business.

Oh, I'm sorry, no, I completely looked at that wrong.

We have three more items of old business.

Forgive me.

Uh, the fifth item of old business is an ordinance to amend ordinance six nine five seven regarding the conditional removal of two hundred and seventy-nine linear feet of Tanglewood branch from the streamside protection zone and allow the developer to submit a revised site plan for the property located south of 576 center street.

Um, this last week was left on the first reading, and this is the um, I believe the property that Mr.

Rob Sharp presented and talked to us about.

Um Jonathan, is there anything that we know of that's new that the council needs to know before next week?

Currently I have no new updates from the applicant.

Mr.

Wheedaker.

Thank you, Mayor.

And Jonathan, my one question of clarification was I know staff was recommending against, and I know in part because philosophically you needed to uphold streamside protection as a standard, but I was confused as to whether it was in part because the new project did not adequately resemble the original project, or no, that was moot because that's what triggered them to have to come back to council in the first place.

That's a good question.

Staff's recommendation, you're correct, is pretty much wholly about the the precedent we're concerned with setting with amending our streamside protection map.

The reason is back before council has nothing to do with staff's opinion of the project.

It is because the original amendment was approved with a condition that if the project substantially changes from what was approved by council earlier this year, that it would return to you all for the opportunity to evaluate if those changes still merit amending our streamside protection map.

Is that clarify?

All right, thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, Jonathan.

B6 is an ordinance to rezone the property described in 2026-21 for approximately 3.78 acres located at 2445 North Humont Road and Ward 4 from RA, residential agricultural, and NSG, neighborhood services general, to RSF 8, residential single family, eight units per acre.

This was also left on the first reading, and I believe this is the one where the applicant perhaps had some confusion or was looking for some guidance in maybe not needing to do this in the exact way proposed.

So Jonathan, has there been any headway on that front?

I believe so.

I think the the applicant's main takeaway was that uh at least some members of the council expressed a desire to see the floodplain portions of the property maintained within some sort of uh protective zone district, whether it's the RA that was applied previously, lacking our current CCR district or the C CR district itself.

Uh the most recent conversation I had with the applicant is I conveyed the legal descriptions that were used for the property in 2020 to to create that split zoning, and I believe it's their intent to resubmit legal descriptions to modify it so that it's not a proposal to RSF eight across the entirety of the property.

Um they are, as I understand, drafting those new legal descriptions.

I asked to have those by Monday at the latest so we can evaluate those and put a map exhibit before you all at the meeting itself so that you can visually confirm what you might be considering.

But that's the latest I have.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

Okay.

The next and final item of old business is an ordinance to rezone the property described in RZN 2026-18 for approximately 0.55 acres, located at 1845 West Weddington Drive in Ward 4 from RSF for residential single family four units per acre to RIU, residential intermediate urban.

This is an appeal of a planning commission denial, and it was also left on the first reading.

And I think we have some presentation on this one.

Is that correct?

That's correct, Mayor.

Just as three quick updates on this one.

I know the applicant indicated in their presentation that they may uh bring forward a bill of assurance to date.

We've not received that.

I'll make sure that's uh shared with council as soon as it is available.

Hopefully, we get it before the final agenda goes out so that can be included for the public to consider.

Uh, and then beyond that, there were clear requests for uh a top topographic exhibit and also more clarity on uh some of the drainage work the city has done in the area.

Uh and to that end, Mr.

Pugh is here from our stormwater group to make that presentation, which includes an inherent topographic map, and I'll make sure that this goes out with the final agenda before it uh leaves this week.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jonathan uh mayor and members of the council.

Um as he alluded to, um, it's our understanding that there were some questions uh when this was heard previously just about the drainage in the area, the topography in the area, kind of what's going on.

So I'll do my best to uh highlight a little bit uh of this area and what we've done thus far.

Um, Jonathan, if you don't mind uh go to the next slide.

Um this is kind of just an overall uh picture of the area.

You can see Ham Stream Creek uh and Ham Stream Creek tributaries uh to the uh west of this property.

Um the subject property there is highlighted as kind of I think you already know we've had some concerns all over this drainage basin with drainage, um, and and happy to get into as much detail as you would like about those.

But uh, if you don't mind to go to the next slide, Jonathan.

Um more localized.

Um, this is up near the intersection of Vista and Weddington.

So going part of the way up the hill if you're traveling back to the east, um, the drainage arrows here just depict the general flow of the drainage in that area.

We have two relatively large uh drainage swales, ditches for lack of a better term, directing drainage off of the hill here.

Um we had a little bit of an issue there where most of that drainage there at EVA was almost 100% blocked.

Um, so that led to quite a bit of issues with that water going out into Weddington and then turning and going down Vista Place.

Um we have since gone in there with our stormwater maintenance crews, cleaned out all of that drainage system.

Uh we still have yet to do uh a reculvert replacement there as you pull in that driveway.

Uh that existing culvert has collapsed, and we're talking with our crews now about when we can get that replaced.

But that would be the last piece of that puzzle.

We do feel like that has helped the situation uh on Vista Place, uh, may not have solved it completely, but certainly taking quite a bit of water uh off of that area and putting it where it was designed to go, which is at the ditch on the south side of Weddington, and then that piping system.

If you don't mind the next slide.

Um kind of go switching gears directly, maybe to this rezoning.

Um, Chris asked us to put together a slide based on some questions that you all had about what the contributing drainage area for 1903 West Weddington could be.

Um, this does make a few assumptions uh for us to be able to put this together, uh, most notably that water is staying up on EVA and not coming down a driveway or something like that.

But um, for the most part, you can kind of see about two and a half acres that includes the lot there at 1903 West Weddington itself.

Uh, that lot is about a half an acre, so about two acres plus or minus of upstream drainage area contributing to uh the drainage on that lot.

Um and then we'll take a look at the next slide, which is what is going towards this rezone uh area.

So we've got about 1.6 acres, including that property that's directed towards that rezone.

And maybe the one that will tell the tale is the next slide where we're looking at of those two drainage areas.

Is there any overlap?

So uh there is about three-quarters of an acre of overlap you can see there.

Um, wherein we've talked about high-level conceptuals with this particular developer to say are there opportunities for you to direct some of this drainage out to Weddington rather than for that drainage to continue to go downhill into the area of 1903 West Weddington.

Um, it does at least preliminarily look like some of that may be possible.

Um, we are looking at some pipe sizing and some things on Weddington and asking their engineers to do a more formal drainage design if we get to that point uh to be able to answer all of those questions.

But uh at least on the surface of it, based on some very preliminary engineering analysis, it does look like there's an opportunity to divert some of this upstream drainage area uh away from 1903 West Wettington.

Um so that could potentially aid in some of the issues that they're having uh as far as the stormwater utility goes uh and the program's uh potential to help here.

Um we have talked with the owner of 1903 and and the owner of 1845 to see uh are there opportunities for us to partner with them and get drainage easements and and put some either capital improvement programs uh together uh for this area, or is there something our stormwater maintenance team could handle uh as far as that goes?

We are a little bit of an interesting dynamic in that it's highway 16 and and uh R DOT does control the roadway itself, uh but we we have had success in going with them in the past and and really working together as a team to see if we could solve these types of issues.

So um that could be in the form of drainage easements along the back of all of these properties, maybe even down to the next side street.

Um it could be in the form of drainage easements periodically so that we could take that water out to Weddington so it doesn't build up nearly as much area draining to any one uh spot.

Those are some of the just preliminary things that we've looked at.

Um and again, depending on the scope of those, that would really depend on where it whether it gets plugged into our CIP program uh within the stormwater utility or uh if our stormwater maintenance team could handle that.

We'll go to the next slide.

Um and really that's those are the ones that we had, I think answered hopefully most of your questions, but I'm available for stormwater utility type questions, and Justin Bland is also available if you have questions specific to the development itself.

So thank you so much, Alan.

We'll start with Mr.

Witaker and then Ms.

Turk.

Thank you, Alan.

Great update to us, by the way.

Are there stormwater ditches, pipes on the north side of Weddington as well in that area because those neighbors were the ones saying that water seeding across the street onto their property?

And uh I there are uh we've not uh we've not looked at that system uh in totality uh just yet.

Um but we do know that um that water that was coming out, especially there um uh towards uh Vista Place, there was quite a bit of water uh coming down and out into Wedding at that location.

Um I've not investigated the entirety of that piping system.

Uh there are some inlets uh know uh in the area of Vista that uh pick up some water and bring that to the south side of the road.

So there's some pipes that cross the road and bring it into that collector system on the south side.

And then this is almost um a financial uh planning legal question, and that is um with everyone doing their fair share, which is why we created a stormwater utility, in fact, so we could all participate.

We don't want to spend more than the fair share to enable one lot to simply be rezoned and developed and preclude that money to perhaps be utilized where it could create greater good.

So do we have some ability in a rezoning as far as conditions to require the property owner in question to participate with us on a an appropriate scale, whether that's 50 percent or 25 percent in remediating the stormwater concern?

Does that question make sense?

I may I could take a stab at answering that if Mr.

Williams would like to address it I would yes, please.

That would be great.

Yes.

I I think our legal department would uh validate my concern with conditional zoning.

That is not something that we can uh do generally in the state of Arkansas.

I think the form that the city council has typically seen is offering offerings of bills of assurance by applicants.

So I think if the applicant continues to understand the the council's concerns and they were to incorporate those concerns in some way into the bill of assurance, I think that that represents the opportunity for rezoning to be tied to any sort of drainage improvement.

There that there's not a legal mechanism that I'm aware of unless Mr.

Williams says otherwise, where the council could recommend or move to the third reading and approve rezoning conditioned on the development of 1845 addressing fit or contributing 50 percent of the costs of drainage upgrades.

And then Teresa, and then we'll go to I see Sarah.

Um Councilmember Moore has her hand up on Zoom.

So Teresa, go ahead.

Alan, thank you so much.

This is really really helpful.

Um I just want to point out that um, you know, there are ditches somewhat in the backyards of 1845 and certainly was it 1903?

And I would be concerned about that.

Um you know, there's a lot of water coming off that hill.

Um, not just not just right there on Weddington, but also on Aura on the on the other side.

And I don't know if Aura acts sort of as a barrier, the north side versus the south side of Aura, but I have uh another house on Aura on the south side of Aura, and I definitely have had to spend quite a bit of money with uh French drains in a ditch right there.

And and I know that the property directly across the street from me has had many, many issues with uh with flooding.

And I think that is I can't see closely enough uh with that slide, but um I think that it's also could Jonathan could you show another slide that's got the yes, so I I think it's right on the I think it's I think it's on the side.

It's the back they share a backyard, I believe, or close to it.

So I just want to say I think this whole area is really complex.

There's a whole lot of water, and uh I appreciate you uh addressing or showing um some of that drainage level uh area, uh, but I think it's gonna take quite a bit to make this um to to solve this and not make it worse.

Sure, and I I I certainly appreciate those, and I I would agree with you wholeheartedly that you know these are the types of areas I believe these older developments that were partially targeted with this stormwater utility program that we could go in and at least begin the process to get some relief in these areas.

I know we've been on Aura in the past doing a little bit of a drainage improvement, making sure those ditches along Aura were cleared and the and the drainage pipes and those types of things, but um certainly um I think this whole area could could be looked at um and as far as future improvements and how do we get those done.

So how can we get that on your um on your stormwater map?

Because right now that's not on there, or it wasn't at least last week.

I haven't checked it in the last couple of days.

I think based on these conversations, that's something that we're looking at to see.

And again, um the scale that we're talking about is most likely in the capital program where we can get that on on that into the capital program and to under our stormwater dashboard.

Um, and then we as we work through that, we'll have more answers as how much it's gonna cost, when when may that happen, and things like that.

So I think that would be very helpful because I I this has been a long-term issue.

It's it's not a recent thing, it's been going on for quite a while.

Yeah, and I think as we found really hamstring watershed as a whole has has a lot of issues, and and we're we're actively trying to seek solutions for those.

It's just uh very hard, especially the ones that we've done flood studies on and things with as you pointed out, that much water and in one area.

How do we deal with that um as a city um and get these folks some relief?

Thank you for looking into that.

Um Miss Moore, and then Bob will go to you.

Thank you.

And my my comments probably add on to the other council members.

Um Alan, I appreciate what you shared here.

Um, but I have two areas that I I kind of have some comments and some questions on are around kind of the area for consideration that we look at and kind of prioritization.

And when you you you said it there in your last comments about this hamstring watershed.

And so I'm curious about um kind of like a piecemeal approach versus a systemic, like a systems approach, because we heard comments about you know, lots of development that happened um in the roadway that was based on previous drainage standards, and um knowing we have unique challenges with hamstring creek with the models that you've run, and just are wondering um if we should be looking more widely at a consideration for a type of project versus just being narrowed into this particular area of Weddington.

I I I would agree that a wider approach is probably the way to go.

Um we have taken a pretty wide approach on Ham Stream Creek itself, or specifically as tributary HS3 that goes up towards um kind of back off of Holly and Hatfield and those areas.

Um the the volume of water we're dealing with there, I think is as you all well know, and and certainly the residents there know is just tremendous, and we're trying to find out solutions uh for those.

Um so we've really have focused uh twofold.

We have looked at some of those overall all-encompassing solutions or potential solutions.

We've also looked at what are some localized solutions for the worst areas of flooding, uh, you know, specifically kind of down in the lower ends of this uh of this drainage basin.

Uh we do unfortunately have quite a bit of structure flooding that's really at the top of our list to try to get resolved, and we've been working with those owners now for some years trying to get um some relief for them.

So um we we more recently taken a let's call it a two-prong approach.

So uh we are still investigating uh a couple of options, although unfortunately um they've not uh panned out very well as far as lowing the base flood elevations in those areas and the and the very low areas near you know Valley Drive and some of those places.

Um we also um uh as the council has approved um and and the mayor so graciously signed a more recent application to FEMA to be able to purchase some of those homes like we have in the past.

Um we're finding more and more that some of these solutions may ultimately be the purchase of the home, unfortunately, and then that's not our first choice, and it's certainly not the direction we would like to go with every solution.

But um some of these are just proving so difficult with the amount of water that we have and the amount of flooding that we have that that that is the way to solve those.

So we do have a grant submitted uh with uh through the state for FEMA right now to be able to purchase some of those homes in that in that uh neighborhood and ultimately potentially uh remove those.

So I don't know if that answers all of your question, but uh certainly I think we we understand some of the challenges associated with Hangstring Creek in that area, especially as you get into these lower reaches and just the issues that are that are faced there, and we're actively looking for solutions for those.

Yeah, no, and I know you've spent a lot of time and many years on this, Alan, and so definitely um know it's been a kind of a long road, and there have been dead ends on things.

I guess my kind of just final comment on that is just really trying.

I I really haven't seen anything done on paper or reported to really kind of like lay out.

I know sometimes there's maybe some um uh information that can't maybe be fully shared, but like if it's like five or six houses that we're looking to purchase and the cost of that through these mechanisms, and then we're looking at you know this other area to pull down um you know the amount of water in this particular area of the watershed, you know.

I just I know we've looked at lots of different things, and I think at this point I couldn't tell residents kind of like the holistic um approaches.

I know we've just tried you know lots of approaches, but knowing um also too, just prioritization, um hoping I know this one's important and needs to be addressed, and it's been long standing.

So many of them have been down there too, and so um not knowing direction to to tell residents about you know how they are they're gonna um potentially get relieved, like things like uh West End getting drudged, um, because I think we had that on the list to happen in 2026, and um we're almost to August, and so I'm not sure you know where that that lines up to.

So if that's something that we can get a better update about that area or if it's somewhere more holistically, it just I think we'd all probably appreciate to be able to talk a little more intelligently and planning that with residents.

Well, and I think that will um be helpful.

I know when you had mentioned that before, along with some other council members, and it's one of the reasons that transportation committee we're gonna start giving more of a regular update on those things, and so I think that'll be helpful um to sort of give that overall view.

Thank you, Mayor.

No, I appreciate that.

Mr.

Stafford.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, and I appreciate the conversation.

I really appreciate the presentation.

I I I think the presentation uh brings out a uh important point and and the counterpoint made earlier.

Um I don't think it would be showing favoritism uh uh to a property to prioritize this water issue because I think what what this what this rezoning has done is it's pointed out a serious and existing uh issue um that needs to be dealt with, whether that rezoning goes one way or the other.

Um and uh I think you know, as we find these these significant problems and these significant issues, you know, obviously this one's existed for years.

Um that you know that should make us or help us uh create those priorities, and that's all thank you, Bob.

Thank you, Alan.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Does this take us into new business?

I believe that it does.

First up on new business, we have three this evening, um, historic districts.

Um Kylie Cole is here and will be able to answer questions if you have them.

First up is an ordinance to add the property located at 515 North Park Avenue to the Oak Grove Historic District by amending section 33.321 historic districts.

You all remember earlier this year, we created that historic district, and it was a first, and now we have another property wanting to come in.

And Kylie can answer questions about it.

Should you have them okay.

Not hearing any.

The second one is establishing the Fayetteville Black Historic District.

This is an ordinance to establish the Fayetteville Black Historic District by amending section 33.231 historic districts of the Fayetteville City Code.

And since this one is coming for the first time, um, Kylie, if you could just give us, I know this has been a long process, and many in the community have been aware of it over the past.

I know certainly since I've been mayor, most likely before.

So if you could give us a little bit of a um background, that'd be great.

Of course, I would be happy to.

So I'm gonna present um some background that is shared between the two new historic districts.

Um so this actually started um as far as I'm aware in mid-2023 with some early work by a local nonprofit who was interested in creating a local historic district.

They stepped away from that process at some point, and the neighbors and property owners took up that effort.

You may recall that in 2024, um Mayor Jordan signed the petition to include the city properties shown here.

Um and then the long-range planning department started some work um to kind of just understand this area better historically, and we were awarded a CLG grant to create the historic context statement and did some uh neighborhood meetings and community archiving activities in fall and winter of 2024.

Um, is somebody if you were on Zoom, can you make sure that you are united and also Dr.

Jones has in your hand up?

Um is it was it from a prior item or can it be about committee once had these done presenting?

I will call in our presents as soon as you have yes, no worries.

So um after we did our archiving activities um and our neighborhood meetings, the result was the historic black community of Southeast Fayetteville Historic Context, which was published, and over 250 hard copies were given out to members of the community, and that's really at the point that the neighbors um kicked off their up efforts to proceed with the local historic district and collect signatures on their own.

So we have done a lot of outreach and engagement as part of this through 2024 and 2025, and then um throughout this year as we've been working through this um proposal.

So the petition for the historic district was submitted on the last day of 2025, and um the city clerk treasurer's office verified the um signatures of property owners, 51% is required by law, and um they met that threshold.

Um and they had proposed this initial boundary shown in red.

Um, when they submitted this petition, the purpose was to create a local historic district associated with historic black ownership and occupation.

So part of my job in evaluating um this request was to essentially review um every property and review owner names using historic um records to identify those historically black-owned properties, and those are shown here in this um blue color.

So, as you can see, there are several properties, particularly within the southern area that are not historically black owned.

Um, and that finding along with a few other things led the historic district commission to request a revision, essentially splitting this into two historic districts.

So the more northern section that is in purple, is uh what we are bringing forward as the historic black community historic district.

Um, and though this is not a legal requirement, I did want to just illustrate that in this specific area there is also 53% of signatures.

Um, and then in the blue area, which we're calling South Fayetteville, has 54% of property owner signatures in support.

So the black historic district includes 78 parcels with the highest concentration of historic black ownership in the city of Fayetteville.

Um as you can see, this area closely aligns with the map on the lower left, which is a recommended area from our phase one survey.

It's kind of the smaller area that centers at Willow and East Center Street as a potential district.

And this area includes 85% of the um buildings within it are of historic age.

Many of them have a high preservation priority, and again, 53% of property owner signatures were collected in support of this area.

So staff are recommending approval of this district as shown in the boundary map of note.

The state historic preservation office also reviewed this as part of their legal requirement, and the historic district commission, um, Black Heritage Preservation Commission and Planning Commission also recommend approval.

Um do you want me to stop there for questions on that one?

Okay, if you don't mind, I think that might help us from getting can getting confused since there are some differences.

Yeah.

Um does anybody have anybody have questions about this one?

I know we have online.

We have questions from Sarah and Dr.

Jones.

Scott.

Just had one question.

Uh, when you say the signatures uh were received, and then you made mention that the uh commission recommended splitting the uh districts.

Were the signatures gathered prior to that separation of the districts?

And have we does that require a re-gathering of signatures since you changed the district that they signed off on?

That's a great question.

So this initial map um is shown in red is what was submitted by the petitioners.

So as you can see, the footprint is almost the exact same.

We're just splitting it into two areas that thematically make sense.

Um so no additional petitioning is required.

Um that additional or that initial um collection of signatures and that 51% um threshold is to initiate the review process.

So at the point that it goes to the historic district commission and staff, um, the HDC has it within their authority to um remove properties, amend the boundary, add properties, um, and work with property owners through that process.

Um we did do a lot of outreach to property owners, sending out letters, emails, inviting them to community meetings.

So we did our very best to make sure everyone was informed.

Uh Dr.

Jones.

Uh yes, um good evening, Mayor and City Council, and I want to take this opportunity to uh first just say thank you to the planning uh uh department, the planning team for your outstanding work.

Um as you referenced, uh this has been uh this has been in the in process for some time.

Uh I want to ask, as part of the process, uh there there of there is there's community outreach.

Uh what has that looked like as it relates to opposition?

Um so we did receive um very minimal opposition.

Um I'm aware of two letters from the same individual that um is not a resident in this area or a property owner.

One was sent ahead of the um planning commission meeting, and then one um you all are aware of.

Um and they had procedural concerns, um, but we have a very um strict process laid out by the Arkansas Historic Districts Act, and staff has been very careful to follow that very clearly.

Um since those comments were not submitted to staff, I have no way of communicating with that individual.

I appreciate that.

And as far as the strict process by the state, uh that when was that submitted?

Your uh when did the state approve the uh uh when did the state approve the process?

Uh I'm not I may be misunderstanding your question.

So the Arkansas Historic Districts Act was established in the 1970s, and that process has not changed since then.

Um but the State Historic Preservation Office did review these two um proposals and gave their yeah, they gave their um approval in early June.

Okay, so that was my question.

When did they give their approval?

I'm so sorry about that.

So they gave their approval, so they gave thumbs up in early June.

So this has been carefully vetted.

Yes, that's been okay.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

Thank you so much.

I I am so sorry about the mix up.

Thank you.

That's okay.

Thanks.

Thank you, Dr.

Jones.

Uh Miss Moore.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, thanks for the presentation.

Um, I just on the um sharing that you had on some of the previous slides about the designation for the black historic district.

Um, and I know this has been an evolving conversation, so if I've missed it at some point, I apologize, but um it sounds like the designation landed on black owned, and I seem to think in part of that discussion we had talked about just of black significance, maybe you know, places where um folks gathered, um, you know, uh did did commerce, et cetera, they might not necessarily be black owned.

And so I was just trying to better understand if that was um designated through the state or kind of how we had arrived at that.

Thank you.

That is that's a great question.

Um, so this petition and the boundary was submitted by residents with that specific intent.

Um, I don't think that that precludes us from expanding the district in the future to include other places in Fayetteville with historically black um affiliation, including um you know, properties that are outside of this boundary, like downtown and things like that.

Um, but our our job um as the city staff and as the historic district commission is to respond to what's put in front of us.

Um so this was the proposal that we are reviewing at this time okay, and then do I understand for the black historic district, it does not include the Jefferson school.

Is that correct?

It does not.

Okay.

Um, there are other iterations in the beginning that potentially did include it.

That's where I'm I know it's been going on for a couple of years or probably three years, I think at this point.

So I just I I felt like at some point it had kind of been a part of that anchor there, and maybe I misunderstood that.

And I thought so too.

Kylie, can you go?

Sarah, this is part of your question.

Sorry, Kylie, can you go back to the slide a little bit?

Because I thought with the red boundary.

Because I thought the Jefferson school, or Jonathan, are you able to flip back to that slide?

I think this provides a good segue to the next one, which is that that southern portion.

Okay, that is a separate district.

But can you please go back to that red slide that showed the boundary?

I think this is where some of the confusion came from.

And so is what you're saying that that southern one is a different historic district.

Yes.

Okay.

And so this slide has two different ones on it.

And so the one we're talking about is the one at the top.

Yeah.

So this is what was initially submitted with the petition.

This is ultimately not what the historic district commission forwarded to the state historic preservation office.

So this is just a starting point.

I'm sorry that that's kind of I wonder if for the council meeting we can get a map of just each one at a time since we're voting on them separately.

That might help.

Okay, I do I do have them.

Okay, great.

Okay, wonderful.

Okay.

So that might be a good segue to the next one.

And I want to make sure that that answered council member more's question.

Yes, and thank you for going back on the map because that's kind of how I thought I saw it originally.

And so as I was talking to property owners about these proposed districts, that's where I was a little muddled on kind of how we derived.

So thank you for walking us through that.

Yeah.

Okay, Kylie, now go ahead.

Sorry.

All right.

So that brings us to um the other proposal that came out of that um initial petition, and this is for um the South Fayetteville Historic District, which includes 54 parcels.

Um, this has an emphasis on working class 20th century neighborhood.

Um, when I was going through uh the property records, I saw that this was actually a much more racially diverse area than the um earlier um purple map that we saw.

So this area um is set out to kind of align with a different section of our phase one survey, this much larger um area labeled a potential South Fayetteville district.

So this would be considered a starting point for that larger district.

Um it includes uh 74% of its um buildings are of historic age, and many of them have a high and moderate preservation priority.

And again, just to illustrate, though, this is not a legal requirement.

Um, 32 out of 59 owners of record or 54% of property owners in this area um did sign on in support of creating a local historic district.

Um and I do want to point out that this is where the Jefferson School or the Potter's House um property is included.

So staff are recommending approval of the district as shown in this boundary map.

Um, similarly to the other one, the state historic preservation office, RHDC, BHPC, and planning commission all recommend approval of this.

And I can answer any questions.

Dr.

Jones.

Yes, uh, and thank you for that uh sharing that my uh my first question is so will this be the first black historic district in the state?

Because I've uh I've spoken with individuals from across the state, and someone mentioned that there was there is a historic district in Little Rock, and so I wanted some clarification.

Yeah, I love that question.

So um this unfortunately will not be the first um black historic district in Arkansas.

There is another local historic district in Hot Springs that is um significant for its association with the historic black community, and then there's also um several smaller national register properties, and I do believe a district in Little Rock associated with Black Wall Street.

Okay, wow.

Thank you for that.

And the second question is, and I think you somewhat uh answered that, but with Potter's house, well, that um did you say that that uh staff uh are we voting on to what is so are we voting on uh including that or what is that what is it actually consist of?

Well, that um did you say that that uh staff uh are we voting on to what is so are we voting on uh including that, or what is that what is that actually consist of?

I'm just wanting to gain some clarification because I've been getting uh different phone calls and different perspectives.

So I wanted to hear from you exactly what that's going to look like for uh the council as it relates to making a decision.

So the proposal that's coming before you is the map that's shown on your screen.

This is what the um state historic preservation office and the historic district commission and your staff are recommending, and it does include the Jefferson School property.

Um, mayor, and thank you, Kylie, for your presentations tonight.

I mean, this represents a tremendous amount of work uh by yourself, the staff, the community to move this to where we are right now.

Um I had one question.

Uh I noticed that you had um preservation priority, a little table over there, and I didn't know how um if that's defined somewhere, or I can go look it up somewhere because I I thought that was interesting.

Yes, so that is um part of our citywide historic resource survey initiative.

Um as you may know, we completed our phase one and we're about to start phase two.

So in that recommendation document, it does define what those priority levels are, and every property that's surveyed is assigned a priority.

Um so I'd be happy to share that with you so you can review that.

That that would be great.

And again, I just want to um congratulate you all on so much work that's been that's been done to bring it to this level right now, especially in the community.

So there are a lot of community members, I'm sure have been out there knocking on doors and talking about this, and so uh thank you and the community for the for these efforts.

Thank you, Mr.

We.

Thank you, Mayor.

And during your presentation next week, if you could the only pushback that we will receive at the meeting are people that misconstrue that they can't do anything to their property.

And so if you could re-educate us, because you'll be educating the community on no, here's the steps uh or the additional approvals that would be necessary.

I think that would really be beneficial to the community to hear that no, no, no, there's there's safeguards, but it doesn't mean you can't touch your property at all.

I'd be happy to do that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks.

I second that mic, I think that'll be I think you were exact, I think you were exactly right.

Um, and that was recorded, so you can just save that and that little bit.

Uh item C4 is an ordinance to approve vacation 26-4 for property located at 200 South Skyline Drive and Ward 1 to vacate point zero one five acres of right-of-way.

Jonathan.

Thank you, Mayor.

This property is in Central Fayetteville on Mount Sequoia.

Uh, more specifically, it is the property located just southeast of the corner of Texas Way and Skyline Drive.

If you think of the southern entrance of the Sequoia Center, this is immediately southeast of that.

In uh 2024, the property owner notified staff that there was a private stormwater line beneath the house that had failed, causing significant amounts of flooding uh as a part of our new stormwater utility staff began working with that property owner on how to remediate the issue.

Uh that identified multiple uh challenges with the property, including that it the house sits somewhat outside of its property lines, it doesn't conform with current zoning standards, and as a part of that staff has worked with the property owner through our board of adjustment to see a zoning variance granted.

Uh and they've we have uh worked through, of course, the design and work on that stormwater uh correction uh and then this piece that is before you, which is to vacate a portion of uh public right-of-way in this area totaling about 670 square feet to capture the portion of the house that actually falls outside of the property lines.

Uh, we evaluated the request to make sure that this does not impact the ability of the public or our services to interact with the street system in the area, and we found that there are no issues or no uh concerns for public interest.

Uh similarly, we've heard no concerns from any of our uh franchise utilities either.

Uh and so we are recommending this particular item, which is the right-of-way vacation component of the uh the project to to correct the stormwater issue.

And to date, I'm not aware of any public comment we've received in association with this meeting.

If you've been by it, there were multiple public notice signs that probably stood out to you very clearly uh over the last month or so.

Uh but otherwise I'm happy to take any questions that the council has.

Thank you.

Okay, I don't see any, and I'm not seeing on any on Zoom either.

Um so we will move on to C5, um, which is Mr.

Bernis.

It's a resolution to amend A7C consent agenda of the rules and order of procedure of the Fayetteville City Council to provide that the city council may dispense with the reading of the consent agenda and approve it in a single vote.

Mr.

Burner.

Thanks, Mayor.

Uh I understand uh that we typically you know do rule changes first the year, but considering we've been doing this for the last six months, I thought it might be appropriate to go ahead and put it uh by rule.

But basically, it if you recall when we come to the consent agenda, we've been making a motion to suspend the rules and uh uh pass the consent agenda as presented and uh and then we have to take a second vote.

So basically it's just making one vote where by single vote we can approve the consent agenda.

It does not eliminate anybody's ability to pull an item off consent, it just eliminates that one extra vote.

So that's all it is.

Um to me, that was the question, you know, when I you know talked to the attorney's office about Mr.

Burner bringing this forward.

That was my question of oh, well, doesn't mean we have to skip over the consent agenda.

And no, it can it can still be read.

It is simply that if we are going to do a rule change, we just vote one time to suspend the rules and approve the agenda.

Um I I think it's a lot more clear for people.

Um, and I think it was also probably the intent of what everybody had when they when we set the rule that we could vote to suspend the rules and approve the consent agenda.

So this just makes that explicit that it's one vote.

Uh Teresa.

Um it's a this is a resolution.

Um can we move it up to um can we take it off here and actually put it on the consent agenda?

I will let you okay.

So I will let you know that we actually talked about this, and I specifically was like, no, I don't want it to look like we're trying to like push a change to the consent agenda on consent.

And so that was my abundance of caution.

And I didn't want you to think I was sneaking this by.

So that is up to you.

You know, I got called the leadest by trying to move a meeting for 30 minutes, so I I will not touch this moving it can to consent.

So if y'all want to do it, it's up to y'all.

I I think because this is oh sorry to jump in.

I I think because this is a can uh uh a rule change that it should be uh probably uh discussed separately.

Sounds good.

That's fine.

I just thought, you know, that why not throw it out there and see what everybody thought.

I love it.

Okay, so it sounds like leaving on new business.

Okay.

Um before we dismiss, I have a couple of announcements.

Um no, I'm so sorry.

Okay, whoa, whoa, I'm so sorry.

We have a walk-on, forgive me.

Everybody at the same time jumped on me on that one.

Yes.

Okay, the walk-on, and thank you, Clerk Paxton for passing this out.

Is an ordinance to amend section one five five point zero four council member appeal on behalf of residents to exempt any appeal fee for all appeals required to be sponsored by and in fact are sponsored by council members, including this section 155.05A3, 155.06A1B1, 155.09, and to amend 155.06 C1A, C2A, and C3, and to declare an emergency.

And I believe this is council member Turk and council or uh forgive me.

Is it council member Turk and Councilmember Moore?

So whomever would like to start.

So um, as you know, we've had a couple of appeals lately um that have come before us, and I think this was the first time that I actually realized that the fee had gone up.

I did not realize that when we made those adjustments last year to increase fees that appeal fees would be included in that.

And so there's been several members of the public that have been um uh very unhappy because that poses a monetary burden to them.

And usually it only takes one resident.

So I know we talked about this a couple of weeks ago that if you could have 10 people and pool the money, then it wouldn't be such a big burden, but that's not always the case.

We only allow them to have 10 days to actually file the appeal, 10 business days, and trying to coordinate that is very difficult.

So I thought that we should go back to the old way of doing business where we allow appeals to not cost the public uh any any funds uh to make the appeal to allow them to play out um the due process, the democratic process kind of before us.

And I think that has been kind of part of our culture too, where we always have lots of conversations.

So that is what um this walk-on um uh addresses, where it would remove the appeal fee for citizens that are that are making the appeal, and the gatekeeper would be us, the city council, so that we would um ensure that it's not a frivolous appre appeal or something like that that we that we sponsored.

Does that make sense?

Okay, Miss Moore, did you have anything to add?

I think council member Turt did a great um job.

You know, my biggest concern and I voiced it.

I think when we had the resident trying to ask for the waiver, is just um trying to get equitable access to due process and recognizing um, especially you know, the pace that everyone's lives are at, um, that can be you know overly burdensome for parts of our population to try to scrape together that money, oftentimes not necessarily having 10 days that they hear about the project, um, you know, close in times.

And I think, and looking at this with Kit too, he made a keen observation that you know we don't think that this is gonna, you know, cause a glut of appeals or you know, suddenly to be taking you know advantage of in a way that uh grinds our council, you know, uh down with additional appeals.

Um, and so um, you know, we didn't see that in the past whenever there you know was no uh fee, and so I hope we can be a supportive of it just to continue to give that access that's been so vitally important in the city of Fayetteville.

Okay.

Do we have um questions, Mr.

Stafford?

Yes, uh, thanks, Mayor.

Uh, I think that pray for kit right now.

It takes uh is it correct, it takes three council members to support an appeal?

Only for conditional uses.

Every other appeal is only a single council member.

That's the way it's been for many, many years.

In fact, and and most of that time, no fee at all for anybody doing an appeal.

But now we have uh feel uh appeal fees, and since you actually would be the appellant if you are sponsoring an appeal, then the appeal fee should have to be paid by the council members.

And I don't think that's really what the city council members wanted to do.

Uh I think instead, except for Mike, Mike wants to do that, but but uh anyway, I think uh I did not understand that was really how is this gonna work, and so when we've caught up on it, I think it looks like uh we shouldn't be penalizing you just because you're sponsoring an appeal for someone that you believe is a valid appeal.

I get I guess my concern would be that you know that somebody would just oh somebody comes with me with an appeal, I'm gonna sponsor it because that's what I do, and then we end up with I don't think we really had serious problems in the decades before this when there was no appeal fee for anybody on on appeal.

So uh I think that we've already experienced that situation and it hadn't been a problem.

This does not remove the appeal fee for developer.

Will that be seen as unjust or or kind of a different standard for different folks?

Uh uh well this this uh proposed ordinance does not affect that appeal fee.

Okay.

If you're a member back in 2024 when you were going forward, I didn't really want any appeals fee at all, but the city council decided to do it, so and and you all are the bosses, so that's what happened.

Yeah, I get I guess my question though is if we repeal it for one, do we have to repeal it for the developers as well, or are they gonna come at us and say you're treating us differently than the citizens?

Well, the developers might not like it, but they certainly have much more of a financial interest in a project that would justify an appeal fee than what a citizen would have that's just as opposed to this and and really doesn't have a financial interest that they're gonna gain if the appeal goes forward.

So that's a little bit of difference between a developer and just a common citizen.

Okay.

Thank you for your opinion on that, Ken.

Mike.

I I thought we should just dock council member pay to cover the appeal period fee, and that would solve that.

Um or maybe split it between city attorney and council member pay, you know, and just do it the half down the half and half.

Fortunately, I'm not an appeal, I'm not gonna do an appeal.

So I think my question is is there any appeal that does not require a city council member to sign off on the appeal?

There have been, but part of this ordinance removes that for most of them.

There is one or there's two appeals that I'm suggesting have no appeal fee, even by the uh appellant themselves, and that's for constitutional reasons.

There's a revision in our appeals chapter that if somebody believes that the exactions the city is trying to charge is more than the constitution allows as a rough proportionality of the impact of their development on city infrastructure, then they get to appeal that to the planning commission and and let the planning commission decide.

That's the test and the requirement that the United States Supreme Court stated when they were questioned about this impact fee type stuff.

And so I felt like we don't want to try to charge a fee to someone that's just trying to support their constitutional rights.

Uh the courts might look down on that and uh think that we're not acting properly.

The other one is for the stormwater management fee.

You remember we we put that in there and we've had very few appeals, but any of the appeals we've had have gone just to uh Chris Brown, and he's handled it, and that's again that's not really a development impact fee, which most of them cover, so that might not have covered been covered under this anyway.

But I just to be sure I said no fee on that one.

Okay.

Do we have further questions?

Okay.

Um I do before we end, have one announcement or a couple of related announcements.

So today I want to thank the team at the Fateville Town Center um for opening up.

I'm sorry, Sarah.

Did you have a question about the fees?

Okay, I'm oh okay.

Um for opening up the Fayetteville Town Center um as a cooling center.

Um and also thank you to Marley and Gage and her entire team for working to pass out fans and ice and bottled water and also for staffing at the town center for people for emergency cooling.

Tomorrow we will be at rooted church.

Um, and when I say we will be, it will be opened up for cooling, and that will be tomorrow between I want to make sure I'm giving the correct time, between 10 a.m.

and 7 p.m.

at the rooted church, that's at 613 South College Avenue.

And then on Sunday, uh the cooling center will be open at the Yvonne Richardson Center on 240 East Rock.

That'll be 10 a.m.

to 7 p.m.

So those are city um managed and open cooling centers um to hopefully get us through this dangerous heat.

Miss Bunch.

Uh yes, I had a I had some questions on this.

Uh just just to make sure I was looking at it and with with the heat issues, we don't have any place that's overnight.

Is that correct?

That offers later than like 10 o'clock or well, seven o'clock or something like that.

So I I depending upon how you're answering that quite asking the question, I don't know that that's exactly accurate.

So let me split that up a little bit.

We do not have specific additional emergency shelter open overnight.

We do have overnight shelter regularly at Salvation Army, and then of course what they offer at Seven Hills.

But I don't think over and above.

Okay, so that's what I was gonna ask because now is the time that we need to start planning for what we have in the winter time.

Now we do have for cold weather.

For that, I just want to make sure we had because in the middle of the summers when you need to establish your cold weather.

So our our cold weather plan that we put in place last summer worked by all accounts really well through um this past winter weather.

Um, you know, the partnership of working with Potter's House at the old Jefferson um Genesis Salvation Army Um and Seven Hills seemed to work really well.

We thought we had a really great plan in place over the weekend for emergency warm weather, and we had partners in the community that chose not to open.

And so we were left a little flat footed, but have recovered really well, and I can't say enough about how quickly the staff work to be able to open the town center to make sure we have daytime cooling available, and we will make sure that we are never in that position again, and that moving forward we have um a more permanent plan.

So are you saying that some of our regular partners just did not come through?

Is that what happened or we were disappo we were caught off guard and surprised by partners that we expected to be open that uh we then found out from members of the community that they weren't open, and so we need to look into that and address it long term.

But the immediate goal was I mean, that's a I don't want to wait too far too long to address it.

I know we need to, but I wanted to immediately spring into action and address let's just get the doors open somewhere cool.

Okay, okay.

Yeah.

But this was not what we thought the plan was.

We thought we had a had a uh a provider in the community that was going to be open.

You're welcome.

Scott.

So just for clarification, number one, it's great that we moved and got things fixed, but I did we not have a contract or MOU with a provider, and then they did they not fulfill their contract or we did and I want to look into that, and I want to that's something that I want to make sure that I'm real clear on with the city attorney.

You know, before I sit up here and say someone didn't fulfill a contract, what I will tell you is that it was our expectation and our understanding that we were very clear about that um some of our partner organizations that we support financially were open during extreme heat, including over the weekend.

We found out from the community that they were not.

Um we found out this late yesterday.

And so our focus over the past 24 hours has been let's just open cooling, and then I promise you, in very, very short order, the next conversation we're going to have to have, and that I want to have with all of you and it at a future council meeting is where do we go from here.

But I just want to be careful before I say someone didn't.

I want to make sure I understand fully where this uh where this went wrong.

Yeah.

But today we were at the town center, tomorrow, rooted church on college.

Um the city will be will be regularly updating um Facebook and Instagram and any other social media channels that we have out there um letting people know where where to go, and that is the the best way to help.

We're also collecting donations over at the housing department.

If you have bottled water, if you have fans, if you have uh, you know, those cooling bandanas, anything that we can use to help for cooling, you're welcome to bring them there during business hours.

Thank you.

Okay, uh Keith, go ahead.

Just we have a transportation committee directly after that in room room 101 and then also in Zoom.

Got it.

Oh, and thank you.

And then also to Scott's point, yes, you are correct, it is supposed to get a little cooler.

However, I want to go ahead and keep these places open through the weekend so we have that practice and we've gone through the paces and we have a dry run so that if and when the heat does climb again, we know how to do it if we're gonna have to be the one managing it for the short term.

Thank you.