Good evening, everyone.

We're ready to open up now.

Welcome to the City of Jonesboro Metropolitan Area Planning Commission meeting for Tuesday, December 9th, 2025.

You're here, please check in with your I button.

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Second.

Ready?

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Yeah.

Work.

Christmas.

All right.

All right.

Next thing we'll do.

We'll open up for the discussion of the minutes from the November 12th meeting.

Are there is there anything changes to be made or I'll entertain a motion for approval?

Forward.

Move to approve.

A motion to approve the minutes.

Start here a second.

Styling second.

All those in favor, pressure I button.

Anyone oppose, pressure an A button?

Doper.

All right.

Minutes are approved.

I give a little more warning on that.

Okay.

First item we have on the agenda tonight is a this is a rezoning request.

Applicant Marquis Mealing is requesting rezoning for the property from R0 to Plan Development.

R L U O Plan Development Residential.

This is an unlimited use overlay east of Warren Street and south of Jonathan Drive.

We had the proponent for this item tonight.

Did it in started in 2013?

And Dr.

Abraham did uh Oak Tree Manor up off of North Culver House.

But this is a proposed gated community for primarily senior living.

That's uh the the targeted market for this.

And they're gonna um we've had had a product product that we wanted to be able to present, and we've worked with the the city, the various departments in the city, engineering planning, fire department, uh, and we've talked to City Water Light as well about this, and we've made some some adjustments to it uh to hopefully make it make it fit for uh for a good fit in this area.

Uh the streets are uh traditionally uh a street in a development like this would be probably 24 feet wide, but we've enlarged those to 30.

Uh and part of this to accommodate uh fire code just to make sure we have plenty of room for uh fire trucks to maneuver.

We also enlarged the the culbus egg at the end.

Uh one thing we are asking planning commission approval uh traditionally 400 feet is the maximum street length.

This one will be 830 feet long, uh but we do have uh good fire coverage and all of the buildings will be sprinklered, and so we've we've uh made those adjustments to to accommodate what we wanted to do here.

Uh we are proposing this as a private street, and we will be uh making sure that city council knows that there is a waiver involved in that uh to have a private street.

Those are no longer approved in uh traditional subdivisions, but in planned development uh with a waiver from city council, we can still do that.

Uh but we've uh the the things that we're we've got plenty of of green space to meet the requirements.

Uh again, the each building will be sprinklered.

There will be a gated community, there'll be a common building.

There's 30 buildings proposed, 29 will be occupied by residents.

One building will remain as the community building that residents can use or borrow if they have a family gathering or something like that to be able to use for that.

Each each building will have one enclosed garage and a parking space out front.

We're putting including site lighting in here and plan to uh install five different pavilions scattered through the development for the residents to be able to use for just sitting out in the shade or uh you know, grilling out or whatever kind of activities they'd like to do.

But we appreciate your letting us uh present this tonight, and I would certainly be glad to entertain any questions that anybody might have.

Anyone have any questions at this point?

I do.

The question that I have is the I thought I heard you say single family residence, and I thought that's what I read in the materials.

It's single family attached, is what this is uh classified as each each building would have except for the community building, each building would have two separate units.

Okay, so maybe I'm just dense, but I I thought that was a I would refer to those as a duplex, not a single family residence, but uh it it's single family because it's owned individually almost as they they will be set up that they could be individually owned, yes.

So okay.

All right, and where did you say this property was?

This is actually an existing development uh up off of North Culver House, uh just north of uh actually part of close to Bradley Street, uh just north of Johnson.

That's uh Oak Tree Manor is the name of it.

Dr.

Abraham uh developed that starting in back in 20 uh 13.

Pale open up city planner, you have staff comments?

Uh yes, sir, we do.

Uh this does meet all six requirements for the zoning criteria.

So we would recommend approval with the following stipulations.

Uh the proposed site shall satisfy all requirements of the city engineer, our requirements, the current stormwater drainage design manual and floodplain regulations regarding any new construction.

Final site plan, subject to all ordinance requirements shall be submitted, reviewed, and approved by the planning department prior to any redevelopment of the property, and any change of use shall be subject to planning department approval in the future.

Okay.

And with this rezoning request, is there anyone here to give any other public comments?

Oh, I'm curious if it'll be encompassed if you would come up to the mic and state your name for the record, please.

Sir rent that property, Randy.

Address the commission, please.

My name is Randy Willett.

Yes, sir.

And um, what's your question for the commission?

Okay.

Uh I'm curious if it will have fencing, if it'll be encompassed by a fence all the way around.

I understand it's gated, but that would that just be the entrance or George, you plan on putting a fence around the few?

It'll have a perimeter fence, yeah.

All the way around.

Okay.

Yes.

All right.

And uh I guess from your answer a moment ago, it'll be it could be rentals as well.

These could be, but they will be they will be constructed so that they could be gold.

Okay.

All right, thanks for your comments.

Anyone else here to give public comments or questions?

If not, I'll open up for commissioners.

Questions of the applicant or city staff?

So my question is just I know when I read through the application it did say uh senior living.

So does that approval only mean that it could only be used for senior living purposes?

It does not.

That's who they're gonna market it to, but if this rezoning goes through the way it is, you we can't put a age limit on housing.

So it's so then why do we do it?

Why do we say why do we present that then that way?

Is it easier to be moved through or I'm this is just a question for me because if I think we had one several months ago, I think it was over in the Valley View area, and that was one of the reasons that they said that they was going to do that to help grow and give housing for senior living.

And it was I think it was kind of everybody thought the same way that we needed that in Jonesboro, but I don't want everybody to use that just to get it through and not be able to do that.

There's a lot of underserved areas in Jonesboro with housing seniors being one of them, so I'm sure that's who the applicant will try to market it to, but if that doesn't work, if you want, I'm not saying you're not a senior or you, but if you decide you wanted to buy a unit out there, I am sure he would sell you one.

George, do you know a better answer to that?

Is there a bill of assurances or anything that goes with this development that will say 55 and older as ownership or anything like that?

Or how you know how were the how do you define that senior living why is that part of the applicant a bill of assurance is we can't accept a bill of assurances on it.

Yeah we can't enforce it only the only the POA but the property owners if there is a POA we can enforce making them have a POA.

But if there was and it was in force then yes but we can't do that.

That would be up to the developer.

So is that something that is in the works or something that's not being considered or well there's there's not a POA right now.

Right now it would be you know constructed and and maintained by the owner you know until the unit rented or sold and if it's rented he'll continue to maintain it.

So as Monroe was suggested Mr.

Pointer was suggesting we should probably strike the senior living portion because that's just an initial marketing effort.

That's not necessarily a real requirement it is a single family requirement development it can't be a it can't legally be a requirement from us.

I mean they can still say that's who they intend to market it to but we just need to understand it's not a legal requirement from us.

Any other commissioners have questions I have a question sir Jim Little um you say that these are sprinkled yes sir um and their duplexes that's not really a requirement um by code so I'm curious like why are they sprinkled or is it a square footage thing or you know like what why are they sprinkled?

The primary reason for it is the configuration of the property and the the presence or lack of uh street infrastructure around it we really only have one place that we can enter this place and so it doesn't have two exits okay I see which correct yeah and so for that reason uh it is one reason we made the cul-de-sac bigger for fire truck uh uh maneuvering made the street wider and that was a voluntary thing but uh we don't we don't have a second exit to get out of here and so that's why all the buildings will be sparkled thanks one else anyone ready with a motion don't Zolper make a motion to approve the rezoning request with stipulations approve do I hear a second little second ready for the vote getting the vote set up should have said it at the beginning forgot she's recusing can I put that on the wait hold on just a second can you pick that I'm recusing I've worked with Mr.

Mealing several times.

Meant to put that on the record earlier she didn't say anything though so we're good.

Miss Nelson has recused herself from voting she hit the recuse button I didn't I don't know if that maybe that reason wasn't operating probably yeah I don't know if that did it because they have to have it queued up for that but okay everyone cast your vote okay so you've received a favorable recommendation from the planning commission but you need to get on the city council's agenda before 10 o'clock Thursday.

Thank you very much.

All right have a nice evening city planner do you have anything else to add tonight?

Just want to remind everybody that this will be our last only meeting in December so um merry Christmas to everybody and hope to see you in the new year.

Commissioners have any comments we're adjourned.

Thank you