I feel like meeting files is better than meeting overviews, but I don't want to, I guess I might
I was here early today.
I was not tardy today.
Thank you.
I always didn't look like I was early.
I was early.
I came from an AMP.
I had nothing to do with this.
We didn't get it in.
We put them.
We didn't get it in.
Everyone
knows.
That feels awkward.
I think that's my voice.
Maybe.
It's important.
If it works out properly, then try to come up.
You turn that up.
And try to go up.
What is that?
You give me that?
No, I'm not leaving.
So I can ride it all down.
Maybe.
Sorry, thanks for giving me this mission.
Probably.
I don't know.
We'll find out some random comments. All right. All right. Welcome to the Bentonville City Council meeting November 28, 2023, I'll call us to order if you'll please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance and remain standing for a moment of silence for our military.
I
believe this to apply to the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
Seba?
President.
Buck?
Here.
Dukri?
Sutur?
Here.
Patterson?
Here.
Burkart?
Here.
Sanchez?
Agnew?
Here.
The motion to approve the minutes of the November 14, 2023, City Council meeting.
There's a motion and a second.
Look.
Yes.
Acre.
Yes.
Souter.
Yes.
Patterson.
Yes.
Burkart.
Yes.
Sanchez.
Agnew.
Yes.
Siba.
Yes.
Mr. Souter, would you like to make a motion?
I'll make a motion to suspend the rules.
We're trying ordinances to be read on three separate days.
and further move all ordinances and resolutions, be read by their title only.
Second.
ACREA.
Yes.
SUTER.
Yes.
HEDERSEN.
Yes.
RECART.
Yes.
SANCHEZ.
AGNUM.
Yes.
SEBA.
Yes.
HOOK.
Yes.
I'm under old business adopting the 2034 new positions and pay plan changes.
Nordinates adopting the 2024 pay plan for the city of Bentville declaring an emergency
and for other purposes.
One move.
Second.
In a second, any other discussion?
Ciba?
Hook?
Yes.
McCree?
Yes.
Souter?
Yes.
Patterson?
Yes.
Burkart?
Yes.
Sanchez?
Agnew?
Yes.
Section 2, emergency clause.
The need to make this change is immediate so as not to affect the implementation of the
2024 position amendments.
The emergency is hereby required to exist and this ordinance shall be in full form
with an effect from the date of its passage and approval.
second. Seba? Yes. Hook? Yes. McCree? Yes. Souter? Yes. Patterson? Yes. Burkart? Yes. Sanchez? Agnew? Yes.
Item one under new business with the 2024 pay plan changes for police and water departments. Inordinates adopting the 2024 pay plan for the city of Bentonville police and water departments declaring an emergency and for other purposes.
I'm going to turn in a second at any other discussion.
Go call, please.
Hook?
Yes.
Siegfried?
Yes.
Souter?
Yes.
Patterson?
Burkart?
Yes.
Sanchez?
Agnew?
Yes.
Seba?
Yes.
Section 2, emergency clause.
The need to make this change is immediate so as not to affect the implementation of
the 2024 budget or position amendments.
And an emergency is hereby declared to exist and this ordinance shall be in full
force and effect from the database passage and approval.
Second.
Any other discussion?
Hook?
Yes.
Siegfried?
Yes.
Souter?
Yes.
Patterson?
Yes.
Burkhardt?
Yes.
Sanchez?
Yes.
Agnew?
Yes.
Seba?
Yes.
And two is the Personnel Policy Amendment for Merit,
as elected officials.
And ordinance adopting amendments to the personnel policy for the city of Bentonville, Arkansas, declaring an emergency and for other purposes, almost.
Second.
Any other discussion?
Go call please.
McCree?
Souter?
Yes.
Patterson?
Yes.
Burkhart?
Yes.
Sanchez?
Magnum?
Yes.
Seba?
Yes.
Hook?
Yes.
Section 2, emergency clause, the need to make this change is immediate so as not to affect
the timing of annual review merit pay increases to city employees and an emergency is hereby
declared to exist and this ordinance shall be in full force and effect in the date of
its passage and approval.
Second.
Second at roll call please.
Anchry.
Yes.
Souter.
Yes.
Patterson.
Yes.
Burkart.
Yes.
Sanchez.
Agnew.
Yes.
Seela.
Yes.
Hook.
Yes.
I need a motion.
Second.
Any other discussion?
All in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
I need a motion.
Second.
Any other discussion?
All in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
Passes unanimously.
Item five is a public hearing
and ordinance vacating new utility easement.
This is lot 32 of college place subdivisions.
At this time I will open the public hearing.
Is there anyone in person or online to speak on this item?
Seeing and hearing none, I'll close the public hearing.
In ordinance vacating and utility easement located
a lot 32 of college place subdivision phase 8 of the city of Bentonville, Arkansas, Benton
County, Arkansas.
Tell me.
In a second.
Please.
Anderson.
Yes.
Burkhardt.
Yes.
Sanchez.
Agnew.
Yes.
Seba.
Yes.
Hook.
Yes.
Hickory.
Souter.
Yes.
I'm six in business.
The public hearing and ordinance vacating are right away.
This is that.
Look at it a lot too of groundhog edition.
This time I'll open the public hearing.
Is there anyone online or in person to speak on this item in
hearing? I will close the public hearing
in ordinance vacating a utility easement located a lot to a groundhog edition of the city of
Bentonville, Arkansas, Benton County, Arkansas. Second.
Okay.
I'm going to second.
Mark Hart?
Yes.
Sanchez, Agnew?
Yes.
Siba?
Yes.
Hook?
Yes.
DeCree?
Yes.
Souter?
Yes.
Patterson?
Yes.
Item seven is setting a public hearing for Utility Easement.
This is located at Block 9, Lot 2 of Dogwood Place Subdivision.
And the City Council for the City of Bittonville, Arkansas.
Okay.
With a motion and a second.
Any other discussions?
questions? All in favor? Any opposed? That's unanimously. Item 8 is the R-DOT state aid
program for street reconstruction and resurfacing. This is allowing the mayor and city clerk to
enter into an agreement for project C04026 through the R-DOT state aid program for street
reconstruction and resurfacing. A resolution expressing the willingness of the city of
bill to utilize state and street monies for the following city project motion in a second.
Any other discussion? All in favor? Any opposed?
Uses unanimously. Item nine is ordinance establishing the 2024 record fees and ordinance establishing
the 2024 Bentonville Parks and Recreation fees and for other purposes second motion
in a second, is there any other discussion?
We'll call please.
Sanchez, Agnew, Siba, Hook, Siegfried, Souter, Patterson, Burkhardt?
Yes.
Item 10 is Resolute and Authorizing the Acceptance of a $3.5 million grant
for the Quilt of Parks Project.
A resolution accepting a grant from the Walton Family Foundation
in the amount of $3,500,000 for the Quilt of Parks Project
for the purposes of the moment.
Second.
Any other discussion?
All in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
Passes unanimously.
Item 11 is some quality place impact fee request.
We do have ended schedules signed up to speak on this item.
I will call you first.
Jeff Webster signed up.
If you'll come to the microphone, if you can keep your comments for a few minutes or under,
we'll give us your name and your address.
Yeah, Jeff Webster, 331 Northwest A Street, Benville.
So thank you for the opportunity to speak.
I really am speaking on behalf of it as the leader of the Affordable Housing Task Force from last year.
The project that's being presented is really a continuation of the resolution that you passed last year.
I believe it was a 7-1 vote that pretty much all of you were in favor of.
It's really bringing together a project that demonstrates what we talked about being a multi-family Tier 3 type project.
So in February we met with the mayor, we met with the staff, and in good faith we went ahead and applied for the funding that would basically fund this project.
So the developer applied for, we received $8.5 million.
That $8.5 million goes directly to lowering the rents for Bentonville residents.
So that's for teachers, that's for firefighters, that's for police officers.
It's for other people that live within the city.
So it directly lowers the rent.
Likewise, the land was essentially provided at a discounted rate by Mercy Medical.
I think they're here and they'll speak to that.
Probably a million dollars worth of savings.
That million dollars of saving goes directly towards lowering the rents for 35 years for the citizens of Bentonville.
That piece of land then was purchased by...
Accelerate Foundation was then donated to the project. That was a $1.3 million investment
by Accelerate. That $1.3 million goes directly to lowering the rents for 35 years for the
citizens of Bentonville. And so, really, the request here is that the city would join this
public-private partnership as the fourth partner in this and bring $180,000 of impact
fees to directly lower the rents for the citizens of Bentonville. So overall in
summary, if you look at $180,000 and we collectively, the other three partners
have brought $8.8 million to the table. If you talk about leverage, kind of our
foundation thinks about that, for $180,000 we have brought $8.8
million to the table. It's a 48 to 1 leverage for the city. If you look at
what it does for the citizens. For the next 35 years, locked in place by the federal government,
those rents are locked in place. It will save your citizens $21 million, the people that
live there. And the last part, when you look at it purely from an economic development,
we've run the math that comes from the National Association of Home Builders. It's
an $11 million economic impact to the city. So, like we said, all along on that
whole process, this is a win for the citizens. It's a win for the city. It is a huge step
forward as far as what the city was out to do with that whole process. So, certainly,
I hope that you will support this. Thank you.
Yes, I have a clarification.
Did you – so Mercy donated the land and then you – you
accelerate it off. I'm a little confused.
It's not my fault you're so moved.
Mercy made the land available at a below market rate.
Okay, so they didn't, okay, so it wasn't dead.
And then Accelerate purchased it, and Accelerate donated.
Okay, thank you for the clarification.
Next on us I have Patrick Connolly.
Patrick Connolly, 3305 Southwest I Street.
I am the area commander of the Salvation Army in Northwest Arkansas and operate emergency
shelter here in the city of Bentonville, and we have since 1997.
Affordable housing and the lack thereof affects those that we serve incredibly.
Affordable housing is crucial, especially for those that I serve, my organization serves
on a daily basis.
Part of what we do at the Salvation Army is address the individual's barriers to
affordable and sustainable housing.
With the clients that we interact with at the Salvation Army here in Bentonville, the
largest barrier is the lack of affordable housing.
And so I would encourage the City Council to take whatever steps necessary to ensure
that affordable housing is available within the City of Bentonville.
Affordable housing isn't just about putting a roof over someone's head, it's not just
about shelter, it's about fostering a thriving community.
And when individuals have stable housing, when individuals have opportunity to procure
stable housing for long periods of time, it positively impacts your community, the entire
community, by reducing the incidence of homelessness, increasing the workforce participation, and
by enhancing the overall economic productivity of your citizens.
It also contributes to a much more inclusive and diverse community for all of us.
I would hope that the City Council would entertain this motion, this item, so that they can continue
to make Bentonville an attractive community, a livable city for people of all income brackets.
Thank you.
Brock Hessing.
Good evening.
I'm Brock Hessing.
I work for Signature Bank, 700 Southeast Walton Boulevard here in Bentonville.
And I wanted to speak a little bit in favor of this as an employer, but also now as a father as well over the past week.
The return on investment on this particular opportunity is enormous for the city and our citizens when you look at what is being asked today to come forward with
and the investment that is coming in from the other business partners that you're going to continue to hear for.
I thank you all for the work that you've done to get us to this part point for low-income
housing as it relates to all of our residents, and I'm just asking that that continues.
As an employer, one of the things that's been very difficult for some of our wage earners
is finding a place here to live in the community in which they work.
They're having to go out into the outside.
They're having to travel for far distances.
And I spoke last time about different car troubles and having to rescue them,
But it really doesn't allow us to do life together, each step of the way.
And that is critically important for us to have a full life together.
And you can't have that when you have people going through in smaller communities and having that community.
It really just interrupts and breaks that as a part and weakens that bond.
And I think these are also great people that we want to have in our community, in our city.
It really truly allows us to be one unit on a daily basis and to help and do life together.
As a father, I just watched my daughter go through this last week.
We're now empty nesters, and she came in.
She's a graduate of U of A, a violent teacher, so she does make, you know, a lower income.
But finding a place and having to get a like-minded roommate was very difficult to do that.
But she couldn't afford a place on her own.
And she came to me, and one of the things she said,
Dad, imagine when I get married and have kids,
where could we live affordably?
And if I wanted to stay home, how could I do that?
It's very difficult, and hearing that
from a father's standpoint, that really opened my eyes.
And literally that was just this last week.
And a project like this would be perfect for her
and her starting out newly married and having a family.
So just think about that
as we go through that as well too.
It's not just for employer, but it's also for fathers and for daughters and I do appreciate your time
And thank you for the work that you've done at this point and getting us here and thank you to everybody else in the room for doing that
Thank you
Thank you mayor. Thank you council members for allowing me to be here
We're talking about a subject. That's no secret
Affordable housing has been a topic for a long time now
I have been doing affordable housing development in multiple states for almost 35 years.
This is a problem that everyone up here is aware of and everyone wants to see it solved,
but it's not going to solve itself.
And the resource that I use that we work mostly with is a very scarce resource
resource, and there has been a period of time when for probably about 10 or 12 years, none
of that resource was used up here.
The resource is continuing to be a scarce resource, and it will go where it meets the most success
and the least resistance in terms of being able to complete its purpose.
And so, I just want to encourage you to not only look at my deal from an individual perspective,
but the long-term message that, hey, we are trying to solve the problem, and we're putting
our money for the citizens in Bentonville here and surrounding communities to work
because we know it's a basic infrastructure problem that we're trying to solve because it is a scarce
resource and a couple of years ago, even, they changed the resource and said anything in Washington
or Benton County was excluded from receiving those resources. And so it is a scarce resource
and seeing commitment from the local community goes a long way in advocating for your citizens.
and so I would appreciate you considering that.
Scotty Cooper?
Thank y'all for letting us be here.
Scotty Cooper, orthopedic surgeon for 27 years here,
more recently regional physician executive for Mercy.
I live at 405 Northwest A Street right up the road here.
I'd like to encourage your support for this
from two perspectives, from the Mercy perspective.
As you know, this kind of started with Mercy.
Sister Lisa seven years ago began advocating for this and we had this land and we sold
it for a far below market price to accelerate as you clarified earlier.
Mercy is in particular attuned to the problem of affordable housing.
We just like everybody else, we have staffing issues and it directly affects our ability
to attract co-workers, the cost of living around here.
The people want to, as has been said before, people want to live where they work and who
wouldn't want to live in Bentonville.
As a citizen of Bentonville, I would be proud to say that my city supported this
effort at affordable housing.
It's, again, it's a problem that we all talk about.
It's a problem that's not going to go away.
It's not going to solve itself, and this is a golden opportunity, and we really, really
hope that we can all partner together in this one piece of solving the affordable housing
problem.
Thank you.
Casey Klein-Hens.
I'm at 3644 West Weir Road in Fayetteville, but I promise I spend all my quality hours
up here in Bentonville as Executive Director at the Community Development Court, Northwest
Arkansas. And we're not party to the Macaulay Place project, but we do work in the space.
So I understand the structure. I do, you know, do support the resolution to abate
the impact fees. And, you know, the one point I would make is, you know, just stewards
of the budget is that this is funding that's allocated statewide. The amount of funding
is pretty low. It's probably less than $80 million a year that's going to the whole state.
And the number of projects that we're going to see in Bentonville now and in the future
is really, really low. And so, you know, considering this based on it being, you know, capital
A, federally sourced affordable housing, I don't feel like that opens you up to a lot
of future requests. This is really a special project that we get to see.
Teresa Harris, maybe? I'm not sure.
Thomas, I think.
I tried to get Chris to help me, but didn't he help?
No problem. Never, glassy.
Thomas Harris, 4604, South 53rd, Rogers, Arkansas.
I'm speaking from not only a developer,
but I'm speaking as a resident as well.
For me working in 10 states altogether,
owning and operating 10,000 plus units. We travel and we are in so many places
and coming in front of a council to say, hey, guys, as from a affordable
standpoint, from a market rate standpoint, guys, we need the help to make sure that
we are putting the necessary housing in place for the individuals that need to
be there. When we talk about the whole live work play, are we really
putting that, are we really putting our money where our mouth is and doing it
the right way. So for me, I'm speaking in favor to say, please, I mean, for me, I remember
coming in front of the council last year talking the same thing. After coming here,
I was in the city of Savannah and say, guys, look at what we're doing here in Biddenville.
This is the city of Savannah. And now here it is, I'm doing a project there, 300 units.
That is a workforce housing project with affordable piece to it. They're putting
6.7 million infrastructure. That's – they're just – that's for infrastructure
because they know the meaning and they know they didn't eat that's in the city.
So hopefully you guys are in favor and we can move this forward and move it in the right direction for the individuals that need to be there.
So thank you.
Caroline Horine.
I'm Caroline Horine. I live at 4007 Southwest Hollowbrook Street in Bentonville.
Thank you guys for all the work that you do. Bentonville is a great place to live.
I want to say I do find it ironic that in the same meeting that we're raising rates for children to play sports or rent and park pavilion for their birthdays,
days, we're asking taxpayers who are already dealing with record inflation to fund the
impact fees for entities that are worth millions of dollars.
I also believe that once you've done it, it's going to be asked again over and over.
I want to talk about the fact, though, that I initially emailed the city on September
6, just wanting to ask questions about any past or previous plans for buy density bonuses,
waive, or pay for impact fees, or accelerate the process for developers, and I couldn't
get a direct answer.
When I sent a FOIA on November 3rd, I got no response. On November 8th and again on November 13th, I inquired again about my unanswered FOIA request.
19 days later, November 22nd was when it was fulfilled. It was not a significantly large volume of information, and Arkansas FOIA allows for three business days.
We just have to do better than that.
From the FOIA, I was surprised to see that instead of giving a direct answer to me for my question about the density of bonus or impact fees,
city officials were discussing how to handle my questions.
And I would propose that you handle them with the truth, whether I like them or not, you should just say it.
It was concerning to me that there were emails from people to accelerate.
Mr. Webster telling the Bentonville Schools that he already had city approval for a 23% density bonus.
Waving impact fees and HOV for developers in February of 2023 months prior because I hadn't
seen where the city council had approved that and I was under the impression that you guys
would need to. If they're the ones that are engaging in this stuff and they're misinformed,
that's something you guys should be addressing and correcting. I wonder if residents know
that inside of these emails that there's an intent to rezone historically single
family or residential neighborhoods into mixed use and higher density, we want to be more
like Austin, or that the traffic implications for this project are going to be addressed
not just by placing a roundabout, which is fine, a roundabout's great, is by routing
additional traffic through neighborhoods that have children, and we already have people
running stop signs in that neighborhood.
I would like to see the city streamline the process for building and have less
red tape.
The Bentonville sales tax revenue is up 26.9% year over year.
Property tax revenue is up personally.
Finally, I'd love to see the money return to the taxpayers to help them to afford to
live here.
If the city feels taxpayers should fund impact fees and density bonuses for developers instead,
then that's something we can discuss.
But it should be done so with transparency, not by handling or hiding information from
residents or council members or anyone.
Let me be clear.
We all want to address the affordable housing issue.
We have a problem here.
There's no doubt about it, but the disagreement isn't how that gets accomplished.
I just would like to address because we were, there was an allegation made of how we handle
FOIA requests and I would like our legal pay although we send them to legal and that is
our process.
I've discussed with the legal and it's my understanding that we comply with the
I haven't heard of any issue before tonight as to how many people are
here tonight.
I wanted to talk to you guys tonight about how Accelerate has been successful in defining
affordable housing, making recommendations and guiding the conversation, and setting
themselves up to be the solution to the problem.
Accelerate uses research with statistics, numbers, and data.
that this information comes from the park, which is an arm of themselves, Accelerate.
They are the foremost knowledge on affordable housing here in NWA, and they are getting
a lot of their information from themselves, so I just wanted to point that out.
Second thing is they've been really successful in being in the driver's seat to making
recommendations and guiding the conversation for this problem.
Project Arrow is a work group formed to create solutions to address the affordable housing problem here in Bentonville.
The issue is that the leader for Project Arrow is also the CEO for Accelerate.
He has been in a position to guide all of these conversations and have influence on outcomes.
Accelerate has set themselves up to make recommendations to the mayor, her staff, and the city council, which they've done just tonight.
The third thing is that they've set themselves up to be the solution for the problem.
Accelerate has done a great job in letting you know that we get federal and state dollars
for their projects, and if we don't use it, we're going to lose it.
And Springdale's going to get it, and Fayetteville's going to get it.
What they've not highlighted is that they're also getting so many of our local tax
scholars, from the Quorum Court to the Bittenville School Board, and now they're
wanting additional tax breaks from City Council.
No, not $180,000 more, not even $1 more.
I would actually love to give everybody a tax break.
I am not even for taxes, but I am not for this at the expense of the taxpayer.
I'm singling out, I'm not normally like, I don't normally do this, but while their
motives, I don't feel like I've been here or their actions, I feel like I've been
a little underhanded in shady.
I don't think this is actually, this conversation,
is about Accelerate, let's say.
There will be many Accelerate types of organizations
that come to you wanting to define the problem,
wanting to make recommendations for that problem,
and then setting themselves up
to be the solution for the problem.
It's not about Accelerate or those types of organizations.
It's about your philosophy of governing government
on how to address these problems.
Bigger government, more bureaucracy,
and free money is often the knee-jerk reaction
but is rarely the answer.
If it's a problem that government needs to address,
let's find creative solutions to fix the problem
rather than throw more tux money at it.
Please vote no to waiving fees or bonuses
to developers that will ultimately be passed down
to those of us who already live here.
Thank you.
I
have a question.
The previous speaker mentioned that she requested information on November the 3rd and a couple
of other dates.
And it was provided on the 22nd, is that 19 days within the limit?
Well, that's why I was going to have Bonnie come because any request I get goes to legal
and then they have to have IT pool at all so she can give you the timeline of it.
Is she out there?
Is money out there?
So they come in.
There are laws that control the deadlines.
They're just a point of order.
I believe we're supposed to have all the comments
and then have them like this morning or so.
I don't know, but I want to clarify this
as there's some propagation.
It's not coming in.
Maybe we can just continue and see where we are.
Well,
I know what I said I sent them to legal and so my expectation is that legal did it
within the timeline that they I really respect that and I as a council member I'm sorry if
the city didn't respond to FOIA in a timely manner but I want to make sure we separate
the two issues as a topic we're discussing and voting on and there's just a question
of whether we're appropriately responding to that as a council member I'm very
concerned and it has nothing to do with you just I want to make sure our systems
are in place to be timely in our response to any FOIA we receive.
But if we could focus on item 11 on the agenda and then go back to the FOIA topic, I think there's separate issues.
But is my understanding that these specific FOIA requests are relevant to this talk?
They are, but they were responded to and received. I think the concern is the delay.
But they were responded to, so I don't want us to. It's an important issue for this body to take up.
happy to talk about it but perhaps we can proceed with item 11 and then take a
look at the FOIA as a separate conference. Since the items from the FOIA were provided.
And it is our policy to let testimony complete and then I'll mention
discussions amongst us. We'll ask our staff for those.
Okay, the next person is Cary Parronsmith.
Good evening. Cary Parronsmith, 1200 North
Mallard Lane, Rogers. I can walk to the Bentonville City Limits border though. I'm also a Justice
of the Peace for District 5 and that includes Northwest Rogers and a big swath of East Central
Bentonville. Part of the money that was that Accelerate has been using in conversations
came through the ERA to grant money that came from the federal government. We
granted it to Accelerate to use for affordable housing. We didn't ask the
right questions. I don't think we would have determined that some of the
projects that we have seen it be thrown at and named to be really
affordable. I'm a person who utilized subsidized housing after my first marriage
ended over 30 years ago. It was not built by a nonprofit. It was a Lindsey
property. It's 2900 North Dixieland. And so that $100 a month meant a lot to me
to be able to have that too. It meant the difference of whether I, you know, how
I paid for groceries, or did we have that extra activity for my daughter?
But here's what our community really looks like.
Our community looks like small business owners.
The builders and developers that build properties like these, they don't have the luxury of
grant money coming from the federal government to sit there and come up with a bunch of
numbers.
The average taxpayer does not care about any of these numbers.
They want to know if they can pay their bills and how much their property tax increase.
I get that we pray at the altar of sales tax and property tax receipts to wave these impact fees
is completely discriminating against all of our builders and developers out there.
We shouldn't give them – we shouldn't give Accelerate or any of these other projects
or their other business partners who will profit from this project, we should not be giving
them a competitive advantage over all of the other business owners that build and develop
property.
I just ask you to consider voting against this.
Thank you.
Larry Kelly.
My name is Larry Kelly.
I live at 1206 Collar Lane, Bentonville.
I'm a real estate broker in Northwest Arkansas for 30 years or something like that.
Affordable housing is an important conversation for me and has been for all of that time.
And it's been an important conversation in Bentonville for all of that time.
And I've seen, I've heard a lot of interesting information this evening.
I actually participated in the work group that dealt with affordable housing.
I was there, I don't think I missed any meetings.
I wasn't formally a part of the work group, but I was there as a part of the public as
a concerned realtor in our marketplace.
And I would say that some of the last few comments that I've heard, I might have arrived
at the same kind of conclusions had I not understood the context of that work group
and the work that took place in arriving at these things, that it wasn't Accelerate
Foundation, it was the work group that arrived at that information. It was the work group
that put together solutions. It wasn't accelerate positioning themselves to profit in some manner.
So I'm happy to have that conversation outside of this meeting, but let's focus on item
11.
And tonight, that's Macaulay Place. And I will remind you, as Jeff did, that we actually
passed a resolution supporting waiver of impact fees as a component to this
report. So it was something that's been on the table, it's been part of the
conversation. It wasn't hidden or to benefit any particular person or
place. It was part of the solutions to address affordable housing in our
community. And I've got to tell you that I've never seen a more impactful
report than what this workgroup put together. This workgroup put together a
report that not only identifies the issue and segments how we can identify
those affected groups, but does come up with solutions. And at this point, we
haven't really implemented those solutions. We talked in the last workgroup
or workgroup before last that, you know, planning has been working on some
of those items to make the process easier, and we haven't completed that yet.
This is the first opportunity that this council has actually had to make a difference to actually
follow through and implement some of those things that we talked about in the workgroup
and the report that the resolution supported.
So why are we having such an involved conversation about this?
it was already agreed that this was one of the things that might be considered.
But I will tell you that I think I've identified one of the things that makes this more controversial,
and that is it's not just a straight-up conversation about waving impact fees.
It actually has become something about moving budget items around that complicates the conversation.
And when that occurs, I think that that makes it more difficult to get things done.
And so, I really don't like it in the fashion that it's being approached.
I think that this council, whether we're talking about Macaulay Place tonight or future opportunities,
is that they should consider waiving impact fees because it absolutely opens that pathway.
I've been involved with GroundWorks and all of their meetings.
And one of the questions I ask every single time is, what does the city point of order?
We've saved three minutes. It's up to y'all if he's allowed to continue take up
But the city is the obstacle whether we're talking about Bentonville Fayetteville or across the nation
City is the obstacle to affordable housing in our world
Okay, and it always is if we open that pathway
Just in Fletcher
193, West Wing 9 court in Fayetteville, the Accelerate Foundation. I just wanted to quickly go through a clarification.
First of all, Jeff was invited by the mayor to be part of the housing affordability work group. He was then by his fellow members nominated to be the chair of that work group.
The ERA $2 from Benton County are not being used for this project in any way shape or form.
And Accelerate does not benefit or profit from any of the work that we do.
We are a public charity. We give money.
In fact, we are poised to invest up to $10 million in our affordable housing projects thus far.
And thus far, and the reason for that, especially in terms of this project, is that Macaulay
Place Units, two bedrooms, will be 700 to 800 below market rate.
As for taxpayer money, $8.5 million is federal and state funding that city taxpayers have
already paid.
This request gives us the opportunity to bring that money back to the city rather
than it going to Jonesboro, Little Rock, or somewhere else in the state.
Really do thank you all for the work that you've done thus far and I urge you to take
this very important next step which is the process of creating affordable housing in
Bentonville.
Thank you.
Hello,
my name is Duke McClarty, I'm a resident at 3785 Chatsworth in Fayetteville and much
like Casey, I spend a large amount of my time here with you in Bentonville.
So I'd like to first commend the mayor and this council for your commitment to housing
in Bentonville as it's been previously discussed.
The Affordable Housing Task Force took a critical first step this year in accepting the recommendations
from the mayor and the appointed task force.
Not only are those recommendations a catalog of best practices, but it also presented
a roadmap for other cities in Northwest Arkansas to follow on their housing journey.
On the Executive Director of Groundwork, we are a workforce housing focused work stream
of the Northwest Arkansas Council and are viewing these issues from a regional perspective.
While these were terrific first steps, the reality is Bentonville is the least affordable
place to live in Northwest Arkansas.
Housing prices in Bentonville have increased 98% over the last five years.
Average sale price in Bentonville in 2018 was $255,000. Today it's over $500,000.
For some additional perspective, and these are using rough numbers, in 2018 a household making $75,000 a year could afford a $250,000 home.
Today the average sale price of a home in Bentonville in the first half of this year was $505,000.
With a 20% down payment, this equates to a $3,200 monthly mortgage payment, which requires a household to make nearly $150,000 to afford.
Are our Bentonville school teachers making $150,000 a year? Are nurses, first responders, hospitality and restaurant workers, childcare providers, bank staff?
What about recent college grads?
Our growth is going to continue, and with our region adding 400,000 more residents over
the next 21 years, we're building the 2050 version of Northwest Arkansas today.
Each of us in this room is going to benefit immensely from this continued growth and prosperity
in our region.
But if we don't ensure that each of our communities are available to house all the
makeup, the fabric of our region, we risk losing all that makes Bentonville and
Northwest Arkansas special.
Thank you.
Is
all that I have signed up?
Is there anybody on line to speak?
Thank you.
Lisa Lowe and Kelly Sikorski.
If you're there, please raise your hand.
This is Kelly Sikorski.
I'm also with Accelerate Foundation on the board and was just here to
observe or answer any questions if they came my way.
I'm the treasurer, so I have, and I'm on the housing committee, so I
have additional context if needed.
Thanks, Dr. Hindo.
Yeah, hi, this is Lisa Lowe.
I'm the medical director of community health for Mercy
Northwest Arkansas.
And I was just here to answer any questions as needed as well.
I just wanted to say that Mercy has been very committed
to affordable housing for many years.
And the name of Macaulay Place
is actually for our founder, Katherine Macaulay,
who's the founder of the Sisters of Mercy
and the heritage that we have, and so we're very excited about this project and really
excited about helping in the small way that we can with affordable housing in Bentonville.
So thank you.
Any other comments from the public
discussion for council?
Mayor, before we do that, I believe there may be an issue with council member Agnes
Mike. I think they're having trouble hearing you out there.
Testing. One, two, three.
How about me?
I can speak louder. Thank you.
Thank you.
It
was my understanding we couldn't use impact these in this way. So how will we backfill our public safety needs that we've the impact these go to?
I
think that's a it's an important question that you raised and I raised the same question leading up to today's council meetings. So I think some of the words are confusing. We're actually not raving everything we the city of Bentonville and please defer to staff. If you want to correct this.
We are paying ourselves. So we are moving funds from the general fund into the four impact fee funds for fire police library and parks.
And if I am mistaken somebody that knows more that there's our I do chair our finance committee
So I have a little bit of context on that one. Okay, so
So there's no waiver per se. There's just a movement of funds from general funds to the for impact the accounts
The money is not actually getting
Outlaid to an external third party. It's getting moved from one account in the city of Bentonville to four accounts
The study event bill would be paying for the impact for this development, but we would take him our only option at this point, because we do not have a dedicated fund would be to take it from general fund.
The documentation of the case mentions that the rent is going to be $700 slower than the market rate.
If that is the case, then we could be having renters that pay less than $100 based on the
market investigation that I did.
You don't have right data.
You can't run a place in Bentonville for less than $1,000.
You can pull it up.
We can pull it up right now.
The average is closer to 190 a foot.
You might get one for around 160.
but anywhere in midtown or downtown is 220, and it's at 97% occupancy.
So your rent value, your average, you must be starting at $1,000 that's average, and that's way off.
One bedroom, $600, available in one month.
One bedroom, $780, available in one month, et cetera.
And that is data that I collected yesterday.
So my question is, if the rent is going to be reduced by $700, what is the value that
it is being considered, the market value at that moment, if it is going to be reduced
by $700?
You may know, Bill.
Well, during our task force, you knew we're joining us in many of the task force discussion
as we use both census data and our own economic data and our yearly development data
data, as well as market statistics from both the Board of Relators and MLS to bring our
data current, and we've been bringing it current on a bi-yearly basis.
So I'm using data, and I think the others are using data, that is current marketplace
data that's in the MLS currently, and they say that they're going to bring the value
700 below market rate.
The market rate may be 1600, it may be 1400.
But because of all the donations and all the the waterfall of capital that's coming into this that is coming from all these different sources
They're able to lower the rents below that and so when he says he's coming down seven hundred dollars below market
He's taking a current snapshot at the MLS of all the rentals available in Bentonville and
Saying okay, what is the average rent and how do we get all of these rents down into that third and second tier that?
that we all wanted to get affordable housing in,
and the way to do it was take collectively
all the opportunities and all the donations
from all these third parties
to be able to lower the rent to get into that
because I wanna remind everybody,
this isn't for-profit possibility.
This is below market rate,
and it cannot be built for-profit
unless you have subsidies,
whether it's tax credits, donations or anything.
We're not talking about, I heard a comment earlier
that this is taking advantage of other builders.
I can't build anything below market.
Neither can anybody else unless there's just waterfall
or opportunities of multiple people donating
and understanding that without it we can get there.
So there's no competition in the marketplace
because zero is being built.
Zero is being built.
At that price point, to be below market at that price
is impossible for anybody for profit to produce.
So it's impossible to reach.
I would also just offer the nuance of a studio, a one bedroom and a two bedroom, because I
think in correct if this is wrong, the mention of 700 below market was a reference to a two bedroom,
and you cannot find a two bedroom on the market in Bentonville.
Bedroom 700 dollars available in January.
Two bedroom.
In which location?
Like in which, because I'm actually genuinely curious if you can see property.
because it's been. Is it a subsidized rent already? Are you sure? I just want to clarify the clarification. If the MLS, and maybe someone can weigh in on this, but the MLS does not typically have apartment rents on it. So if the MLS was where all that was drawn from, that's most likely single family homes or found homes. So just for point of clarification.
If we have the report available, we can pull up the statistical data.
It's on the website.
If you would please pull that up.
It's on our website and that is all in there.
It's relative to market, right?
So I mean, I appreciate very much, Councilman Sanchez, what you're saying.
I've had a tracker on both Zillow and Apartments.com and several other websites sending me alerts
whenever rental in Bentonville is available below $1,000.
I've had it since the approval housing task force met and it's very rare that
You see a unit come online and be available at that price.
We've heard from Bill about his kids.
We heard from a gentleman tonight about there.
Just if you're looking for housing like that
on a daily, weekly, monthly basis,
there is not prolific availability in our community.
I'm thrilled that you are able to find several listings
in your research today, but I promise you,
they are not readily available for families in Bentonville.
And I hear that from constituents all the time.
We heard that from several members
is in the audience here today.
So I don't, I certainly would need to pop a little bit.
And certainly 51% of the population
that we targeted in these three tiers,
27% in the bottom two tiers,
there's not, you might have a one off or two off,
but to handle 27% of the population
that can afford zero what we have available right now,
this won't even touch it, it's just a start.
So to think that we, if we have a loaned outlier
of $700 a month, or $600 a month, are you going to take care of, what, 10,000 people, 15,000
people that can't afford anything? We have 40,000 almost coming in every day to work
here in our service sector in our workforce. There are about 67% in those tiers versus 51
in Bentonville, but those are the workers that are trying at 51% transportation and
housing costs, driving into town, filling our roads that we can't pay to build, just
to try to work here for us.
Number one risk, if you listen to Skylines report on their quarterly report, if anybody
was in there, was affordable housing.
It's our biggest risk to our economy, our biggest risk to businesses and the biggest
risk to citizens.
And that's been the same for several quarters.
It's just not developers saying it, it's not nonprofits saying it, it's everybody
saying the same thing.
it's the number one risk that we have. And so we're talking tens of thousands of people that need
this product. While I appreciate there might be one, I'm trying to look at 20, 30 years down the
road and how are we going to even supply something we're doing zero about now?
But that's a good point because looking down the road, how is the city going to afford
and pay in this every time.
I mean...
That's a great question.
I mean, not the city, like me, like, it's not going to be affordable for me to live here
if taxes keep coming.
I want to share something because you don't see it in the impact fee documents because
we didn't do an economic study. We only did how much can we charge for impact fees. And
so I would appreciate any help. Next time they want to raise fees and taxes, they'd
go on there with us to try to pull those off because I've been trying desperately.
So we're trying to waive something that's actually been put in there that shouldn't
be in there in the first place. Now, that's my opinion. But I do want to talk about the
cost. 17% of the GDP in the nation is housed. Direct impact of housing. And sales tax, property
tax and everything else that have to do with housing are not included in any of our scenarios
when we develop these impact dates. So I just wanted to say in Bittenville, Arkansas,
it's well above 18.5%. I want to use 18.5%. So I got our sales tax report today.
Okay, and so I just want to share a little bit of where we're going to get the money.
So just in our regular sales tax, 18.5% of our production of sales tax is $4.2 million
by housing just this year.
In the county, it was $2.4 million just in sales tax on the initial construction.
Now we're talking about a capital penny we're going to use for other sources,
20 percent that we can use for other sources that we're going to try to figure
out how to work with our water and sewer. That's 4.1 million. Now that's not
going into what happens once they move in. Their property values increased. We're
building almost a billion dollars worth of construction every year. 13 and 14
percent of growth and property taxes, reevaluations, all of that is coming
to us as well. We're not utilizing that either. So to answer a lot of
questions, how do we come up with money? Business is given it and citizens are
given it by paying all these taxes and we're using them for everything but the
growth. So when we transfer money from one account to the other I would say it
comes out of sales tax or the excess property tax or the capital penny that
is paid by construction directly because it is directly related to the
construction and the growth of our city and so we use those funds to
transform because we know we're gonna have to buy future equipment for fire
police at library those impact fees and parks we need to be putting that money
away anyway we're not putting depreciated funds into those accounts like
we're supposed to be doing we've been depreciating all of our assets for a
very long time and not a cash dollars gone into the account to fund so I'm
saying this is a start to fund some of this stuff and if we can get
housing below market rate that nobody else can build because of all this generous donations
that we need to take advantage of it for a sheer $186,000 when we're providing that
construction this year alone on that project is a tremendous amount and in Bentonville
is almost $12 million in sales tax the day it's built.
Yeah, Holly, I do think the point you make is really important to look at how we're
storing city funds.
I don't know how many of you dine out in the city of Bentonville or drink in
the city of Bentonville or buy things in the city of Bentonville, but we have
a number of local businesses who have had to shutter their doors on jailious hours at
various times because of staffing shortages. And what then happens built at the point
you're making about sales tax is if a restaurant is closed all day, that is all days worth
of loss and taxes for us. And that's harder to calculate than some of the other numbers
we're looking at, but just anecdotally, because some of those are my favorite restaurants
and I roll in on a Tuesday and the restaurant's closed all day. And they've got signs
up that say, we wish we were open, but we can't find people to work here. They
And so, you know, it's just not as simple as a dollar in and a dollar out because that loss in sales tax revenue is affecting our bottom line significantly, being able to move those workers in will allow us to put those sales tax dollars back into our general fund.
And, and we really do have to take into consideration we we approved over 70 million dollar and we'll budget.
We're talking tonight about 100 and I get the number 80,000. And I don't want to dismiss the importance of that dollar figure, but relative to the leverage of over 12 million and funds coming from elsewhere.
To me, this is a very simple math problem. And I'm quite proud to see the city even considering this tonight and hopefully supporting us.
I agree. I think we set forth on this path a long time ago. We've all sat here and agree. This is where where we're heading.
maybe it's not perfect, but if we don't ever try it, I don't think we'll ever know whether it's going to work enough.
And I again feel like there's $8.8 million in incentives coming our way. It's a project desperately needed.
I feel like it's something we have to support.
Let's talk about this for a little bit because I don't think it's just affordable housing is not just an argument for high density.
It's also families that want to build on property they own that are already paying
impact fees.
They feel like they're not getting anything for it because it's such a small project and
they feel like they're hit.
When we were having our impact fee conversation, this council, and we briefly talked about
lowering the impact fees, we kind of put that aside and said, we're just going to
leave them the same way they are in the budget.
So when I was with Habitat, we used to have money.
We used all the federal dollars and the CBDG grants and we never got any of the fees waived
to build our houses and we did it with donated dollars.
I find it interesting and I'm concerned about equity and if we're going to do it,
there needs to be a policy or certain projects and certain non-profits that we're going to allow
everybody to participate in this program.
But I find it interesting that we can take a grant for one and a half million dollars
to provide e-bikes for our citizens, and we can't come up with another $180,000 donated
for this project that our government made.
Cindy, I think you're absolutely right, and I think if a Habitat project like that were
to come before this body now, I know I would support what we're doing tonight from a colleague
place, but also say it is about the money and we need to be good stewards of the money,
but this is partially also about the city of Bentonville as an entity saying we welcome
the development of accessible housing for our workers here in the city. And I don't think $180,000
is too much to pay to demonstrate to our community, frankly, to our neighbor cities, many of whom have
beat us faster to the punch in developing some of these projects to our school district who's
already approved a project like this, to say that this body does believe in this work because
voting this down is saying we don't. And frankly, I just find that embarrassing.
I disagree with you. And I don't believe that that means we aren't supportive of providing solutions.
And there are solutions. We can, as a city, take it to the voters to set up a fund that would be long-term
that we can use like some other cities do to support affordable housing projects like this.
It's a citizen-driven initiative. There are a lot of things we can do.
And the mayor and I have talked about streamlining some of our planning operations.
I know that Tyler's been working on things that we can already do that would make it
easier and more affordable and quicker for some of these groups to build, but it can't
just be one large project.
It's got to be a commitment we have to all of them.
So can we afford to donate money when the money's available in the private sector for
these kind of projects?
Yes.
And I want to...
I...
Let me...
Okay.
There are about $180,000 for this particular process.
There are 84 units, and the project has life expectancy or a planning lapse of 35 years.
Divided by 12 months or multiplied by 12 months, that is about $5 per month per unit.
That will be the contribution of the city.
If we do that, this will be the contribution of the city to this particular project.
The project is going to be, as it was mentioned, reduce the rent by $700.
And our impact is $5 a month per unit.
That is not too much of a concern in the number itself.
My main concern is what is the participation of the city?
What is the, how the city is going to resolve the problem of monitoring the compliance of this particular project? I understand that this is going to be done by the developer, not by the city, but the city still is responsible to its citizens because the citizens are providing $180,000 for this particular project.
So the sale is responsible, if not legally, at least morally responsible for the use of those $180,000.
How are we going to be certain that this project is in compliance based on what we did?
And that requirement goes for 35 years.
Now, it is not only compliance, but it is also the lack of that it is concerning, because if it is, according to the documents that I have read,
If there is lack of compliance from the project, then it has to be a fine double the amount
that it was given to the project.
So who is going to collect that money?
How the city is going to go about collecting that money?
Why do we have to be in the business of monitoring compliance for low housing projects
that are already supported by eight or nine million dollars by the federal government
and the state government and whoever government it is, if what my question is why do we have to go
there, engage the city, involve the city in this complicated operation while we are providing
five dollars a month per unit. Thank you.
Yeah, first off, I want to make it very clear,
if I vote this day on, it has nothing to do that I don't care about affordable housing.
I definitely care about affordable housing and at my funeral, no one will say, oh, she didn't care.
She probably cares more than too much.
But I also am confused by this whole thing because we went from, this was going to be for workforce housing,
then we bring the Salvation Army in and say it's going to be for homeless.
like, what's it going to be? What's it look like? Are we just saying things because that's what we want to hear?
I mean, I'm more confused now than I was when I walked in the door tonight.
A lot of residents of the Salvation Army are actually working full-time. You know that.
I know that. I serve there.
But I think it's incredibly important that we're respectful and factually accurate.
And when we talk about workforce housing, that doesn't necessarily mean people working full-time in our community are not without homes.
And so I just want to be really crisp that we are clear.
You can be both, you can be unhoused and working full time.
And this would provide them a path to housing.
I agree with so much what everybody said.
We do need a ordinances in place.
We need to have what are we agreeing to
and what are we not?
That was a year ago that we asked for those, okay?
But we don't have those currently.
The project moved on those ideals, spoke with the administration, and moved forward on a
application for federal funds based on that conversation, and has moved forward and received
the grant funds based on that, and are planning to build affordable housing with all the
donations that you see here.
I think it's very important that we bring our recommendations to the table individually
and vote them up or down.
I think we should have done that a long time.
I don't agree with everybody.
So everybody knows what we're talking about.
The recommendations are very specific.
But there may be different votes on how to handle it.
I agree wholeheartedly.
I expected those to be done.
And I think most people that were planning projects that take three to four years
plan when they heard this might be coming was thinking okay well these
our audiences are gonna come about we're gonna probably have these
recommendations done and we'll see how they come out but that's not how this
particular project landed and on another point you know we we have to
understand that because we bring Salvation Army and and other people have
decided to come today they're coming to show the coalition of all
businesses, all governmental people, all charitable groups, citizens to show that
this isn't just one group of people saying this is needed, this is a collective
group of people that has taken decades to come together and finally put all of
their all of their different beliefs and politics all aside and say if we all
pull together with these these as a start of recommendations we can make a
difference where it's not being done now. And so for me to see such a broad base
of a group of people, even the concerns, it's a topic that's difficult and I
understand that. Sometimes I overlook that because I've been doing this for so
long and I'm sorry for that. It's all I know. I've been talking politics in
affordable housing for almost 35 years. So I do in not to share things that
probably should because I'm just overlooking that and I'm sorry for that. When I see a coalition
that started years ago, came to the task force. I'd never met Jeff before in the task force.
Mayor appointed him. I met him for the first time. I had invited somebody from a bank and
they recommended Jeff and Jeff sent in an application the first time I ever met Jeff.
And he did a bang up job on the council. He didn't know much about housing at the time,
But we work side by side with a large group of people.
Many of you were in there most of the time.
So I think what we see here is trying to be problem solvers.
And I hope for my legacy that whether I win or lose, I'm always out there trying to
solve the problem, and right now the problem cannot be solved under the production capacity
that we have with those that are doing the production.
And so without help, getting below market rates impossible, and when you see everybody
participating, and we're just going to transfer money from one account to the other, for things
that we're going to have to buy anyway in those departments, and we get that many units
below market rate, I'm very excited about it, and I supported it 110%.
I just want to say a few things about our staff and what we've been doing with this. So when I call it, when individuals came to us about the impact of what we said, and we told it to you, we told it publicly, we said we would go and talk to our impact the consultants and ask them, can we do this?
They said, no, you can't.
You have to make the fun whole.
So we got the answer for that.
So we were doing work behind the scenes.
Our staff has been working their tells off
behind the scenes on this stuff.
So I am a little defensive on this
about what we've been doing.
I appreciate all the efforts
of our affordable housing and they've done a good job.
So we have been working hard on this
to try to understand it,
to try to bring some solutions to the table.
We also, after that conversation, one of the recommendations from the affordable housing was to get back into the CBD G funds, right?
Five plans have to be submitted for that. Our staff worked their tails off getting that submitted.
They denied one of the things we wanted to use them up before, if you remember, manholes like infrastructure for everyone that owns a housing unit.
They said you can't do that.
We also tried to ask them if we could to make the fund whole if we were to wave impact these or pay for them.
Can we use CBG funds for that? They told us no, we couldn't.
Those conversations and those actions were happening behind the scenes for all of this.
And we were very upfront with each and every one of you of how hard we've been working on this.
So, to tell us that we haven't been doing anything or to make those allegations, I think
is very unfair to our staff and everyone on setting up here on City Council, I can assure
you cares about affordable housing in the City of Bentonville.
We're trying to figure out how to do it.
I will tell you, Jeff and his team,
I did appoint him.
And each of you voted for all of those people that were appointed to that.
We brought the resolution in front of you.
You voted to have the affordable housing.
That was a recommendation from City Council, and we did it.
We've done every bit of this transparently and in front of this and trying to work toward
solutions, towards this.
So at the end of the day, we haven't been able to find a way to make the fund whole.
But we have been going down every avenue out there.
I will tell you, I got a text today by someone that's sitting in the audience,
and I don't know if he may or may not want me to say this, but he's smiling, so I guess I can.
I mean, even said, is there an opportunity for not the city but a different entity to
work together on a fund that would help cover impact fees on these specific things.
So I do think there are solutions out there.
We haven't been able to put together this package deal for you to bring to you because
it is this complicated.
And are we going to set, this is the question, we're setting a precedent.
So does it have to be a development that gets the LIHTEP or the ADFAH funding that holds them to that 35 years at that pricing that actually gives us affordable housing?
Because I will tell you one of the conversations is you come in with, you want different incentives and you don't actually get affordable housing at the end of it.
And that's one thing that we don't want to do,
that I've talked to other cities, that that's what they've done.
They've given incentives and done that.
So, I mean, that's the conversation for tonight.
But, and on that, I did take offense to the FLI and up,
and because our team, I send it to legal,
our team gets with IT.
They have to go through all of those.
They have to redact any private information.
So, it may not happen in three days,
but I can tell you that they did work to do it.
I think it has been provided.
I also asked Ms. Caroline to come to a public meeting
and ask your questions and let us answer them
in a public meeting.
And I'd be happy to do that for you today
if you would like to do that,
because I do believe in transparency.
I believe in what this city council does
and I believe that we're all trying to work
towards solutions to better our community.
Obviously, this is a really emotional topic and I think that there can be the opportunity
for emotional manipulation and I personally have to put that aside no matter how great
I feel about providing housing for people because it's an ideology question and for
For me, that question is, does the city belong in this space, and are we heading into socialism
with these projects?
I have to really weigh that, and it's not an easy decision.
It has nothing to do with whether I believe that I want to help people, of course I want
to help people.
I want, you know, I also have to stand firm on my personal beliefs on how
governments should be run. Part of this is the funds are coming back to us. We
should take advantage of what we've already paid for them and it's a vicious
cycle that is being set up for us as we continue to say, well, we've paid them
So we have to take them pay them anyways we have to take well this time it's going to cost us 180,000 dollars to take them
What's it going to cost us the next time to take them? It's a vicious cycle that we're in and
I have had
Emails and calls and texts from people on both sides
I'm going to make someone mad tonight, but it's not because I don't care about people
it is because I will stand firm on my beliefs on how government should be
operated in our country. I'd like to share my thoughts too that go along with
Becky's. I pulled up the resolution that we passed and it's a you know the city
council pledges to create an environment where developers will build
affordably priced housing and I feel like that kind of encompasses what I
believe government's role is. It's to create an environment and do things
that we can not necessarily spending tax dollars where I kind of feel like we're picking winners
and losers. This will help 192 people in Bentonville. I am a teacher. I have young adult children
that are trying to move to Bentonville. I am acutely aware that a lot of people struggle,
but it's a lot more than 192 people. And I don't feel that it's an appropriate use
of taxpayer dollars. And my other concern, reading down in the resolution, it says that
building in areas that have convenient access to job services and amenities. And you guys
have heard me beat the drum of Southwest Bentonville multifamily housing. I feel like I voted against
in 2021. We voted to rezone this property multifamily. I voted against it. I spoke
vehemently against it. I lost. And I know that it's done, but I still can't support a project
in an area where there is an overabundance. We are pushing density out in an area where
there are not amenities. There are not jobs. And I don't believe that that is inappropriate.
I don't believe this location is appropriate. So that's another concern for me. I also
So I feel like the pathway to work from this area is more Rogers than Bentonville.
I think we are subsidizing more Rogers workforce than we are Bentonville's workforce in this
particular location, which is a hard sell for me on spending Bentonville city tax dollars
to kind of support that kind of a pathway while I do support everyone in the region
And then when we're actually looking at our city tax dollars and we talk about our service workers, you know, I really feel like, you know, the infrastructure in Southwest Bentonville.
It's just not there and we keep building all of these huge multi family apartment complexes out there. There are no jobs out there. There are no services out there. Everyone's got to come in.
it's a state highway that we can't do any or state road that we can't do anything about
we can't get people in and you know I feel like this resolution specifically says that we
you know want to focus on areas that have amenities and have jobs and this isn't one so
that is kind of another concern of mine and in addition to kind of believing that this
isn't necessarily I feel like this council really stays out of social issues in a way
We do a really good job of making decisions that just set Bet and Bill up to be amazing,
and people want to start businesses here.
There are jobs, there are opportunities, and because we are create an environment to thrive,
and I believe that that is our job, not to spend money on things that, you know,
we're kind of just picking 192 winners.
So for those reasons, and even though it is hard because I very much want to provide housing for, I want everyone to be able to afford housing here, but for those reasons, I am not able to support this.
I just want to make one more comment. I read so many case studies. I'm tired. I was a bit four o'clock this morning still reading case studies.
And to be honest, throwing up apartments was not one of the successful ones.
One of the successful people self-help housing was amazing.
And there are ways to do it.
And I agree with whichever one of my council members that say, you can get $180,000, not
from taxpayers.
You can get it.
But this people self-help, there was like sweat, equity, I mean, there was some good stuff in this and it was very successful.
So I know there's ways. I have read way too many case studies. I have read so much on this topic.
And, again, for affordable housing, there is a way to get this without taxing our citizens
or using their tax dollars to make this happen.
And I would suggest looking at the people's self-help housing, because there are ways
to do this.
Holly, I totally agree with you, and I'm really glad you raised that.
I'm really glad you raised the fund for portable housing.
I will be coming back and looking at those.
We looked at those in the affordable work group.
I 1,000% agree with you.
We should look at those.
They're not on the agenda tonight.
Not looking at them tonight.
You have my commitment to anything we can do
as a legislator to future interventions for housing.
We have on our agenda a singular intervention
for a specific project.
I wish we were overrun with projects like this.
I wish this was going to create a precedent that obligated us to vote in the affirmative to these projects in the future.
But the reality is this is one project, one night here in December when we as a body not taken action for 24 consecutive months.
And I adore our staff. You all are brilliant. You've done Yeoman's work to move this work forward.
But it's kind of like what's the analogy about horseshoes, right? Like we still haven't gotten anything across the finish line.
And I think it's our obligation as the elected officials to make those tough decisions even when we know we want to make those decisions in different ways in the future.
In Hollywood, I respect that large apartment developments aren't necessarily cited as the number one example. I grew up in a development like that in Palo Alto, California.
It was built in a very, very similar fashion to Macaulay Place.
Were it not for that development, I would not be sitting here on Council today.
And so it is personal, as Councilman Siba points out, it's incredibly personal.
It just wants to think about the opportunity cost lost.
If we don't make this investment now, because there are kids in our community that need this housing,
that need the opportunity to access Bentonville Public Schools and some of the best schools in the state of Arkansas.
And I just, it honestly breaks my heart to think that we're going to punt this ball further down the field and say,
well, for this reason and that reason, we just don't want to support it tonight. Could it be better? It could be better.
Can we make it better as a body?
I believe we can and I think we can continue
to improve the process.
I also just don't, I don't think, you know,
we are all elected by residents in Bentonville
to make these tough decisions.
Voting in the affirmative on this tonight
does not obligate us to vote in the affirmative
on the next project.
We're elected to consider and weigh the facts
of each project that we look at.
So I know, I know it's a hot topic tonight
and I know you guys know I support it
but it is deeply personal and I just,
I hate to see us further delaying the explicit articulation of Batonville's support of projects
like this that will make an incredible impact.
I have a question for Patrick. I may not get an answer except what is it,
a mirror that you put on yourself addressing the body again. But this request for payment
It's not part of the 2023 budget. That's why we need a budget adjustment.
We recently approved the 2024 budget and this type of items was not included also in 2024.
So could this is a question, and as I said, I don't expect a very solid answer from you.
But anyway, could the city provide for all the requests that may come?
Okay, next.
Next, if not, what will the limit be?
Are we going to set a limit in the amount of money that we're going to dedicate for this
type of projects?
That would be up to council.
Yes, that's what I'm saying about the mirror that you're putting onto us.
And then how is it going to be allocated if there are several projects that goes another
mirror?
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. So those are the comments that I had in the sense of budgets and budget
adjustments and things like that that we are doing today. Yes, it is a unique project, and
we have adjusted the budget a thousand times over the year. But in this particular case,
it is not $20. It may be $5 million. It may be potentially $20 million if it is $2,000
per home, times $10,000. That's $2 million.
But it's $180 and it's December and we're wrapping up the end of the 2023 budget. You
know what we have in the city of Bentonville? We have something any municipality would like
to have. We have a surplus and respectfully, I haven't heard a single proposal from a
council member to return any of that money to our taxpayers in Bentonville. So if
we have it in our accounts, I'd like to see us invest it in the single most urgent
need that our residents have articulated not one resident or two residents but hundreds and hundreds
of hundreds of our residents with the many representatives that are the audience tonight.
So I appreciate the idea we should give it back in tax cuts. Maybe we should but nobody's proposed
that.
I think we have discussed this enough. All right. One last thing is except this is a
unique situation. They were under the understanding that the impact fees were going to be waived.
They made obligations themselves because of their understanding.
So, this isn't just a normal thing that they're coming to before they do a project.
They wouldn't be down this road this far if they didn't believe they were getting them.
It is different.
This is a big deal.
They acted and reacted to our discussions and in private.
So whether you agree or don't agree, I agree we keep our work.
Now we can go way off into this or not.
And we can decide whether, obviously, there was an action made based on what they perceived
to be the ability to go down this and request in their application and show that they're
going to get a waiver of this.
They didn't do that by accident.
They didn't do that on hopes and dreams.
So this is different than us deciding randomly about a future project.
This is people that have donated, have done all this work on a belief that that was
a commitment. Now I
say that we understand what I'm going through right now and understand
that people of this ability to do these projects don't do this randomly and move forward with
commitments with federal funds and with the showing of us waiving impact fees if they
didn't believe that was the case.
So I just want to add that level here. We're talking
about people that it had an understanding.
Can you?
Mayor, if you want to further explain that, you're welcome to.
I would like to further understand had an understanding.
I believe we have said all along from the options.
In fact, I have a memo from Tyler that kind of lays out the options,
which I just explained to you where the things we were asking the questions behind
and we brought that information to you.
So I don't think it is fair to make an allegation that there was something, some other understanding.
What we've said all along is we would ask the questions about impact fees.
We would ask the questions about CBD funds. And we've been told no on all of those.
And we have shared that information with you publicly and in conversations. So.
So, Dr. Tishlerby said that we could do it as well in their impact fee booklet.
Said we can, City Council can exempt impact fees for eligible residential products.
So it's clearly, we referenced our resolution at the ordinance that passed.
It clearly referenced this document.
So we have the authority to do this.
Well, I also think there's just, I don't think anyone's making any accusations about anything.
I think it's just a matter of, we have the luxury in Bentonville that people want to build here.
And we have a public-private partnership and a coalition of developers that acted in
good faith based on language we put into public domain based on resolutions and language that
we passed.
And we've talked a lot tonight about setting a precedent.
And I'm genuinely concerned for the precedent we do set if we don't proceed with passage
of this, which is actually we don't really want you to put your public-private partnership
and your coalition together and build an art committee.
Because that that is what turning this down tonight will send that very loud message into our community and you know, I know we're working hard on this. I know we all believe in addressing affordable housing.
I really think we have to think through the implications of sending that message into the many public and private actors who have worked to bring this proposal forward.
The proposal will proceed. The project's already been green light. It's getting built so on the table tonight isn't is the project going to get built or not.
It's does the city of Bentonville believe the project will provide an ROI or turn on investment and help our community and families
That's what we're voting on and I believe it does
Say for the council that as a human resource manager for the city of Bentonville every week
Literally every week when we interview candidates. It's a common theme
based on the wages that they earn. And I'm talking police officers, firefighters, multiple levels
of positions here at the city. They cannot afford to live in Bentonville. But I just want you guys
to be aware of that. Like it's a struggle. All of these other citizens, a lot of these people
have mentioned that it's hard to recruit here in Bentonville. And it's true. And we see that
at the city level weekly.
So I just want to make you aware, it's further.
Has the ordinance been read?
I've not, no, I don't.
All in all, it's a resolution.
Resolution for the city council payment
of the fire library parks and police impact fees
on behalf of housing partners three limited partnership
for the Macaulay police development
and the total amount of $178,920
adjusting the 2023 budget and for other purposes.
I'm going to ask for a real call about it.
Agnew?
Yes.
Seba?
No.
Hook?
No.
Acre?
No.
Souter?
Yes.
Patterson?
No.
Burkart?
Yes.
Sanchez?
Item 3 is our utility board.
There are no items from the utility board meeting, so we will go to planning meetings.
I didn't want interplaneting is a lot split for lots one through three of town view subdivision
Sorry, we've got it. Okay. All right
Ignorance except in a lot split of previously unflatted land creating new lots one through three of town VU subdivision to the city of Bittenville, Arkansas
And for other purposes
We'll call please
Sanchez Agnew. Yes, Siba. Yes, hook. Yes, agree. Yes, suitor
Patterson. Yes. For Cart. Yes. Item two is a lot split, lot six of Clark's second
addition. An ordinance accepting a lot split of part of lots 15 and 16 block six
of Clark's second addition creating new lot 26 block six of Clark's second
addition to the city of Bentonville, Arkansas and for other purposes.
Second.
Motion and a second. Any other discussion?
We'll call, please.
Agnew? Yes.
Seba? Yes.
Buck? Yes.
McCree? Yes.
Souter? Yes.
Patterson? Yes.
Burkart? Yes.
Sanchez? Yes.
Item 3 is a lot split, 19 and 18 of Osage Hills.
An ordinance accepting a lot split of lot 16 of Osage Hills subdivision,
Division creating new lots 17 and 18 of Osage Hill subdivision to the city of
Arkansas and for other purposes only second motion in a second any other
discussion
Seba yes look yes decree is Souter yes Patterson
Burkhart yes Sanchez Agnew yes Adam four is a lot of lots one and two with
max alley addition an ordinance accepting a lot split of previously
land creating new lots one and two of max alley addition to the city of Bentonville, Arkansas, and for other purposes.
Sorry, can someone?
We have a motion and a second.
Any other discussion?
Real call, please.
Yes.
Patterson?
Yes.
Burkart?
Yes.
Sanchez?
Agnew?
Yes.
Seba?
Yes.
Item five is a lot split, lot 17, block 16 of Deming Second Edition.
An ordinance accepting a lot split of parts of lots 10 through 12, block 16 of Deming Second Edition,
creating new lot 17, block 16 of Deming Second Edition to the City of Arkansas for other purposes.
Second.
We have a motion and a second. Any other discussion?
Roll call, please.
Acre?
Yes.
Souter?
Yes.
Patterson?
Yes.
Burkhart?
Yes.
Sanchez?
Yes.
Agnew?
Yes.
Seba?
Yes.
Huck?
Yes.
Item 6, the Lots 4 and 5 of McKee Hands 3rd Edition.
The Norton is accepting a lots split of lots 1A and 2 of McKee Hands 3rd Edition,
creating new Lots 4 and 5 of McKee Hands 3rd Edition to the City of Bendville, Arkansas
for other purposes.
I'll move.
Second.
Motion and a second.
Any other discussion?
Bill Paul, please.
Souter, Patterson, Burkhart, Sanchez, Agnew, Siba, Hook, Ykri, Yes.
Item 7 is a property line adjustment of block 9, block A of orchard addition.
An ordinance accepting property line adjustment of block 3 and part of block 2, block A of orchard addition,
creating new block 9, block A of orchard addition to the city of Bentonville, Arkansas.
Any other discussion?
We'll call, please.
Patterson?
Yes.
Burkart?
Yes.
Sanchez?
Agnew?
Yes.
Seba?
Yes.
Hook?
Yes.
McCree?
Yes.
Souter?
Yes.
Item 8 is a final plot of...
The guy.
Thank you.
They see you.
And ordinance exception and final plot of four guy estates face to to the city of
Bittonville, Arkansas for other please second second motion is I get any other
discussion girl call please for cart yes Sanchez I knew yes Seba yes hook yes
decree yes suitor Patterson yes item nine is a land use map amendment for
for Adventure Church and agricultural to low density residential resolution amending the
city of Bentonville future land use map for a specific area from residential estate to
low density residential for other purposes.
Thank you for your motion and I'll take it in the other discussion.
All in favor.
Hi.
Any opposed.
Passes unanimously.
Item 10 is a reason for Adventure Church from A1 agricultural to R1 low density single
family residential in ordinance changing real estate in the city of Bentonville,
Arkansas from its present zoning classification of a one agricultural or
one low density single family residential motion and second is there any
other discussion please Sanchez I knew Siba hook yes
Yes.
Siegfried?
Yes.
Souter?
Yes.
Patterson?
Yes.
Burkart?
Yes.
Item 11 is a lots level arts for lots one, two, and three of Adventure Subdivision.
An ordinance accepting a lot split of previously unplated land creating new lots one through
three of Adventure Subdivision to the city of Bentonville, Arkansas and for other purposes
of the family.
Moving motion and a second.
Any other discussion?
Will Paul please?
Agnew?
Yes.
Seba?
Yes.
Huck?
Yes.
Siegfried?
Yes, Souter Patterson. Yes, Burkhardt. Yes, Sanchez
Item 12 is a resolution of many see that will feature land use map for a specific area from high-density residential to downtown commercial
Resolution amending the city of Bentonville future land use map for a specific area from high-density residential to downtown commercial and for other purposes
Motion and if I get any other discussion
on favor. Hi, any opposed.
Late on the. Okay, passes. I didn't 13 is a reason PBR
holdings LLC from our three medium high density multifamily residential to downtown
edge. In the city have been saw from his present zoning classification of our three
medium high density multifamily residential to downtown edge.
Motion in a second.
Is there any other discussion?
Rocha, please.
Agnew?
Yes.
Fiba?
Yes.
Hook?
Yes.
Ikri?
Yes.
Souter?
Yes.
Pedersen?
Yes.
Burkhardt?
Yes.
I could give a brief reminder real quick, Mayor. I mentioned at the joint work session
a couple of weeks ago some of the ordinances that planning staff have been working on. We
are presenting those as informational items at next Tuesday's planning commission meeting.
I would encourage you all to listen in. I also, it went to your city council inboxes,
the work we've done on an affordable housing ordinance.
I would encourage all of you to please send me
or be prepared to discuss your comments on that ordinance
because I wanna be mindful and make sure that my team,
all of our city staff don't continue down a path
that council doesn't support.
So, thank you.
An affordable housing ordinance?
Yes, they went to your inbox,
to your city event, Vittal Inbox, Aubrey.
If it didn't, also-
at least something about the business register.
I just want to make sure that's not what you were referring to.
Is it possible to get both drafts, the one that we had been working on all the way up
into three weeks ago and then the new draft?
We can.
So they could have context of what everybody's been working on?
You can work through that.
I'll talk with the mayor and go from there, Bill.
I request that, please.
Okay.
Thanks, y'all.
I did want to let you know that Bonnie is going to put together the timeline on the FOI and then she will get that information to you and she said okay, so we'll get that anybody in the public as well with that we will go team we didn't have a meeting for the utility board or the library, everything is good.
good report. Wait, wait, I just told Taylor that I didn't give
good reports. So I have to give a good report tonight. Okay, so
don't take my I didn't say you have good report. I said you
didn't give a report. Hey, any report. Okay, so last week it
had been a while I did kind of forget it was fuzzy. But so
31 events in September. So many events. So much is
happening in Bentonville, which is really amazing.
Collections for A&P were up 14% in September,
which is fabulous.
We approved the budget at the last meeting, really solid.
The new, the mobile.
Visitor centers.
Visitor centers that we're calling it
has been a long time coming.
It will be revealed in the Christmas pray.
So watch for that, that's super exciting
to finally that is that is is ready so that'll be exciting.
Let's see and then
just a note they have an e-newsletter and they have a there's a visitor e-newsletter
and there's a resident e-newsletter so just like it's a tool for residents one
of the goals is to kind of you know it's not just people coming into Bentonville
there's a lot of events obviously our residents attend the events too and
there's so much going on that sometimes it's hard to keep track and
So there's a lot of really good, they have a lot of, you know, calendars and the events, but signing up for the resident e-news is kind of specifically geared for our residents.
So just to kind of encourage you to, you know, maybe send that out to your network or whatever, encourage people to subscribe to that because it is specifically for our residents.
How'd she do?
Chris, was that okay?
Okay, will you give me a good report please to Kayleen Goldsar?
Thank you.
I'm going to make this.
I don't remember. Hey, Greedy, how are you?
Nothing for me. No, no art committee.
I don't think I have anything since last meeting.
We did not have a finance committee meeting today.
We will have our finance committee meeting on the 12th of December and just a point of clarification.
Should we assume there's a resolution coming to cancel the last meeting in December or is that already you all need to vote on that usually?
You do it at that first meeting in December. If we look, it looks like there's not going to be anything that the finance committee, if we have a council meeting, we'll keep the finance committee meeting and it will be our second to last of the year.
If we cancel the council meeting, we will not have a finance.
Oh, we did have the kickoff meeting for the Syrian community for planning events.
And I just don't appreciate the tremendous work by Tyler at the meeting others as well
as the consultant team that's in working on that and just shameless bug for the survey
that's floating around.
If you've not had an opportunity to meet up to residents, please do and make particular
note that we're especially interested in increasing our response rate for residents
under the age of 18.
Looking at you, teacher.
Well, let me just get that in our announcement.
That's a great idea.
Anywhere that we may be able to get those responses.
That's fantastic.
Once I continue to discuss housing issues,
I'm going to follow up with one comment.
We passed the 24 budget recently.
And in that, we supported hundreds of thousands of dollars
for public transportation that is similar in context
to what we're talking about in housing, but a whole lot more money. We were talking tonight
about $8 million to 186. It's a whole lot better leverage than we're talking about with our public
transit, but yet we agreed to do that for some people. So I'm very disappointed this is a major
redirection of the affordable housing households and their recommendations. I'm not sure what
we're going to do based on the recommendations that we made that will assume to move forward
and what that's going to look like. There are many other low-lying fruits that we could be dealing with,
and so I hope this isn't a fruity move to doing those other recommendations as well.
It'll be a serious low to the city in its future.
Okay, tree and landscaping. We actually met on
November 16th, which was right after we met. One of our first major discussions was the
give away and some pluses and minuses. Obviously there were some obstacles that we had to look at
to think about for next year because our goal is to do to a year, but the location can get tricky
with traffic and things like that. So they're not going away, they just might move somewhere else.
We also, Tyler, he's not here, it's been a minute had came up with a tree preservation
packet and that is coming to Council I believe in January that don't quote me on that I know the time and but we we as a committee are actually reviewing it right now and going back through it before they bring to Council so I would say probably in one of the January
meetings that will come back to council. And then we just, at the end, it was mainly just formalities,
select and chair, we've had some new members, mainly just some housekeeping things though, but it's a great committee,
have some great new members and we actually have a new staff member that is going to be Taylor, I believe, is going to be heading that.
Shelly's kind of been going back and forth because obviously Christopher had left.
So Bailey and Shelly have done an amazing job carrying it through the year between changes in staff and things like that.
Just a quick question. Does it look like it's going to increase cost on housing?
You know what?
And additional staff?
I have it sent to me, but I have not opened it.
Shelly threw that out right before thanks to him, and I think gone.
So, but yes.
Holly, does the tree ordinance, the preservation ordinance have an heirloom tree clause in it? Do you know?
Of a what?
An heirloom tree or a stored tree clause in it?
Again, I can't read it, but yeah.
Yeah, you can, Shelly.
Tyler's the expert on that.
I was going to say, Tyler wrote it for, I think, a dissertation, or it was part of his
graduate program, so it's very thorough.
I would be surprised if that wasn't mentioned.
That's great.
Yeah.
Okay.
We adjourn.
Yeah, I told earlier that we were going out of context without what we were doing, so
we'll all ask council if y'all are good, then let's go.
Well, I can tell you, I was going to talk individually and then I don't want anybody
but do you think we're having non-authorized public meetings
with anybody in trouble?
I have sat in your seats.
I was a city council member for eight years in Van Buren.
So I know it's late and I know it's a thankless job.
But I wanted to first of all say thank you
for the discussion and the debate.
Obviously I'm disappointed in the outcome.
I've been operating in this space for 35 years.
And the gentleman that I used to work for said,
just give me all the facts so I can make a fully informed decision and I can't
help but believe that that may be and that's our fault but that everything
wasn't, everyone wasn't fully informed of the entire picture of what we are
doing and what we're asking. For example, Council Member Siba, I'm a
conservative Christian Republican and this particular funding program
program is in a day and age where there is absolutely no bipartisanship in DC is a hugely
successful bipartisan supported program because of the public-private partnerships.
And I would be honored to walk you through that, not to try to change your mind, just
so you fully understand, because this is one of the single-only solutions to affordable
affordable housing like we're talking about tonight.
Tonight we're talking about affordable housing,
those that are making 60% or less of median income.
I had three minutes so I couldn't cover all of this.
Council Member Patterson,
I wasn't sure that I was tracking with you on the location.
What we're talking about on Macaulay Place
is in front of the Bentonville Community Center.
It sounded like you were referring to play closer to Rogers,
but I wasn't sure if that was the case and then there was some confusion.
It's like super close to Roger.
Okay, but it was, I just want to make sure you understood.
I live around the corner from there.
Sorry.
And then there was some references in other context about the school project
which has nothing to do with this project.
But I want to encourage you to continue the discussion and take action sooner
rather than later because this is a problem that, quite frankly, the folks in Little Rock
have said they've got all the money they need, let them solve their own problems.
And we got representation from Northwest Arkansas to the ad for board.
It took a few years, but they finally got it.
This particular project, I had funding for it two years ago.
It would have been twice the size, right out of the chute, and it would have been
And the single largest affordable housing development ever developed in that program
in Arkansas, in Bentonville, at that site, it killed me, but I had to give the money
back because we didn't have enough money to complete the project.
And even though it's only a small amount of money, it's that last little bit that
gets it over the hurdle.
And I would be happy to go in, and it's the one I know I'm most familiar with.
I am familiar with habitat for humanity.
I have zero knowledge of the details like you would.
Self-help in my previous life, we worked in those.
I'm familiar with those.
There are lots of solutions.
This is going to make the biggest dent
and I want to encourage you to continue down this path
because it is going to get far worse
if we don't take action.
We've been talking about it for 10 years.
The Walton Foundation has had multiple studies.
the skyline report, it's going to get, but thank you for what you do. I know personally
it's a thankless job and I can speak on behalf of the mayor and the staff. They are trying
to meet the developers in the space that they're at to solve this problem. And so thank
you for allowing me to speak again. I know I'm probably holding you up from getting
to kiss your kids goodnight or have your dinner or whatever. I've been there. You
to say, Jim is the only thing between my dinner and us, you know, leaving here. So I apologize,
but I wanted to thank you, first of all, and offer my assistance in fully understanding
what we're trying to do with the Macaulay plug. So thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks for keeping it on point, Derek Kirby.
Thank you for doing that.
Thanks for being a good doctor.