Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

welcome you to the uh March the 11th regular meeting of the Arkansas City Planning and Zoning commission we have some paperwork on the balls there if you would like to follow along with us we have a eight item agenda and we'll take each item in turn the first item would be a roll call if you will please Anita picket here Anderson Neil here Chris Owens here decree and Dr Hickerson are absent Cory mobs here and Boots Thomas here two members absent we still have a quorum we can conduct business item number two would be an adoption of the summarized minutes of the February 11th meeting does anyone have any uh omissions additions edits or uh things about the meeting move to adopt move to adopt need a second second this will be a roll I mean a Voice vote all in favor say I I any opposed same sign motion carries item number three would be a rezoning request by Donald and Pamela Bond 724 Manor Way Texas count Arkansas to rezone the property located at 6304 East 9th from R1 rural residential to A1 mixed use for the purpose of constructing a shop prior to a residence property is legally described as the East Second East one half Northeast one qu Northeast quarter section 26 Township 15 South Range 28 West Miller County Arkansas containing 10 acres more or less and is located in Ward 1 Miss

Jamie so the bonds on this property here this is man way right here this is 82 so the bonds actually also own this lot right here this is where their residence is they came to us and wanted to build a shop behind their residence like many homeowners do but because this is a separate parcel of land you can't have a shop on it without a house unless it's zoned A1 so they have come to us with a request to rezone this so that they can build a shop on the back of right about here to be an accessory structure to their house and they are here if you have any questions and for clarification A1 is our uh generally rural uh semi agricultural commercial zone right and it is zoned right and it's zoned R1 right now which is rural residential and you can see we've got um there are a lot of large Lots around it and across the street stre very good and this is this they've got 10 acres there any questions from the board for Miss Jamie anyone I'm seeing that this full 10 acres is is vacant it's it's wooded right right now yeah it is vacant okay part of that the location of the pipeline also is that correct Miss Jamie could you verify that uh he said there's a power line not a pipeline power line not a pipeline yeah Power Line my house

okay right through here can I get you to come to the podium and give your name for the record please I'm sure we'll have questions and I'm sure you'll have questions of us name is Donnie Bond or Donald is my my real name very good been living there for about 28 years at the 724 location okay previously tried to buy that piece of property for several times over the years uh just to give me a little more room and to be honest with you I don't want a bunch of houses built back there so what's your uh what's your your ultimate plan for that 10 acres what do you what do you want to do that UL I may eventually build a house there uh but after being married 37 years my wife says build a house one day and don't build one the next day so if you could understand that okay smart woman I would prefer to build a house there sell where I'm at just have everything on one piece of property but yeah I think she's very comfortable with where we are um and I don't blame it we lived there for a long time is it your plan to leave the land uh uh basically we'll say semi-developed we're not going to turn that into a development I I have no intention to turning into an development okay would know how to do that anyway okay and I assume I'd have to come back and ask you guys if I wanted to do that well true yes and your house is on the like the fourth little slot up yes ma when you turn on the man Way I Am the fourth house on the right okay so it's almost halfway in between the whole piece of property there nice very good there is a a lane also off of 82 that comes all the way through

it splits the land just about so you could drive a vehicle from the front of the property to the back of the V to the back of the property okay um which basically I've cleared cuz it was all fully grown when I bought the property a year ago now the property next to you with the barn on top of the hill there that's uh belongs to The Parkers correct familiar with that barn on top of the hill Oh yeah that's that's not beside me that's that'd be to the west of you yes you don't mind me going over okay very good so it' be one over yes okay correct all right all right any uh any questions of Mr Bond from anyone all right thank you sir I do have oh you have a questions of I have one question the way it's zoned now uh I don't understand the difference between the way it's zoned now and I guess I don't understand why I'm having to do this what's different how is the where where my current house is how is that zone right now well rural residential is large lot mostly in rural country settings okay uh for the purpose of home ownership single family residentials gotcha uh the A1 is a uh a zone that we enacted as a uh an answer to a problem that we were having in in the city all of that land to the east of town out 82 and out Jano road that was taken in in 2000 is all rural areas large Lots some of it big acreage right well agricultural uses

livestock uh some some farming some Ro you know truck patch kind of stuff people have that property and they want to utilize it correct but as it was originally zoned in rural residential it would not allow them to build a barn or a shed or or anything like that until they built a house and then the rural residential zones would apply but if they're going to do that land in more of a quasi commercial uh rural residential uh a focused uh usage then the A1 meets that criteria and it still maintains the residential usage it's not a commercial Zone where they could go out there and and do lots of uh commercial usage primarily targeted for uh livestock and and gardening growing that kind of what I plan on dealing with so that's the purpose of the change right okay and that'll allow you some usage that you would not have were it left in rural residential you wouldn't be able to go out and build your your storage building or your shop or whatever you choose to do okay you'd have to build the house first gotcha so well I certainly appreciate that that's a lot more clarification glad glad we could have all right thank you sir you're very welcome anyone here to speak in opposition to this resoning request I don't exactly have opposition I have a concern if you have a question please come to the podium and you can give us your name for the record please I'm Denise Johnson and my concern and it doesn't sound like this is going to be a problem would be that we have uh we live a couple houses down from Mr Bond okay and our property gets flooded from water coming from that acreage okay

that he's getting zoned and I I know whenever there's construction on you know on property it can cause the water situation to be worse that was my concern and I am wondering if there's any way to get to well let me show you what we've been dealing with second Miss Johnson could you state your address for the record mam could you state your address yes 716 manorway Road thank you which direction is your house toward the bottom of the screen or toward the top of the screen in the lots that are listed whereas his is in the middle one you're below him on the screen you see where my arrow is yep thank you you're welcome so you're at the you're at the bottom of the hill well we're lower than the wooded area yeah I'm wondering if there would be a solution where some kind of a system of drainage of ditch or something could be put in to take that water down towards the highway instead of my house and the neighbors but I don't object to him having a shop or that's just my concern CU we've that's cost a lot of money what we've done so far trying to deal with it well I understand this I've I've had drainage problems at times in in places

that I've lived so I empathize with your problem in most generally and our our Public Works director can speak to this more directly but in most generally we have regulations requiring that in any new development any new construction there has to be uh uh water remediation given there has to be thought given to the direction of flow and the rain and and and most generally no more water can come off the property after the construction than before the construction so it it uh it may it may not be any less but it won't be any more okay well I'm totally ignorant of that so thank you you're welcome all right are there uh any other questions comments just discussions if not the chair entertains a motion I move to approve move for approval we need a second second have a second this will be a roll call vote call roll please an need a picket yes Anderson Neil yes Chris Owens yes Cory mobs yes chairman Thomas yes motion carries and our recommendation will go forward to the board of directors on March the 17th for final approval uh for this reson so next item on the agenda is a conditional use permit requested by MTG engineering representing Jefferson Street uh LLC 5930 summerh Hill Road Texar County Texas for a conditional use permit for

the property located at 5111 Jefferson in order to construct a Skilled Nursing Facility property is legally described as Lots one Northeast Northeast section 07 Township 15 South Range 28 West Miller County Arkansas containing 11.0 Acres more or less and is located in ward 6 Miss Jamie so this is last month um MTG on behalf of je Jefferson Street LLC came to us and asked us to rezone this property here south of the middle school in order to build a Skilled Nursing Facility we have confirmed they are closing the Old Bailey Creek facility and this will be a new facility replacing Bailey Creek on 42nd Street um the board did approve this so this has been we rezoned it to the overlay District this has been approved and rezoned overlay but now they need a conditional use permit for that um in the overlay district there is water and sewer available I have spoken to Tyler to make sure that what is there now will support this additional construction and he's confident it's fine very good any questions for Miss Jamie anyone and MTG is here all right uh any comments uh someone here to speak in favor of this condition use permit please step to the podium give us your name for the record please my name is uh Joseph Shifu with MTG Engineers I'm the engineer for the project here to answer any questions comments concern thank you Joseph so now that you've got your reone you guys are ready to move dirt start pouring concrete getting close to it getting close yes sir okay what's your time frame for

construction I believe they want to construct probably sometime this summer is when they're looking to start moving dirt around wait for the weather to get back past yeah it's still um we're still kind of early in the design process um so that'll probably take another month or two to get through but then they'll probably move for permit pretty shortly after that and will they have to come back with the design before us no this it's not a PUD it's just a general overlay and uh the conditional use permit is required for the use in the overlay that's why we're doing the housekeeping thing here any questions from Mr Joseph anyone thank you sir anyone here to speak in opposition to this uh conditional use permit seeing none the chair entertains a motion I move to approve move for approval need a second second have a second call roll please I need a picket yes Anderson Neil yes Chris Owens yes Cory mobs yes and chairman Thomas yes no action is required by the board of directors so this conditional use permit will go into effect and uh building permits can be issued very good next item on the agenda item number five a rezoning requested by Bill Duffer 1804 North State Line Tex count Arkansas to rezone the property located at 8 803 Laurel from R4 medium density residential to C3 open display commercial for the purpose of constructing a parking lot for the adjacent Automotive business property is

legally described as lot six block 8 of the original City Section 30 Township 15 South Range 28 West Miller County and containing 079 Acres more or less and is located in Ward 2 Miss Jamie so if you remember um Mr Duffer owns these four Lots here those have been reson C3 it's been approved by the board of directors and he will be building an automotive shop which will act as a companion shop to the business he has here this will be the parking lot for his business um you can't have a parking lot on residential so it needs to be rezone C3 and you can see here there is C3 next door and across the street and now to the north of it since we've already rezoned all that um it has to be reson C3 in order for a commercial or we could reone at C1 C2 or C3 okay am I correct in saying the parking lot will uh Frontage on 8th Street fronts on Eighth Street and Laurel no just the the entrance will be off ath Street okay and that'll be included in the uh entire development surrounded by fence or will it not I guess that's a question for the develop okay state your name for the record please I'm Travis Phoenix I'm here representing Bill Duffer but uh the building will let's see Jamie is this the Lots we already

rezoned right right here and 815 so the building was going to sit right here okay and then the fence was going to be right here all the way to the back of that property and then join on the side of the building so this front parking lot will not not be fenced down so the parking lot will be free access off of 8th Street yeah it'll have an entrance off 8th Street right in here somewhere primary one entrance or two um I believe we're planning on one entrance on that could we assume that's employee parking or what uh yeah it's going to be basically employee parking for the people works there this shop's going to have U four Bays that uh doors on the front so there'll be probably four mechanics or so working there if I remember correctly the frontage of the shop will actually be along Laurel was that correct no we turned the bu initially it was going to front on Laurel and we turned it 90° so the front will be off of 8th Street here Napa sits right here and their parking lots basically right here and our parking lots going be right here okay got it at first it was going to be facing Laurel and then they fli yeah it actually fits the property better this way too this thing this thing's been round and round so it has been yeah all right so on the parking lot it will not be or will it will it be uh when the business is open there'll be cars there at night there will not be or or what's the story there I doubt there would be any cars there after dark I guess the question I'm asking it won't be for storage also no this back will be fenced in so all the the vehicles that they own at the car lot will be secured behind the fence very good okay all right any other questions from anyone thank you sir all

right okay uh is there anyone here to speak in opposition to this please state your name for the record ma'am Brenda bcy 3720 go ahead 3720 County Avenue tar count Arkansas to the um chairperson and the Planning Commission members good evening I am here to express opposition to the change in Zoning for R4 to C3 open display this is my sixth meeting before the Planning Commission and the city council concerning this zoning change the last time I was before you the planning department had presented a PUD Zoning for Mr Duffer the planning board passed it and it went to the city council which they were going to pass it until I brought it to their attention that it did not meet the legal requirements who is responsible for researching zoning requirements before they are submitted for change well that would be our city planner our city planner so the due diligence was not done can a person have two zoning requests in at the same time yes they can have two zoning well this is a separate piece of property that was recently acquired as I understand it so it didn't include with the other package the other zoning I'm I'm I'm referencing the

previous zoning okay because my concern is that uh the Zoning for C3 open display didn't come back to you yes ma'am the the C3 open display commercial was our initial zone right for that property so it never closed even though you applied for a PUD that first one didn't ever close uh was that denied it was approved last month at theity board director meeting yeah the original request was to Res the four Lots the four Lots okay you guys approved that and the board turned it down correct that's yes then it was requested that it be a p for all five lots and that never got out of the board right the original request for the four Lots went back to the board it did not have to come back to us because we had already reviewed the four lot request and it was approved correct this L has never been before us for resing I'm not speaking of this I'm I'm speaking of uh the Zoning for the previous l that never came back to this commission to vote on it was a new if the first one was denied it came back PUD was denied it never came back to this commission to vote on the city council voted twice on the C3 open display but this Planning Commission did not miss bcy what happened was the first conditional use permit the first C3 open display was only for four Lots the Planning Commission voted to approve that the board denied it then he

brought a separate item to the Planning Commission which was to do a PUD on five Lots so that's a a different parcel of land that didn't make it through the board because we AED in allowing that to go through because I did not check the acreage requirements the board decided they would reconsider the um C3 of the four lots and they voted to approve that so now he has that fifth lot which has never before been brought to us as a single lot and that's what's open for consideration right now does that make sense I I understood all that in beginning I mean I I'm I what I'm emphasizing is that that did not ever come back to this board so you're saying he could have a PUD open and a C3 open is what you're saying well our PUD thing was an error on our part because we had modified the Pud rulings but it uh it got biased now the the C3 zoning the original issue was passed by us as a recommendation to the board the board initially turned it down and then reconsidered and and chose to bring it back up for a re for a vote again and that's why it didn't need to come back to us because it had already been approved by us okay well the City Board turned it down so why did they come back and vote on it again because they're the city board and they have that Authority and we do not oh oh because I thought I saw somewhere and you you cannot readdressed um well we're an Advisory board with with some limited powers but when we make our recommendations to the board then it's

up to the city board to to choose what to do with that recommendation they uh they can deny it approve disapprove it or they can approve it or they can table it or they can uh just simply not vote on it not not put it on their agenda or they can bring it up for reconsideration at a later time it's it's all those things are allowed and and they exercise their Authority under the law to do that so the uh planning department after it was denied they brought it directly back to the city council is that what happened yes okay uh the Planning Commission had voted previously to allow a junkyard in our backyards person stated that I was fighting a lose in battle because the commission would give more wishes to the applicant than the residents and align with Mr Potter but I told them I would Poss facts and truth and they would do what was just and fair informing the Planning Commission about the city comprehensive plan for this area was violated that didn't matter residents voted against it that didn't matter historical sight to be restored in that area that didn't matter so what was a determining factor for Align this change to occur it couldn't be money because a city council member stated at the last meeting that another group that finances should be secondary to the citizens desires you voted against that zoning request a similar request different treatment the double standard couldn't be more clear who owns Tri State Auto uh Bill Duffer As I understood it

no sir okay I stand corrected then it was a fraudulent application because Mr Duffer does not show ownership for that business in Miller County records so he is asking for a zoning change for a business he does not own this is a fraudulent request what is the definition of C30 display well it's our least restrictive commercial Zone that allows the greatest number of commercial uses and it sets for retail uses which serves the need of the motoring public and the selling of goods and services now that's in the cities by law is this what this business is doing yes in our opinion okay okay um I have presented you with truths and legitimate reasons why this should not be resed if you proceed you are breaking the city's visions of the Gateway neighborhood Gateway and showing bias against a marginalized community and its citizens wishes thank you thank you by way of explanation and I've said this before but it Bears saying again this committee is an advisory committee to the board of directors we have limited authorities like with conditional uses but our primary objective is to look at land use in Tex can arkans saw concurrent with

our projection our our development plan a long range development plan and concurrent with the uses that are beneficial to the greatest amount of people in the city and to the city in general uh commercial or economic development is a priority are also it's a priority for us to protect residences and residential districts and to in contain M the Integrity of our communities and our uh uh City in general uh land use is our business and uh ours is based purely on the technical merits we try not to be Hoodwinked by things that come along by developers that say we're going to do this that or the other if the land use is not appropriate this that or the other is not appropriate so our our plan is technical with land use along 7th and eighth street are both considered arterial streets uh commercial uses up and down those streets throughout the city uh they serve uh as essentially Highway 67 and Highway 82 through town uh those were originally uh major commercial corridors before the interstate was built uh so there's been businesses traditionally located along those corridors since Inception since the city began those are still commercially viable districts and uh the land use for commercial purposes is still appropriate in those districts uh km Brothers Body shop until uh just a few years ago was located directly across the street from this property uh right next door is a NAPA

Auto Company and behind them was formerly Auto Parts House so it's there's a lot of commercial there and I do appreciate the fact that that neighborhood uh in its foundation and tradition was part of the core of the old city was a historical or or a traditional African-American neighborhood and it it has roots in history and we do appreciate that uh but we're looking at land use and commercial land use is is an appropriate use of that property uh due to based on the technical merits of that so uh just for clarification so having said that this item would go before the board on uh April the 11th for consideration whether we approve or deny it and if we did deny it if we do deny it the city also has the option of bringing it up and over writing our denial because as I said earlier we're an Advisory Board to the city so uh the chair if there's no other discussion the chair accepts a motion I move to approve the rezoning move for rezoning second motion is second call roll please Anita picket yes Anderson Neil yes Chris Owens yes Cory mobs yes and chairman Thomas yes so once again the motion goes before the board of directors on April the 7th for consideration all right chairman Thomas yes if I could ask a favor we have several people here who want to discuss the Airbnb issue want to move that up in the agenda we move that up so they can because I think we're going to have some discussion about the truck stops and absolutely let's do that so we're going

to swap places with item number six and seven so we will uh address uh number seven first uh which is an ordinance adoption request to adopt an ordinance regulating the operation of short-term residential rentals uh this item was uh previously postponed and not on our agenda but has been brought back up so miss Jamie if you will please so to give you some background why we had pulled this off the agenda originally however there is a bill in the house legislature that it you have a copy of it in your packet that would prevent us from regulating airbnbs at all it uh is out of committee it is not on the house floor yet we're not sure what the owner what the sponsor of that bill is going to do but we felt it in our best interest to get an ordinance on the books um before they passed that ordinance and there is no guarantee they may pass their ordinance and tell us that their ordinance PR um overrides ours and ours would be invalid but in the event that they don't pass it we will have something on the books and we would like to go ahead and get something on the books um to go over some of the points um many of you were here we had a workshop and developed an ordinance we based it on little rocks ordinance that's what we started with their ordinance is obviously because of the size of their Town um there's a whole lot more grit to it than we needed um so under our definitions of short-term rentals it cannot be owner or manager occupied or have living quarters in our definition that is a bed and breakfast and we already have an ordinance for bed and breakfast so if the owner lives

there it's a bed and breakfast they cannot rent it for more than 30 days that qualifies as shortterm they cannot use a temporary secondary dwelling a recreational vehicle or a manufactured home it has to be a legitimate single family home a duplex something like that allowed uses it can only be for sleeping spending the night no wedding receptions no weddings no parties no graduation parties no I don't want to have it at my house so we're renting an Airbnb and nothing like that um if there are homeowners covenants in that neighborhood that restrict airbnbs or short-term rentals um it cannot violate those homeowners covenants now this is one of the things that we talked about and we changed um last month when we brought this up we decided it would be a conditional use permit in R1 R2 and R3 which means they would have to come to us and get permission in those three zones in R4 which is already our medium density zones where we allow boarding houses and duplexes and in A1 which is our limited mixed rural which are the Big Lots um it would be a use by right there overnight occupancy would be two per bedroom plus two people so if you've got a six-bedroom house or six-bedroom house if you've got a four-bedroom house that's eight people in bedrooms plus two so that's no more than 10 people your maximum occupancy at any time say you're going to have family over because you're in town visiting them is the ma the overnight occupancy plus 50% so if you have a four-bedroom house

you've got 10 people you can have there overnight you can have 15 people there at one time but not overnight and they can't provide any food as part of the rental because then it becomes more like a bed and breakfast again um compliance if the units are in existence today they have a year to come into compliance they can't have any signage this is not a hotel this is not an Airbnb I mean a bed and breakfast it's a Airbnb they have to register and get an annual permit so that has to be renewed annually it's $100 must have a local contact person who is available 24/7 and can respond within 30 minutes if there's a problem and they have to have that person listed with the planning department they also have to it's on another slide but they also have to post that in the Airbnb who that contact person is they are required to have a certific certificate of occupancy which means it's safe to live there they are requiring an annual inspection from our code enforcement because as some of you know we have had some hotels in town that we have had problems with and we don't want our airbnbs and short-term rentals to get into that situation and they have to comply with all of our other ordinances noise Solid Waste parking all of that um some other things they have to have one and a half parking spaces per sleeping unit so that gives so if they've got got four bedrooms they've got to have six parking spaces um they have to like I said they have to post all emergency and other information like the local contact person who the owner is of the Airbnb um local non-emergency numbers

for police and fire and of course 911 they have to remit and this is a big one they have to remit all taxes including A&P because that is one of our concerns is we are missing out on& taxes for these rentals right because they are fundamentally a form of temporary lodging just like a hotel and we do have at least there is at least one platform that collects taxes for us it's not Airbnb and it's not vervo and I can't think of what it is but they must register with us and we will get that to finance to make sure that they're paying their or their taxes has a city thought about uh a methodology to be able to tell when the places are rented and how to collect well I'm not going to lie um our first challenge is finding out that they're out there right there is software that can be purchased I don't know how much it is that will track these um we talked about today somebody's sitting down and going on Airbnb but they don't give you the address of the property until you book it right so that doesn't work you can be sneaky well you can look at pictures I'm sneaky well I mean there are ways there are not easy ways unless we're willing to buy some software um of course the neighbors call us and you know but our first challenge is knowing they're there our Second Challenge is knowing that they are being honest about when they're rented yeah and that's just going to be an inherent issue I mean it's one of those things it's just like in historic district we don't let you park in your yard anymore well if you put an ordinance on the books there's going to be a certain amount of people that will follow that ordinance right and then there's going to be those that won't um

so that's a big question that's going to have to be answered going down the road there yeah so in the meantime we deal with them as we get phone calls about right and keep a record um and reach out to them we know some people there are some developers and some people in town that we know have several airbnbs already um so we do have some idea um we had put in this ordinance that there could be no more than 2% airbnbs could not make up more than 2% of our single family homes and that is because what we're seeing Statewide is these airbnbs are creating an affordable housing issue because people are buying up these little houses and turning them into airbnbs and and I can tell you as someone looked for an affordable house could not find one um the permit is revocable if they violate the ordinance we can revoke their permit and they much like all the rest of it they have an appeal process to the board of directors and if I missed anything asked those are two big issues those are big that you mentioned the uh the limitation I I recall when we talked about the limitation of 2% Citywide that would that would uh keep the thing from becoming a galloping commercial Venture yes y'all will have a chance yeah and so if you have any more questions for me I'll be glad to answer them would you expound on the State Bill a little bit for us the state bill I don't have my copy of it with me the state bill is sponsored by a uh

representative out of Rogers Arkansas the state Bill basically says the state Bill basically says it prevents cities from passing any ordinance that restricts the operation of short-term rentals in any way it does allow us to require them to register one time our ordinance they would have to require they'd have to register annually their ordinance requires them to register one time we can't charge them any more than $50 to register uh and it does and the only other thing it does is it gives us an out if they have violated an ordinance three times we can shut them down for 30 days if anybody is injured or killed on their property we can shut them down for a year wow that's um I will tell you I watched part of the committee uh video yesterday of this the gentleman that is sponsoring this continues to Advocate that this doesn't take power away from the cities it gives the Cities Power because it creates a framework for us to uh enforce these airbnbs there are a good number of cities that are not for this including cities that are highly based on tourism right um the ordinance there's just there's not a lot of meat to it to be honest with you um it doesn't let you do anything which I mean makes sense anyway you can't house sex offenders sell illegal drugs have an adult oriented business I mean things like that that you wouldn't do anyway um I really don't know

his purpose in bringing this bill forward um certainly it would make more sense to me just to let the cities handle this because every city is different Tarana is not a city that is heavily dependent on tourism like hot springs is or fville um or Rogers for that matter um being so close to f so I don't know um I can't answer that I will tell you we went up there today um I spoke to a couple of Representatives who were against it um I don't know that it'll ever go to the floor for a vote yeah but it is out of committee well I could see where the state would want to apply some regulation to a industry which it is an industry a commercial Venture uh the people or corporations that would own these properties can rent them for uh a couple of nights for way more money than you would get if you were just rented for somebody as a residence for months or years so it's a it could be a cash cow and if you don't kind of control it in some sense it I could see where it could get away from you we have and we have not pursued this heavily in the past because we have not had a problem with a short-term rentals right however we are getting increasingly more complaints and issues with people that are running short-term rentals yeah um I believe the neighborhood that they live in we not Happ oh I know um I got a phone call this weekend from someone that about a short-term rental that was advertised as sleeping 20 people good

and there were 12 cars and a bus over there all weekend uh in George coker's neighborhood that's a big house well I I don't I don't know and I don't know where you come up with 20 people if you've got five bedrooms you can get 10 and then a couple of couches you can get 14 but I I can't make 20 but that's how it's advertised so I'm told well that's a thing that would happen if you didn't have stre me that that's what would happen if you didn't have any regulation yes it's just a free for you know if it's wide open so so so we um would like to get this on the books I have it on the board's agenda for Monday okay um and I think these lady and gentlemen here might like to speak certainly we want to hear from them any questions from Miss Jamie anyone thank you anyone would uh like to address this this please step to the podium and uh I'm sure we'll have some questions well state your name for the record please have more questions than you do um my name is Kathy Stewart I live down the street from the house that I think you're talking about you're right it did not originally sleep 20 people the people who bought it came in and it was a large house I don't know how many bedroom room it had originally but they put some partitions up added a bathroom or two and they truly can sleep 20 people it's advertised that way for $400 a night so it's a real deal for anybody that wants to come in here last weekend I have no idea how many people were sleeping there but during the day the cars exceeded more than the number of

people that would have been allowed there and I'm afraid I mean the short-term rent thing can be a real problem all over our town if we if you don't get a handle on it because people take advantage of it who's going to enforce this right you know we're we're short on people fixing the streets and doing a lot of things on our side of town I just don't see anybody coming around and being able to enforce it well $122,000 a month rental would be a pretty good incentive to do that wouldn't it well I don't know how often they rent it out I'm I'm sorry that the lady who uh lives right next door and who has had to live with this situation wasn't able to be here tonight she could speak to it a lot better than I could but anyone R every day they rented it every night they rented it every night that's book through July it's book what's that address H 4 night times 30 it was lot of money it was Gary do you all know Gary it was Gary n's home okay talking about I know him it's sold to some people from Dallas okay the the owners are from Dallas and when they're not here using it they rent it out and I to my knowledge I don't know if there is a local person in place who manages the property or not I have no idea well if they did they'd be doing it on their own accord because currently we have no regulations requiring but if we if we write this ordinance correctly and we've had a couple of workshops on this

and a lot of discussion so if you know we could get a handle on that and and intervene to make it manageable and would it affect that particular property well certainly yes done deal yeah it would come under it would fall under that c 30 days yeah well I think we're s with all these short-term rentals I think we're setting ourselves up to just have a bunch of little mini motels all over town and I just don't see how that can be good for our town well we thought that too and that's why we limited it to 2% of the of the overall houses in town so can the city possibly make some money off of it as well I mean well we we would we would draw appropriate uh sales taxes certainly so you're saying the people that are on the house off Forest are paying sales tax they're paying real estate tax but they're currently not paying any sales tax to the city because there's no requiring regulation if we're if this is going to happen let's see to it that the city gets little money a lot of money well that I don't know that I don't know that Airbnb is not collecting sales tax I know they're not collecting a tax yeah I know 100% Airbnb collect sales tax when I've rented really oh yeah no I can I'm looking them up right now like I'm pulling up all the houses in Arkansas right now well if you're part of that Airbnb Association or that organization or the app or whatever we're calling this thing then yeah they're doing the booking and the renting and they're collecting the money and they're collecting the taxes yeah they are collecting the taxes but they're they're not collecting our and P as you said we do have a very I'm not going to say that I I know that they is at least one person who has

a shortterm rental and she doesn't do it through airbn yeah she just does it on Facebook so there's probably no taxes being collected on that with the with appr with appropriate regulation though the taxes would be uh well once they come and got the permit they would be given a copy of all of the requirements and they'd know what was required of them how to do it what the taxes were and what they needed to collect and then the city could follow up it to make sure that's being done so just like any other business in town if you don't make an attempt to kind of regulate it then it runs wild and uh the money controls it and uh the people people that are making the money do what they can to maximize the money they're making so you need some restraints and some controls and as was pointed out if the state goes forward with their bill that may impede what we're trying to do so we're trying to get in ahead of the curve so to speak so we've got our regulations on the ground and then we can adjust according to state law which should take precedence over our law in most cases it does so that's that's our purpose for doing this here and when we had our workshops we were concerned about uh several things we were concerned about the impact in the neighborhood in which these housing units uh exist so we wanted to minimize that to make the commercial aspect of the house uh invisible uh we we set about regulations to do that we wanted to make it so that they were required to meet the standards of the neighborhood if they moved into a

neighborhood that had for instance a homeowners association or a covenant uh that a limited uses or limited uh restricted certain things or required certain things that they would have to be in compliance with the local neighborhood Covenant and the local neighborhood HOA if there was one uh we were concerned about the tax collection and how the city would address uh knowing if these units were being rented and how we would go about uh inspecting and collecting so those mechanisms are uh would have to be developed and and can be it it it can't it's it's not easy but it can't be that diff difficult so we can do that making sure that the city is not overwhelmed by this and as Miss Jamie said we're not hot springs we're Texar can so there's going to be a limited use and and uh in most in some cases and I'm familiar with this on on some level there's a lot of professional business travel into Texana uh I was asked a question why are all the hotel rooms in Texas County always booked up every night well as business Travelers they they come into town they spend the week they conduct their business they go home there's a lot of transient people in and out of town there's uh uh there would be an application for that in things other than tourism but it would it could be regulated properly and the city could collect appropriate taxes and we could make it invisible in the neighborhood so that it wasn't a nuisance and we was it was easily controlled so that's what our uh ordinance was crafted to follow along

with so any other comments or questions for anyone before we get into this anybody else from the audience like to speak in favor or against please come forward I make an answer we know who you are but state your name for the record uh Terry Roberts 2101 Selma I'm the city director for Ward one and I think a lot of this came to pass with uh verbo uh Airbnb Travelocity they have hired lobbyists and uh anyone that's in legislative session um Arkansas Tennessee Oklahoma any place that there's tourist destinations and Oklahoma used to not be one well now that they've got all the cabins and stuff it's turned into one uh we have Northwest Arkansas Lake Dell any place that can uh attra acquire short-term rentals yeah well this to me when you look at what they want to do versus what we're trying to do it gives them more control and US less and I really don't believe that this is going to get any traction because it slowly come out when this was voted on in committee a lot of the what was happening wasn't brought out at the time I don't think that they knew that there were actual lobbyists that were working with one or two representatives to get this out of committee okay but uh there's been a lot of push back from the uh Arkansas municipal League the Arkansas Association of counties uh and a lot of the larger cities in Arkansas the top eight cities have Express concern and talk to their representatives and Senators to vote no so is it your feeling that they want the option to disallow it if they want to I do not think that this will ever come to

a vote on the house floor okay but uh I mean something like this is way past needed for us and I appreciate y'all doing what you can to help us yeah I mean I just looked up on Airbnb and I got 17 yeah yeah right now but now if this were to pass tonight um would this be something that would be eligible for an emergency clause for us to put in I have I've already done agenda item and I an Emer okay very good very good and it and it would give the city a mechanism by which we can regulate corre because obviously it's a it's a thing it's out there it's a business and it's going to happen and if we're not regulating it it's it's regulating itself correct and the city's out of the loop completely so we need to be involved uh we need to have codified regulations on the books so we can control it thank yall for what you do thank you any other questions concerns thank everybody for your comments tonight this this is a uh this is an important issue and it's one that uh we we certainly need to move forward and address uh you never had these problems before now the problems are here the opportunities are here so we think we've got a decent uh regulation a diff decent uh thing here and uh if it can always be modified and adjusted as we see it needs to be changed so uh this is if we pass or fail it goes before the board on Monday Monday this coming Monday very good okay are there any other questions no one here to speak against this okay seeing none the chair accepts a motion

I'll make a motion uh to submit the ordinance for uh the the short-term residential ordinance for pass very good an a second call roll please Anita picket yes Anderson Neil yes Chris Owens yes Cory mobs yes and commissioner Thomas yes all right the ordinance goes forward to the City Board of Directors for their consideration thank you all for your input now we'll back up to ordinance uh item number six which is a uh request to develop an ordinance that would provide truck stops prohibit I'm sorry prohibit truck stops travel plazas Travel Centers from being located inside the city limits if you'll give us a little background Miss Jamie so I'll give you a little background on this um first of all we are talking about what we know as actual truck stops that have overnight parking we're not talking about AES thank you okay um we're talking about legitimate truck stops that have overnight parking um they have refueling that they typically service 18 wheelers semi rigs they may have showers they may have lodging they may have food but they have overnight parking director holly bush originally brought this uh to me to consider because we were afraid we were going to end up with some truck stops on state line um the chief of police chief chataway

did not realize that we allowed truck stops inside the city limits and because of the inherent problems with crime with noise with pollution um he asked that we bring this before the board or the before the commission and Tyler Richards our city manager asked me to bring it now um what has come up since then is the fact that these generate a great deal of Revenue which we are not in position to turn down Revenue um the city manager does not want them in the Heart of the City we had discussed putting them on the outskirts of the city but most of the outskirts of our city are residential so um what I would like to do tonight and chairman Thomas and I talked about this earlier is open a discussion about this to see if we can't brainstorm some options good so there's nobody trying to come before us right now that has a plot of land that wants to build a legitimate truck stop a legitimate truck stop this is just now this request originated with board of directors and city manager so this is being proactive rather than proactive we do have some truck stops but they are they're they're way up like toward mandal like Flying J oh I mean there is a arm of the city limits that goes up I3 quite a ways yeah well if you for anyone that that's word six didn't know when when Flying Jay wanted to develop out there at the intersection of Interstate 30 and uh what road that man we'll call it Manville road that goes across to 71

they wanted City water and the only way to get city water was if they were in the city limits and they were willing to pay for the work so the board of directors at that time extended a corridor of the city limits down on the North side or the west side of I30 all the way down to their development and then surrounded their development with City Limits so it's kind of a little gerrymander thing but since then the city has moved further out toward that direction so that was done at the developer request now Flying J truck stop and now there's another truck stop convenience store directly across the street from them there is the uh the truck wash those are that that's a tremendous Revenue generator out that direction they're uh they're selling diesel fuel and food and there's a lues not a lues a Denny's Denny's a restaurant there's a restaurant what a Denny's Den yeah there's a Denny's there and uh you know it's just it it's a revenue generator for the city and it wasn't imposed on them they requested it my take on this and we've got some other truck stops or de facto truck stops there's one on uh Jefferson Street I30 and not not not Jefferson Trinity Boulevard I30 and four states Parkway the uhad yeah the Road Runner and the station across the street from it yeah both deao truck stops they're they got parking lots and there's overnight parking for trucks the the station what is that across the street that's not a shell it's a it's a sh a shell it's a shell is it m they sell diesel fuel there's four four pump Islands so U and they're that's a big Revenue generator

for the city also now you have those uh slides Miss velvet did you pull that up that's one of them that yeah there it is so in our long range long range plan one of the proposals that was given to us was mixed use Highway as a Zone a mu we don't currently have that zone but it's a mixed use Highway it includes high intensity commercial uses oriented for highway traffic and visibility a key change from the past policies is allowing the use of multif family residential use by right within the district non-residential uses vary and are located along connecting corridors with connectivity between neighborhoods encourages connectivity while acknowledging existing conventional large scale commercial development patterns now this plan that was laid out here in this mixed use Highway doesn't have actual verbage because we don't actually have that zone Zone in our zones we uh default to C3 commercial which is a huge range of uses so with a mixed Highway uh commercial Zone like this we could tailor that ordinance any way we choose to we could restrict certain things we could allow certain things the residential uh it could back up to residentials it could affront residentials high density residentials such as apartment complexes Hotel usage Hotel uh complexes even we've got spaces along Interstate 30 and I45 that are conducive to this you wouldn't want to put it on an inner city

at all you wouldn't want to put them on State Line trucks coming off the interstate are not going to go to state line and get fueled up and spend the night Midcontinent truck stop used to be there where the elicos is and the eyeglass place that was there throughout the 70s and it closed in the late 70s uh it was a big traffic nightmare getting in and out that's why it closed because they just weren't doing enough business because of the non-accessibility they had to pull off on the state line make the turn and go in and then go back the same way but there's Over The Road Truckers are not going to be on inside the inner city they're going to be on the interstate corridors so there's even more room out mandal out all where the Flying J is there's a lot of Developmental property out there that could be gobbled up and used for such uses but I I my take is that I think we need regulations or we need a specific Zone tailored just for this okay and we need to have uh we need to be able to dictate locations and we need be able to dictate uh uses and we can regulate it in that way and create a new Zone I don't I'm not in favor of prohibiting truck stops and Travel Centers I especially in the town was very sad because they're they're cash cows I mean literally they they make a lot of money for the city they make a lot of money for themselves and the city gets a small part of it let me say it that way and uh enhancing our overall Financial well-being with commercial uses that are addressable and and appropriate in appropriate locations is our land use

prerogative it's what we should be thinking about and what we should be doing and our long range development plan gives us a method to do that so I'd like to see us go in that direction okay so do we we want to schedule a workshop this would almost require a workshop and I and I if we could get some or as many of the city board of directors and uh certainly the uh city manager involved I think it would be appropriate more heads the better we can craft a a decent piece of of zoning regulation and make it useful to us uh we don't want to inhibit development when development wants to go but we need to be able to regulate and control it and we can focus on the areas that we think would be most appropriate you can even uh there's some developers in town that could even give us some insight on that so these These are let's let's understand something about these truck stops and Travel Centers these are not Mom and Pop operations these are National franchise es and National corporations and they have sales and marketing people that look at the maps look at the traffic counts and they know exactly how many trucks go up and down the road and where they stop at night and they have a map that's laid out Nationwide and they know bies knows that okay we need a bues right here this is a good location for instance I'm just naming bies but it could be anybody but these corporations know when they need to come to town and they know when they need to develop and they know within a few thousand how much money they're going to make the first year and how much traffic they're going to get their sales and marketing stuff

is is spot on I mean you can't run billion dollar corporations and not know what you're doing so we don't have to worry about the mom and pop places we just need to enable these corporations locations and uh agreeable land use that we can say this is our regulations it's friendly but it's restrictive in this sense and we need we would like you to be here here and here and here in these areas but we don't want you downtown we don't want you on State Line Avenue and you don't want to be there either so I think we need to do this okay well I will look for a date I'm leaving next week for a week um but I will look for a date sometime in the next three weeks perfect we've got plenty of time to do it but we need to do it well and do it correctly okay that's all I have very confused I thought we had truck stops I was like I think we got one outside we do have truck stops but they're regulated under C3 Zone okay okay see but they're not regulated under a zone that specifically States truck stops or regulates truck stops and I understand the chief of police's apprehensions about it because these places places can be free for alls and there is a lot of drugs that go and go and come off the interstate for instance I30 is a is a major drug dealing Corridor there traffic up and down I30 all the time and they're trying to intervene and find it but we these we need to maximize correctly our economic potential in town because I've been on this board for 20 seven years and we've needed money every year and I don't think we're going to not need money so we need to we need to

do it and do it correctly and and have the benefits of it any further discussion everybody agreed to workshops we can figure this out I like workshops all right any other questions or business or comments suggestions anyone I I want to throw something out here um on behalf of the historic district commission we are um having historic preservation Awards uh so anyone that you know that is involved in historic preservation um either churches um commercial properties residential property uh if you will give our office a call we can get you hooked up with an application form for that and that'll be in May um so you've got some time so very good y thank you all right any other discussion chair accepts a motion for I move to adjourn adjournment yeah I couldn't think of the word I got you motion and second is a Voice vote all in favor say I eyes have it