Quorum Court - Special Meeting

Thank you, JP Pond. Item three is adoption of the agenda. I move that we rearrange the agenda. I'd like to do items 11, 12, and 13 in front of item six, which is basically taking the studio and doing that first. So I have a motion by myself, a second by JP Lemming. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Oh, I'm sorry.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to see if the applicant was OK with that.

The studio applicant? That's fine.

They're fine? OK. That's good.

I mean, you look at the communication we had over the last several weeks.

Yes.

And I think the studio's gonna go quicker, so let's let them come in, do theirs, and they can move on, and then we can take whatever we need for the next one.

Okay, I just wanted to make sure they had everybody here they needed, but thank you. Thank you, ma'am.

That's good. So motion by myself to move 11, 12, and 13 before six, seconded by J.P. Lemming. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Okay, so we'll make that. I'll entertain a motion to approve the modified agenda.

So moved.

Second. So I have a motion by J.P. Lemming to approve the modified agenda seconded by J.P. Lopez. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? The agenda's been adopted. Do I have preliminary motions?

Thank you, Chair. I make a motion that we read all ordinances and resolutions by title only.

So I have a motion by JP Dean to read all ordinances and resolutions by title only, seconded by JP Stafford. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed? That motion passes. Next, we have citizens' comments.

There's a lot of people outside.

Yeah. Okay, so the comment here is there's a lot of people outside, so when you come up to the mic, make sure you adjust it for yourself and speak into the mic so that we can have, everybody can hear what's going on and it will go out over the YouTube recording and that type of thing, all right? So we have citizens comment, and so just so everybody realizes, when we go through, can we talk about process? So when we go through the process of the appeals, we'll go through and have the discussion of the appeal. Director Atta can provide us a staff report, the applicant can provide what they're doing and their information and then we'll have specific to that appeal, citizens can come up and make their comments. So don't, I'm just trying to differentiate. There is a time coming up specific to the appeal. This is more generic citizen comments across the board. You're more than welcome to come up and have them too, but you're gonna have another chance. Just wanna make sure everybody understands what's coming down the road, okay? But we are at citizen comment, 15 minute total, three minute limit for each individual. If you have a comment, come up to the mic, state your name and address. Okay, cool, we'll move on. Okay, come on, sorry. You have the time?

OK. My name is Tracy Hall.

My address is 4183 Quicksilver Lane. Springdale, Arkansas. I've been a resident of Northwest Arkansas in Washington County for 26 years. Lived at our current address for, well, since 2007. My comment is generally about home-based businesses, and I may come later and speak more specifically to the appeal for HS Studios. My connection to HS Studios is years ago my daughter was a violinist taking lessons with Miss Holly at her house. My other connection to this is I'm a piano teacher. I teach piano lessons out of my home. Have always taught piano lessons out of my home. Most every piano teacher who I know in all of the guilds that I'm a part of teach piano lessons out of their homes. Most violin teachers, cello teachers, teach lessons out of their homes. Home-based businesses, especially for teaching music, have been around ever since instruments have been around. They've been taught out of people's homes. There was a comment that was made as I read through saying that Miss Smarto was not aware that she had to apply for a permit. Well, I'm a part of that class too. I had no idea that I have to apply for a permit to teach music lessons out of my home. My neighbors don't mind me teaching music lessons out of my home. As a matter of fact, I teach some of my neighbor's children and grandchildren out of my home. It's what is done, it's what has been done for as well since instruments began. So when Holly let us know that she was being required to apply for a permit to teach lessons out of her home, I was shocked and dismayed and thought, wait, wait, what? Why do we have to do that? Do I have to do that? Do we all have to do that? And if so, why? When we've been teaching lessons out of our homes for a very little, and I thought about my friends who have Pampered Chef consultant businesses and Usborne Book consultant businesses where they have parties that meet at their home where they work with people in their homes. So as I read more about this, I discovered that the state of Arkansas loves home-based businesses. As a matter of fact, there's an Arkansas state statute, 14-1-106, that is written in support of home-based businesses. Home-based businesses are not something that the state of Arkansas says, well, I think that maybe we should decide if we think you should do this or not do this. It's almost a foregone conclusion that if you have a residence and you're a person and you want to run a business and can from your home, that you will. And it's encouraged that you do that. It's encouraged that you run home-based businesses because they're a big part of the economy and a big part of the community. Miss Holly's got tons of students and parents out here who can... Ma'am, your time is up. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you. Any additional citizens comment at this time? If you want to comment, you can line up. That way we can make it through quicker.

Good evening. My name is Calvin Tackett. I live at 565 Hale Road, Goshen, Arkansas. I've lived in Washington County my entire life, and I'm very proud of it. We've had such a wonderful opportunity for our children to enjoy the services that Ms. Hawley provides. She's resided at this address for over 20 years, is my understanding. with nothing but support from her entire community and neighborhood, and I can see why. I mean, we, you know, given this opportunity, she's helped provide our children with confidence, discipline, character, and I mean, I just, I mean, up until this point, there's been no issue throughout the entire community or neighborhood, and I just couldn't imagine it any other way, and we're so grateful for her. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other comments at this time? Come on up.

I have a petition of support from the subdivision. OK. Good evening, members. My name's Sue Williams. I live at 2464 North Fox Trail, Fayetteville, Arkansas. I'm a resident and the vice president of the POA board of Fox Run. I do not understand why 2316, as I like to refer him to directly, is due to the fact that he has requested not to be included in our neighborhood resident directory or be a part of the GroupMe. Where am I at? Such as, so we have a resident GroupMe that we use to inform the residents, like, are the roads safe to drive on? That kind of thing. Such as, like, we're burning some brush, so don't be alarmed if you see some smoke. which I would like to be put on the record that 2316 did. And so someone called 911 to report the fire. If only he had wanted to be included in our GroupMe and had notified everyone in the neighborhood, this could have been prevented. I'm not even sure what his real name is. The secrecy he wants and is demanding has alienated him and his family. And as a board member, I'm usually the person they call when a house sells in our subdivision. so I can send them a copy of our bylaws and covenants and our very unique sewer system. But I did not get that car for this property. For almost a year, I didn't even know that someone bought that house and had moved in. I only found out because of this lawsuit. Okay, so 2316 wants to be so private and uninvolved with the residents, but has, oh wait, I've already read that. So let me, so I live on top of the mountain, so I see and hear all the traffic every day. I have deliveries come to my house three or four times a day. So I do not understand the pettiness of the resident at 2316. I see more traffic than most of the residents because I live at the beginning of the street. and the noise of the cars passing in and out of our neighborhood does not affect me at all whatsoever. I cannot control the traffic in our street, nor would I want to. Holly and Buzz Smarto have been and still are a very considerate and kind neighbor throughout the past 20 years that we have been here. And in all those years, I have never felt unsafe in my neighborhood. But now I feel that 2316 has broken that feeling of safety for our household. when 2316 pulled a gun out at Buzz in broad daylight, made this an unsafe environment for them and for the rest of the neighborhood. I also run a home-based business, and I would be very upset if someone told me I could not do that. That's how I make a living and support my family. I have my family and friends come over to my house all the time. I have parties at my house three to four times a year, consisting of 30 to 40, 50 people. Ma'am, your time is up. Okay, thank you.

Any other citizen comment at this time?

This is Sam. He is a Holly student. He has been taking a violin lesson from Holly for almost three years. I'm a professor at the university, and I teach three classes at the university. I will say Holly put me to shame in terms of how much she cares about her students. It's just Sam benefits so much. Sam is a very super active kid. not hurt himself, he's a little bit shy now, but he is really active. And learning violin really teach him a lot of things about life, and he really enjoy music. I just feel if Holly is not given the opportunity, it's a big loss to lots of families, and I'm hoping Sam can take lessons from Holly for the next 10 years. because you'll be so good for him in so many different ways. We also sent a letter in the April 30th public hearing. One neighbor mentioned that he has been living in the neighborhood for 20 years. He didn't even know there was someone teaching violin in the neighborhood because there's never like disturbance to the neighborhood so that's and we as parents we want to minimize the negative impacts on the neighborhoods who are willing to do things because this violence is so valuable to us thank you for consideration thank you ma'am thank you oh sorry my name is yeah thank you

My name is Jonathan Redding. I live at 506 North 16th Street. It's actually in Van Buren, Arkansas. It drove all the way up here to be here to support Ms. Smarto. I just want to kind of reiterate what Ms. Tracy said about the right to have a home-based business. Maybe some of you guys have a home-based business as well. Not only is it a state statute, but also it's something that the IRS likes to have, because as an electrician, I get to have write-offs because I have a home-based business, whether it be an office or whether it be a warehouse or whatever it may be, I get to have that right to do that. And I just wanna say, and I don't wanna take up much of your time, but I just wanna say I really enjoy what Mr. Pond, when he prayed, what he said that we should protect, and that is our inalienable rights. And so we all get that freedom. We get the freedom to appeal. We get the freedom to say that we don't like something or that we do like something. But the fact of the matter is what's best for the people. And you guys know as well as I do, there's no issues here. But I do want to reiterate, the home-based business is what made not only America, but it's what makes us stronger as people. because we get to work together and we can do that from our home most people make their money like they said earlier from that and so but it is something that the rs as well gets to uh gets to let us have a benefit of thank you thank you

Good evening. My name is Deanna Backer. My daughter is Annabella Backer, and she is a student of Holly Smartos for the last two years.

Can you move that mic up a little bit, please? Sure. I'm actually, is that better? Okay, thank you.

There you go, thank you. I'm a resident of Gravette, Arkansas. I have a business in Bentonville, Arkansas, and we travel down an hour to see Mrs. Holly Smarto. And my daughter started two years ago, and it has changed the trajectory of her life. She is not the same person she was two years ago. And it's not just about the violin. It's been therapy for her. has drive and ambition and a love and a wonderful relationship with her teacher, Mrs. Marto. We know that she has asked all of us, all of her students, to respect the neighbors, to make sure that we travel slowly down the road. And I know that she's very respectful. She's very professional. The one time that we actually walked outside to practice, I think it was five minutes, and there was one of the group lessons. And we just stepped out for two players to practice together a duet. And then we joined the rest of the group. So that was the only time in the last two years that we've ever stepped outside. The noise has never been an issue from my understanding. And so I really appreciate you listening to us tonight and for considering this. Thank you so much.

Thank you, ma'am. Any other comments? Yeah.

Good evening, members of the court. My name is Nathan Ma. I'm a current rising college freshman. And it's just undeniable for me to say the impact that Ms. Hawley has had on me. Me personally, I've been taking lessons from her for the past 13 years. And looking back, I think it's really remarkable the impact that she's had on me since when I first started taking lessons from her when I was five years old. She taught me discipline, how to manage my emotions. At one point, I was so fed up with the violin, but every week, Miss Holly would work with me, keep me disciplined, encourage me, and was just there for me for every single week for the past 13 years. So In my experience, I am so indebted to Ms. Hawley. And on the topic of the noise complaint, there have been numerous times, and I'd say almost every time, I've walked in into Ms. Hawley's studio, parked in the area outside her house, and walked in unknowingly, not knowing there was a student there, and kind of made a racket, almost disturbed their lesson. So to all the members of the court, this is just my experience I'm sharing with you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Leonardo Chong, and I'm also in the same shoes as Nathan Ma. Music has been such a big part of my life. I've taken lessons from upwards of five teachers, and from all of them, they've teach from their houses. And because of them, I've been able to have so many opportunities I wouldn't have without music. So I'm forever grateful for teachers teaching from their homes.

Thank you.

Thank you. OK, that is the end of the 15 minutes for now. If you're talking about the appeals we're doing, you guys will have a chance as we go through that process, okay? So your chance will be there. So the next that we go then is we move on to the appeal hearing discussion for the, thank you, H, studio, I'm sorry. I wanna start with Dr. Atta, can you give us your staff report?

Good evening, everyone. Hope everyone's doing great. Awesome. Okay. The CUP project was approved on April 30th. Five members attended. It was basically approved unanimously. An appeal was filed by Evergreen Revocable Trust on May 7th to overturn the planning board's CUP approval. And the reasons behind this is mentioned on the screen. The applicant or the appellant made sure that his name is not available anywhere, so he used his property name, and we had to go by that. So this is the vicinity map showing the overall project's location. This is the site map of the location. And this is the map showing the neighbors that have been notified. Oh, you don't see it? Oh, one, two, three.

Oh yeah, getting used to this because we don't have a screen.

So this is the appeal that's being filed, 2026, number 14. This is the vicinity map. This is the location zoomed in. And this is the map showing the neighbors that are being notified. All right, there you go. So the CEP notification, eight notifications were mailed by the applicant at the time when we received the CEP application. Staff received up to the planning board meeting one neighbor opposing the CEP citing increased traffic along the easement during recitals. One letter in support along with like 20 petitions signed citing a beneficial impact on the community. During the CUP appeal notification, the appellant and his representative sent the same eight neighbors the notification notifying them about this project and this hearing tonight. So the applicant is requesting a CUP to instruct violin lessons and host recitals from their residence. So it's basically a home-based residence. While the applicant was initially unaware that a CUP was required, they are now actively, at the time, working to comply with all county ordinances and regulations. The subject property is five acres, and it's accessed via shared easement from North Fox Trail, Washington County 22. Lessons are by appointment only, Monday through Friday, between 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. with reciters occurring two to three times a year on weekends, afternoons. The applicant is the sole employee and instructor, and also she is, with her husband, the owners of the property. All students are accompanied by their parents or guardians, and age ranges from four to 16 years old. Approximately 20 to 24 students are enrolled in weekly private lessons with an additional 19 student attending group lessons on Mondays. Lessons duration varies between 30 to 60 minutes. All lessons and recitals are conducted indoors without the use of amplification outdoors.

Oh, we jumped too far.

The existing residence is approximately 6,500 square foot and is equipped with all utilities and a septic system. The site includes concrete parking for approximately eight vehicles, including ADA compliant spaces, as well as additional gravel parking areas, accommodating up to 42 vehicles. No outdoor lighting or signage currently exists on the proposed, or even proposed for the future. Okay, bear with me, this is like an old look image, but this is what we have. To the right, you can see the subdivision, the planted subdivision that's being approved. At the time, this location was in federal planning area. So that subdivision was approved by the city, the county, all the engineers signed on it, and the county judge. And it was approved in... plat was submitted in November 23rd, 1983. So to the left, we put an overlay of the location of the property showing the driveway and the zoomed-in map of the subdivision. If you can see that yellow line, it's basically that is the driveway that is being approved when that subdivision was platted. You can see there is a cul-de-sac. The street comes from the left cul-de-sac. and there is like north and south, and that was designed by the city of Philadelphia for future expansion, so that driveway was existing when that subdivision was approved. To the north, along the way, those two yellow dots, I believe it's 25 and 24, lots 25, 24, they were like replatted, so the subdivision was replatted multiple times at that time, The driveway did not change, but it's been shifted. And that's where the blue line is being used. If you see the aerial imagery on our website, you will see the driveway has been used for years. So it's been there, and it's been planted with the subdivision. And these are the conditions we have. And the one in yellow just emphasizes the timing that the applicant, Ask for it's going to be a Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. And exactly we put like no outdoors and to find music for that reason. Any questions.

Any questions for Dr. J.P. Massengill or J.P. Leckie I'm sorry.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Atta, I'm still not understanding why she was required to apply for a CUP. That has not been.

We've had lots of home-based businesses applying for CUPs based on the complaints we receive from the neighbors, so we ask them to be in compliance with our code. I know the state code, they have a statute that says It has to be by right. We tried to do this during the modification and updating our code. And we had home businesses, daycares, facilities, such as police and fire department, by right. But nobody approved it. So I have, with my team, we have to stick to whatever we have as a code. And so when someone complains, the only thing we have is asking for a condition use permit. Just keep in mind, and that's for the public as well, the entire county is zoned as single agricultural use or single family residence, one house per acre. Any development exceeds one acre requires a large scale. So basically we have one zone. Any other uses requires a condition in use.

And that's why we're here. How many people, individuals or neighbors complained?

One person.

One person.

I would say like two, like wife and husband, like so.

But one household.

I mean, one household. One household, yes, ma'am.

Changes all this dynamics for this individual.

We have to follow our regulations.

I know, and those are our regulations. I just wanted to be clear, in my understanding, the way I read everything, I saw that it was just one complaint.

Yes, ma'am.

And their complaint was the noise or?

The driveway access, like, excess, like, drivability of that, like, driveway. The drivability.

Do they use that driveway?

Yeah. They have to. That's the only thing they have, like, From our understanding, that's the only thing they have to access their property. Like other way, we could not find anywhere else that they can access their property.

And there's so much traffic up and down that road that they can't access that road.

Well, look, the complaint is like there are too many students are using this to get to her house.

Too many?

Too many.

But they didn't specify how many?

I mean, even if they specify, like it's a, It's a planted subdivision, and it's approved by the county, so it's a public road. I cannot tell anyone not to use it.

I understand, and I'm not being obstinate or argumentative or difficult. I'm just trying to... This seems nonsensical to me, and I'm trying to make sense of something that is nonsensical and I can't reconcile it. And you're the man that I go to for understanding because you see this differently and I appreciate that and I value that. And I want the public to know it's not, You, and it's not us, these are regulations that we have to follow. Yeah, we have an ordinance we have to follow, yeah. But it's that one neighbor that wants to change everything for everybody, basically.

Yeah, I mean, everyone has the right to apply. And they have a right. Everyone has the right to appeal.

Sure. So thank you for clarifying that.

Absolutely.

I'm done, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you. You want to address him?

So I want to address the legal issues, and I think Director Atta hit on it. The chair's requested this. Yes, you have an ordinance that requires anything that's not a single family residence or an agricultural use of the property requires a permit, a conditional use permit. The proposed change to this that was submitted to all of you and ultimately did not pass would have given instances like this one a right of use. A home-based business would have been allowed as a matter of right. And so we probably wouldn't be sitting, or we would not be sitting here. The law does not state that it is a matter of right. What the legislature went in and said that yes, they think home-based businesses are very important. And they kind of made it easier for home-based businesses. But specifically, the law says not withstanding any other law, the local government may license or regulate home-based work if the home-based work is not prohibited. You can't sell drugs out of your house, that's prohibited. And shall only be restricted to the following and it lists eight areas Advertisement signs or other exterior evidence that a residence is being used for any purpose other than a residence So the quorum court has the right to regulate the signs outside of a home-based business The court has the right to regulate nuisances including without limitation odor excessive dust smoke vibration noise light heat glare or similar disturbances health, fire and safety codes, traffic, parking, building and maintenance codes, protections for children, the elderly and the infirm, limitations on the number of employees, customers and tenants at the residence, prohibitions or limitations related to public health, safety and welfare, and licenses and regulations that apply to businesses without regard to location. Those are the only eight things that can be regulated by the county is what is listed there. So I just want to put that out. I think the legislature, clearly their intent was to make it easier, but it didn't say that you could not regulate it. Now, just because it says that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do, but I'm just letting you know this issue came up. There was a request from the applicant to have an injunction issued, basically asking the court to say, hey, you guys can't even consider this tonight. And the court disagreed and did not issue the injunction. And so we can do that. And under our current statutory scheme that we use for planning, home-based businesses are required to get conditional use permits. I just wanted to make sure that all of you understood where we are legally on that.

DAVID BURRAGE. Question for the counselor? JPI key.

I don't want to jump in front of the others. You said they filed an injunction, but the court, which court ruled that they wouldn't dismiss it? The circuit court. The circuit court.

They requested an emergency injunction and temporary restraining order, and the court denied their request.

From the person opposing?

No, no, no. From the applicant.

From the applicant.

Right. The court did not, the court, felt like the law says that this body can issue a CUP for this home-based business, but you can only regulate these eight things. These eight items, areas, are the only thing that we as the county can regulate on a home-based business.

So the appeal is they shouldn't even have to apply for one, or the appeal is What is exactly the appeal?

A neighbor appealed the conditional use permit that the planning board recommended approval for. I'm just saying that the court agreed that this body can issue a conditional use permit, but is limited in scope in the things it can regulate. I would say that I think the intent here is that these businesses be allowed to move forward with only these eight things being regulated.

Thank you for clarifying. And I apologize to my colleagues for cutting the line. Thank you.

J.P. Massengill.

Yes. Brian, thanks for your comments. And that leads into a comment I want to make, is I really think we need to revisit this buy right rules to allow more flexibility within the county for home-based businesses. I agree that, I mean, I think just about everybody's got a home-based business that needs to be allowed to operate within limits. So the question is always, what are those limits? What is that line that you cross where you are no longer just a home-based business, but you're now your commercial business of some sort? But I really think we need to re-look at that and look at adding that back into our ordinances. The other things I have was a question for Director Atta. I mean, I'm looking through these restrictions. It looks like, I mean, my understanding in this business is they see a few students during the week, and then maybe two or three times a year, they'll have, yeah, recital. It looks like, what, 30, maybe 30, 19 students or something. To me, that doesn't seem like a very intrusive event. But when I look at all these things that are listed here, they're going to have to, I don't know if this, there's a lot of things listed here. I don't know what's going to impact them. Are they going to have to repave the road and put fire systems in? I mean, is that what we're talking about here?

Thank you. So conditions like one to five standards, we put this like on almost every conditions. Same as like number nine to 12. Normally like number eight provide like reasonable screening to neighboring properties. We have this also like inside the text of the staff report that says like if it's desired. And the reason we put this because like lots of people they come to us and after a while they might have that like property like turned into a subdivision or turned into a location that has covenants. So just in case for future use, if any expansion, any changes, covered all the bases. Number six and seven, it's specifically to this project. That's exactly the time the applicant requested, and that's what she said what she's going to be teaching and how many times a year. and we added number seven just to make sure it does not hurt anyone from the neighbors and become nuisance. However, almost everyone knows that quiet times is between 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., and everyone should follow this. I live in a city, and I know nobody follows this, but you cannot complain every day.

Okay, so my question is, are they going to have to spend money doing anything other than modifying their property in order to continue to do what they're doing?

I mean, they might need, like, if this animosity between them and the neighbors continues, they might, like, maybe build a fence or put, like, some shrubs or, like, trees or something like that just for privacy. The roads should be I mean look from my understanding it's a subdivision that's been accepted by the county and I cannot speak for the department. I don't know who maintains that but like they have it show a and the latest the government of the latest governance was approved into a 2000 was a 2021 I give you a copy. So the government's I guess like the latest is 2021 so they should at least have someone was managing all of this. If not, I guess they can contact the road department and make sure. When we did the CUP staff report and the technical review, we requested feedback from the road department, and they had no concern about this location.

Okay, so what you're saying is there's really no significant modifications they've got to make to their property.

I mean, I don't believe like they live in that house. They've been living there for like 20 plus years unless they need to do any modification. The only request it was by the health department because at the septic has not been inspected in a few years, and for them, it's the judge's standard to go say, go ahead and make sure to inspect, send an inspector to do a welfare check on your septic system, and they already did, and they provided the information to the health department. And that's number five, you have to adhere to all other requests by their technical reviewers, basically.

Okay, another question I have is, I notice it says in here no outdoor amplified music. Does that preclude them from having a private party and having amplified music?

As I said, you need to be mindful of the neighbors and what they like, what you might not. Quiet hours between 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. across the board, I guess, standard. So you might have a party, but you're not supposed to. If it becomes nuisance, the neighbors can always call the sheriff's office or the police department based on their jurisdiction. I cannot go and tell someone, you cannot have a party or have fun because your neighbor doesn't want to hear that type of music. It will never end then.

I mean, I feel like we're in the middle of a neighbor dispute here. And I'd hate to put a bunch of stuff out there on these people that is unnecessary that could be used against them. I mean, I guess when the applicant comes up and talks, I'd like to get a feel for how they feel about that. Thank you.

J.P. Lopez.

Thank you, Chair. Director Atta, I think my questions are for you. As I understand it, the planning conditions, and this might be like a personal indulgence here, as I want to better understand it, but something like a screening restriction, that could already be met with tree canopy, correct, if I'm not mistaken?

Yeah, I mean, like, inside the staff report, if you read the staff report, we have a screening section that says, like, a minimum of... You can use, like, picket, like, wooden fence of, like, a minimum of six feet, or you can use masonry, you can use brick, you can use trees, shrubs, anything. Anything that, like, create that privacy. And that privacy also, like, sometimes, especially trees, like, will, like, reduce the amount of sound if there is any. But it's not like that you have to unless if you have to. Most subdivisions, for instance, they will require you to have, like, a fence around the door unless if they have And I believe that subdivision requires you to have a fence. And if you zoom into that like aerial imagery, you don't see any. So once again, I don't live there. I cannot enforce the HOA. That's right.

And again, I would also like to say that I do think that buy right home businesses are probably a good thing that we shouldn't get too in the weeds of stopping people and come bring people to do these things. But there are considerations that we have to have. For things like screening, you know, any sort of business that has an outdoor storage component, even if it's a cottage business, that could be deemed to be an eyesore. So absolutely all for this personally. But as we get to consider those future questions, there are things that we have to consider around certain businesses, even as we discuss that, right? Thank you.

J.P. Ria Stafford.

Thank you, Chair.

I have about three questions. The first one may be for Mr. Lester, may be for Dr. Atta. When we passed our big planning and zoning update last year and we took out the commercial zoning part of it, as we've heard, the exception for home-based businesses by right was embedded in that. It sounds like, and I'd love to bring this forward as just a standalone amendment, To bring that back, how hard would it be for us to sort of excerpt that out of the part that was originally written? Was it so deeply embedded into the commercial zoning that it would be difficult to do that? Or can it be sort of surgically passed?

That section, which was section, I believe, five, we basically remove from the overhaul and put the old section back in. So we can bring just that section back for review and consideration.

Just the section on the home-based businesses? That's right.

Well, on the zoning. It would change the zoning. It's embedded within the change, which would go, this goes back to that Supreme Court ruling that came back out in March, which basically says that You know, the quorum court has a legislative right to dictate zoning and to make zoning decisions. That's legislative. That's what we get into. You know, the appeal of that would be an arbitrary and capricious standard. It's a pretty high standard. And the Supreme Court basically said what we do here with conditional use permits, unlike what the Court of Appeals had found previously, and they overturned that case law and said that this is, conditional use permits is not zoning. it's quasi-administrative, which means now when someone appeals a conditional use permit from here, it goes to the circuit court, but the circuit court gives no due deference to what the quorum court did. It basically starts anew, it's a de novo appeal, and the circuit court then sits as the quorum court to make those decisions based on the criteria. Changing that over to a more traditional zoning would then fix all of that problem, whereas the zoning is what would be done, and they are zoning changes, and they're permanent changes, that run with the land until they're changed again by the court. And so the home-based business part of that is embedded because we actually have a metric that you can look at to see what type of business falls where in that, and people get mad, but it's a scheme. It becomes our statutory scheme that we use

can see where it is whether it's commercial or industrial that sort of thing okay so in other words in order to fix this we're really looking at doing it as part of a bigger can of worms in terms of going back to and looking at the commercial zoning as a whole and this being like this has to be sort of like one sub part of that whole um that's the way we presented it the quorum court certainly has the ability to just bring change in that says we're gonna you know blanketly exempt home-based businesses that's certainly something you could do okay so we could you have we could do that okay yes all right the commercial zoning I mean it's a it is a it's a big thing we we went over it for months and months and months we may want to do it in pieces you know and if it we have the ability to start with a more simple piece like home-based businesses I'd definitely be in favor of doing that if we have the ability to do that. Another question I had for Dr. Atta on an earlier screen, and I guess I didn't really understand the wording having to do with the recitals. It said something like... Where was the language? An additional, I didn't understand the word additional there. With an additional 19 students attending group lessons on Mondays, does that mean 19 plus the 20 to 24?

Yeah, that's according to our understanding as well. That's what was in the application. And as we said before, we don't like to make up information for the applicant. But I don't think they have more than like 24 to maybe 30 students. I'm not sure if the applicant here today or not. It might be a representative. But yeah, I don't think it's a big operation. I don't think they have the capacity to have that big of an operation.

Okay. All right. Yeah. I just, I was confused about that, whether that meant the recital was a total of 19 or it was 19 plus the 20 to 24.

I mean, anyone plays music when you have a recital, like the students can tell you, but like when you have recitals, you normally have like violin, but you also like have viola, cello, you might have drums. So it will be an ensemble. It might be, and I'm assuming that might be an additional to the students she has. just to have a bigger orchestra.

Okay, great. Yeah, if maybe someone with knowledge can answer that question when they speak. The other question I had, probably for the applicant or the appellant or folks in the neighborhood, who maintains the main road and who maintains the easement? Those are outstanding questions that I have. So thank you.

J.P. Pond. Yes. I want to make sure of what I'm hearing. Many questions asked about the conditions. And this has already been approved by the planning board. Yes, sir. Are the applicants in agreement with us on the conditions? Yeah.

Yeah, that's one of the questions the chairman will ask. I have you read the conditions because like we send the staff report look to everyone including you guys okay, so they are aware of all of those and that's why it was approved even if the even if they don't approve the condition sometimes they might argue like the board and the quorum court has the right to remove or add conditions so I understand that the the applicant in this oh, yes, she's aware very cooperative definitely actually came forward and made the application.

Okay, thank you. Absolutely.

J.P. Massengill?

Can I make a motion to pass this?

You are not to that part yet.

Oh.

We have the public.

We'll get there. Any other questions for Dr. Atta? Okay, seeing none, the next step in this is for the applicant, the president, to come up and provide any... comments, any information that they would like.

Good evening. I'm Holly Smarto. I live at 2312 North Fox Trail. I'm delighted to be here to speak with you to just clear up the misunderstandings that might be taking place. I'm going to go off of my script and ask Dr. Atta. In one of the letters that was sent to my lawyer, it was mentioned that we were required to put a fence around the property. Are you aware of that?

It's one of the conditions we added. So you are not required as much as encouraged for safety. and security if you need it, and look for just, make sure you don't have any issues with the neighbors, but it's not 100% required.

It's a desire. Yes, because our property is five acres, and I don't think my teaching salary will cover that. But also I wanted to show you, I did, we printed, do you mind if I show you these pictures? This is the... This is a picture of our house. I have a couple of these from our porch directly towards our neighbor's home at 2316. And this is a picture of our road directly to 2316. Have you all ever been down Fox Trail before? The first time I went down Fox Trail, I fell in love with it, and this house opened up. That was in 1999. So I just really love living there, and my husband and I have decided to make it our home forever, and we want to do wonderful things there and create beauty in our community, which I just want to take a moment, and all those wonderful kids, I did not expect that. I'm just very impressed. As far as taking care of the road, our easement has been maintained by us and the Stanleys who are here tonight. The easement has been maintained by us, resurfacing. My husband does a lot of weed eating out there. And then the main road is maintained by the county. And any questions about that, the HOA vice president can talk about that if you have questions. As far as the group classes and the recitals, the recitals are, as it says, two to three times a year. about 18 families arrive and we have plenty of parking on site for that our neighbor has complained about the white gravel in our in our front yard quite honestly we are not part of the hoa we're in the county so it doesn't really matter if he likes my white gravel or not i have white gravel right now But just so you know, that white gravel is there to prepare for a beautiful circle driveway someday. And as you know, those sorts of projects take a little time to plan. So we are going to asphalt that and make it into a beautiful circle driveway. We added an addition about three, four years ago to our home, and our concrete was just a mess. So the white gravel is actually better than the torn up concrete that we had previously. Let's see. So it has been suggested that we are, as a family, we should have known that we needed a conditional use permit because, anyway, we did not know. I work with people all over the community. I don't know a single music teacher, Benton County, Washington County, that have ever been required to have a conditional use permit. So I find it very insulting that, find it very insulting to suggest that I should have known this. And the other assertion is that there are cars parked in our driveway at 10 o'clock at night, meaning that I'm teaching at 10 o'clock at night. But if you saw the students that just walked up here, you could tell I wouldn't be teaching them at 10 o'clock at night. So yes, I may have a friend come visit me at 10 o'clock at night, but I'm disappointed that I have neighbors who are watching that to make sure to see who they are. It makes me very uncomfortable. Then regarding the recital that we did have, we've had one recital in a year, in the last year. It was said that cars were parking on the easement. Well, at that point, I didn't think twice about it because the Stanleys have given us permission to use the driveway that goes up to their house. In the future, our neighbors, if they don't want us parking in a certain place, all they need to do is come to me and tell me, and we will be glad to point them in a different direction. But instead, their response was to call the county and call Director Atta. So We will not park on that easement anymore We have we have parking in the back of our house now Which my husband personally did all by himself and we're planning to maybe do a little workshop there for him during his retirement Let's see Our property currently accommodates 50 cars. That's a lot. Rarely needed, although I did have a party last week because I'm having a grandbaby, so we did have a lot of cars parked at the back, but not a single one of them were parking on the easement. Let's see. What else? I was also told that we didn't do a traffic study. And Director Atta, can I ask you? I thought I had done everything that I needed to do through the...

Yes, she met all the requirements for the conditional use permit. We never asked for a study. We normally ask for a statement, and the statement is included in the application, and it's included in the staff report.

So a traffic study isn't necessary.

I don't think like we maybe like once or twice asked for a traffic study based on the engineer requirement and it was like a bigger project. It was like an industrial project and they had to do this. But other than that, I don't think even the city of Fayetteville could request it anymore. It's very costly. It takes forever.

I don't know anything about it. So if something comes up, I'll help you. You can help me with that. Let's see, you know what? I can't think of anything else, but I'm here. Do you have any questions for me? No. I appreciate you all. I know you give a lot of your time to our community and I'm very grateful.

JPMass and Gail.

Yes. Yeah, I don't blame you for not realizing you needed a conditional use permit. My opinion, honestly, is you shouldn't be required to have one if it wasn't for the fact that our ordinance is not clear on this area. And I hope that after this, we take this up and we fix this issue with our ordinance. Is there anything else? So looking at the conditions of approval, is there anything else in here that is going to be a burden for you? other than this six-foot fence all the way around the property, which I'm probably going to propose an amendment that we remove that from this before we pass it. Well, I know, but it's written in here. And I'm going to strike it out of there so it's not even in there. you know, that's a point of argument that somebody could say, well, it's written here, so you need to do it. Right, that's what's happening. I don't want to create any more burden on you than has already been placed on you, so.

appreciate that i guess my question is there anything else in this list of conditions that you have an issue with no no the 20 to 24 students a week i'm not planning to increase that load i don't want to work more than that group classes on monday nights are two or three times a month during the school year only there are some quite a few cars coming in then i'll just be honest we have maybe three little kids coming in and then they leave and five little kids come in and then they leave it's a period of two hours on a monday evening my neighbors who share the easement with us can talk about that if they would like to see if that is is too much but i can find ways to to make that easier on neighbors if i need to but it's every other it's just not even every week so okay uh

So you said you have two or three recitals a year? Yes. Do you charge admission for the recital? No. Okay, so this could be a private party that you have with your students?

Yeah, I don't charge them either.

You're allowed to have private parties on your private property.

Yeah, I hope it stays that way.

Right. I'm trying to make the case here that this is really a stretch, that this is a business function that you have these recitals.

It's an opportunity for students to, it's like if you play soccer, you go to the practices and you kick the ball around and then finally you get to play the game. So the recital is kind of like playing the game. So they get to stand up and do what they do, and it's a wonderful thing. So I'm not going to stop doing recitals. Actually, in the spring, let's see, what was it? It was the end of May. I was supposed to have a recital, and I was so concerned about doing it that I called the university, and they were able to rent for me their space. So we had a recital at the university facility because I was too concerned about having them to my own home.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So can I make an amendment at this?

We're going to get through this. We're going to let the appellate talk, and then we'll get into our discussion, where all that will come to bear.

Thank you.

Yeah. How you doing? My name's Wes Doss. I'm sorry, sir. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm not ready for you. We're still with the applicant. He's with the applicant. Oh, you're with the applicant. Yes, sir. OK, I apologize. That's all right. No problem. J.P. Koger.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I would have to say that the students that come out there are very dedicated. Because when I went, I saw a sign that said dead end road. and I wasn't even sure I was at the right spot. But it looks like, it's like maybe, and I'm not good with distances, but I'd say it's what, at least three football fields from your front door to where the other house is, south of you, south of you? It seems like a long way. Oh, okay. Okay, two football. So I didn't catch your name. My name's Wes Doss, and I'm representing Holly and Buzz on this. Well, my question was for Holly then. I think she will know the answer to this.

Come back up to the mic, please. Sorry. Sorry.

From our front door to the neighbor's house is about 550 feet. I guess he used this laser tool that my husband used to check the distance.

Yeah. OK, so talking about the noise, the front of your property does not seem like you'd be playing. If anyone wanted to practice outside, they would not be in the front of the house. Wouldn't they be in the back? And behind your house, there's nothing but trees and forest and wooded areas? Is that up for some distance?

Yes ma'am, there's nobody back there.

Okay, okay. Is that where most of your five acres are, correct? Yes. Okay, okay. So I just wanted to point that out about the music. I don't see how it could be that way. Okay, thank you.

Yeah, do you want to, please?

Okay. J.P. Ria Stafford. Thanks. I was looking at the handout, so I apologize. I missed when you said who maintains the easements.

Who may use the easement?

Who maintains it?

Oh, we do. The Smartos and the Stanleys maintain the easement.

OK. And Washington County maintains the main road. Correct. Yeah. On this map, there's this narrow piece of property that's horizontal. Who does that belong to? It's like this narrow strip of land. It looks like it's in between you and the neighbors. Huh? Is that part of the easement, that it's just a?

I think you may be talking about the Stanley's driveway, which is their easement.

That you own, correct? Yes.

So I think, is it the line that kind of goes up?

No, it's just a straight, it's just like a little panhandle, almost like the Oklahoma panhandle there, just south of your property. To the south. do you know the answer to this see just below the subject property there's like this almost like the oklahoma panhandle oh no that doesn't show it this one who does that belong to

Is this what you're talking about, this little area? Well, when I bought the house, can you hear me? I'm Fred Smarto, Holly's spouse. When we bought the house in 1999 or 2000, the contractor was Virgil Knight, who built the house, and he told me when I bought the house that that area, that little rectangular area, was, part of the deal that he made with the homeowner of 2316 at that time what he decided to do was to get the easement approved by that homeowner was to give them that land that little section was given to that 2316 property so that he could get the easement placed through there so that was a condition the homeowner wanted more of the property because they're losing some on the easement i see so basically we paid for that easement through a property a land swap basically yeah yeah it was a swap like a land swap and i have on my easement it says that they gave us the easement on i'm trying to think of the right words but um The...

that's all right i can't think of it but uh i i got my question answered okay all right yeah that was a that was a deal swap that was why we got the easement well he got the easement through there that's what i understood okay great yeah i was just curious about that um on something jp massengill brought up about removing the condition for the fence i definitely would be in favor of that as well if you want to bring that forward and um Otherwise, I got my questions answered. Thank you all.

Okay. Sir, yes, please. Thank you. Sorry about jumping up like that. Again, my name's Wes Doss. I represent Buzz and Holly. And Holly's been out there teaching for 26 years and using that easement for 26 years. She's had one complaint, and this is it. All those years, she's been making our community more beautiful with the kids, raising our kids for us. She's had one complaint, and that's now. I just want to read to you, the public policy of Arkansas is wrapped up in its statutes. And Arkansas has a statute which applies to this. They had the right heart. I don't think they necessarily got it right, but they had the right heart. And it's Arkansas Code Annotated 14-1-106, Home Based Businesses. I'm just gonna read you a couple things. This is in the intro. Small businesses often begin at home because of lower costs and increased flexibility. Home-based work plays a significant role in our economy as roughly half of all businesses in the United States operate primarily out of a residence. I'm sure that 50% of the people in this room have a home-based business or they have a home office. People use their homes for tutoring. They use their homes to teach piano and other arts, teach painting. Stuff, again, like I said, makes our lives more beautiful. And that's what Holly Smarto is doing out there in East Fayetteville. Now, I'm a little bit worried. I mean, maybe I wasn't hearing well, but I hear about, well, Maybe a traffic study will be required, or maybe a fence will be required, or maybe there's a lot of gooeyness in this whole thing. And some of you recognize it. And I'll go to somebody, I believe that you mentioned the conditions of approval, which actually, I guess it was given by the staff. I'm not sure if Holly ever saw this or understood it, but there's 57 paragraphs to teach kids how to play the violin. I mean, 57 paragraphs. I mean, this could make their lives miserable for the next 20 years, what's going on now. Now, the planning board saw through it. And the planning board voted unanimously in favor of Holly and Buzz. And that is not, I don't think that expresses the heart of our state legislature when they started talking or giving us this statute as a gift to the home businesses. In fact, they said, it is the intent of the General Assembly that this section strengthen home-based work and remove unnecessary barriers to working from home. 57 barriers right here, 57. This county needs Holly Smarto, needs Buzz Smarto. These kids need Holly Smarto. I ask that you consider the heart of this matter, consider what the planning board saw, and we would love to have a unanimous vote here tonight. people should not have to go through this for just serving the kids of this community. It should not happen. Now, they had, I don't know if anybody's mentioned this. I mean, there's comment how they could see it. I mean, y'all might have seen these pictures that are passed around, how they could see this model's house, and somehow that was just so terrible. By the way, it's an absolutely beautiful house. I think y'all have already seen this, but you cannot see anything through this. Now, this is summertime, and I'm sure it's different in winter. I used to sit over there. I was a JP for District 11 for a season in my life. I think the only butch, I think, how long have you been a JP? Okay. Well, I might have been before you. You might have came after I came.

Okay.

It's close to four decades ago. And so, listen, I appreciate what y'all do. There's hard issues, hard questions. And we don't want people to go crazy. There's some amount of regulation, but not 57 paragraphs of regulation. And something needs to be done. Thank you very much.

J.P. Ecke.

Is the loan neighbor who opposes this, or is there representation for that one neighbor here?

That's next on the list, since we're done with the applicant.

Okay, thank you.

So to that point, I see no further questions, so we'll move on. Is the appellate here and would like to speak? Or a representative?

The appellant, or as you call me, the lone neighbor, is here. My name is Robert Rhodes. I'm a lawyer here in Fayetteville, Arkansas. I sent you a letter, and I expect most of you, if not all of you, have probably read the letter, so I'm not going to belabor you with that. I guess what I'd like to do is just boil this down to what I believe is the crux of what your decision ought to be. It's not that there's a problem with someone having violin lessons at home. That's not it at all. It's the amount, it's the magnitude of it, And that's the reason I think that this county calls for a CUP for that. And that's the reason why a neighbor has every right to come up here and say, we don't want you to grant the CUP. It's not because we don't like violin lessons or we don't like the students. It's because we don't want 42 or 50 parking spots filled with with people that are going to recitals that are going to these lessons. And the fact that they look out whether it's when the trees have the leaves or not and they see a bunch of cars and they see the cars coming up and down on the easement that's on their property. that they don't believe that there's an express right for them to have a commercial use for that easement. And that's it in a nutshell. It's not because they don't like the students. It's not because they don't like violin music. It's because they have a right and they want their rights protected as well. And so that's why that CUPs have conditions. Yes, you can do this. You can't do it by right, but here's some conditions. And if the conditions, I hear people talking about, well, let's get rid of the screening. Well, I honed in on that, because that's what it was. That's what it said. That was what this conditional use permit said, is that it was supposed to have screening. But if that's one that you want to take out, I understand. But maybe what you put back in there is instead of it going till 8 o'clock Monday through Friday, it goes back to 6 o'clock. And I have talked to their lawyer today. I actually gave him a copy of my letter, so he'd be forewarned that this is what I was gonna talk about. And I think there's probably some room for something like that. I think there's also probably some room for you all to look at this and say, well, recitals don't have to be at the house. I think Mrs. Smart already said that recitals, that they can do them elsewhere. That was something that two or three hours ago, I thought we almost had a little bit of an agreement. with the applicant. I'm the appellant, they're the applicant. And so like I say, if you're going to redo this CPU from what the planning board put forward, then if you would, look at it from both sides, my client side as well as the SMARTOS side. I would stand for any questions.

Any questions for the appellant? Seeing none, thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

So the next item is for discussion for the body of the court here, the members. Any discussion you have, motions for amendments, those types of things is where we're at at this point. J.P. Massengale.

Okay, I'd like to make a motion to remove some of the conditions from this CUP. Personally, I'd like to remove all conditions, but I'm not sure everybody would go for that. So on signage, I'd like to remove 1.0, which is the privacy fence requirement.

The conditions look in the back. That should be, that is the, if you keep going up, up, up, up, no, that's down. Keep going. Yeah, and conditions and but I guess if you're referring to number eight, maybe.

Well, I'll see a signage, signage and lighting and screening.

Yeah, that's over here.

There's signing, sliding, screening conditions.

Yeah. And they you are looking at the planning conditions here.

OK. Well, I'm like, I'm looking at it specifically where it says signage lighting screening conditions 1.0 privacy fence yes i want to remove that remove the whole thing yeah that 1.0 well i'm not through um you're changing the staff report at that point just yeah yeah i understand it's your standard cut sheet or whatever and i'm i mean i think there's Yeah, a lot in here I would probably remove if we had time, but this was approved by the Planning Commission and the applicant, so I don't want to change the whole thing.

I mean, if we remove the signage, just like FYI, if we remove the signage so they can't have any signage, we have ordinances that says the signage should be like that size specific, that high.

Well, just one point out of the signage.

OK. First one. Basically, the screening the fences. Just the privacies? OK.

So do you have others? uh yeah there was a condition of no amplified music i'm concerned that that could be used against this applicant if they have a personal or private party that's not associated with this they're allowed to have amplified music what is that under do you know um thank you number seven could we get these split up into separate motions please

sure okay so let's take care of the first one and we'll come back so i have a motion to remove i i mean i went out and drove and i think her the trees that are out there provides the screening that's fine right so the the motion by jp massengale i heard a second by jp lemming to remove the first item under signage and lining screen conditions which reach privacy fence a minimum of six feet in height of typical picket construction masonry or chain link with uniform opaque screen or vertical slats to be placed around perimeter of the property native trees planting natural objects or other tall vegetation could be used if desired so that will be removed as the motion Yes, and the second. JP Lowe's pass.

Thank you, Chair. I think this kind of was addressed by when I was speaking to Director Atta. He said that some of these other conditions are suggestions, but they are not strict conditions that are placed on this application. And when we talked to him, he did state that the trees can already be considered to be screening elements. And that was, I think, further iterated in what JP Lyons just said. So I do think that this This motion would be kind of redundant because it appears it's already been addressed in, I mean, I don't think that it's necessary to have personally, so I wouldn't support this particular amendment.

Thank you. Any other discussion? JP Wilson.

Thank you, Chair. This amendment is certainly understandable, but I think that if we entertain that, and I'm not opposed to it, if you look towards the bottom where it says planning conditions number eight, it also says there provide reasonable screening to neighboring properties. Maybe it's redundant in the language, but I would think you'd need to do both of those. If you're going to do one and leave the other, it wouldn't make sense. So I don't wanna complicate things, but I guess that would be an amendment to the amendment.

Okay. So I have an amendment to the amendment. Second. To remove under planning conditions number eight, provide reasonable screening to neighboring properties. Do I have a second?

Second.

So I have A motion to amend to remove item eight under planning conditions by J.P. Wilson, seconded by J.P. Massingale. Any additional discussion on that amendment? J.P. Bond, is yours on that latest amendment or something else?

Okay, thank you. I'm running a little bit behind y'all on this, but I would ask you to, even though I agree with the amendment you're making here, we start making these changes and when we're in favor of the SMARTOs keeping their right to to live on their properties and enjoy it the way they see. We start making these changes which were passed by the planning board and then if this winds up going to circuit court, we're creating an argument for either side. in what we do. So I would just say, be very careful about, and I might ask Brian, I might ask Brian what he's got to say about this.

If it goes to circuit court, this process starts all over as if this never happened. So you don't have to worry about it being arbitrary and capricious because the court's already told us, told the county that this is not zoning. Just to let you know, it starts all over as if this didn't happen.

So right now, then, we're just starting all over, pretty much. I mean, with that being the opinion of the county attorney, we may as well do this. And like I said, I'm in agreement with what you're doing here. Anyway, thank you.

JP Stafford. Thank you, Chair. I appreciate JP Wilson's amendment to the amendment, but here's my counter argument. I'm in favor of taking out number one on the signage because that specifically mentions a privacy fence, which the trees are there already. But if we also take out number eight under planning conditions, which just says provide reasonable screening to neighborhood properties, I don't think that the applicant is gonna do this, but potentially they could cut down all the trees at some point. And then we don't have anything in here that says keep the reasonable screening to neighboring properties, which the trees do provide. So I think that's, to me, that's sort of a, keep the buffer that's there, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a fence. So that's my argument in favor of the amendment, but against the amendment to the amendment. Thanks.

Any discussion on the amendment to the amendment? You're on. Go ahead. Sorry.

Yeah, I just want to make one comment in regard to what Just as Stafford said, so what if they want to cut all the trees down? I mean, they've got two or three students coming by, a couple extra cars in the driveway. To me, they've got a litigious neighbor who's looking for anything to create problems for these people. And something written in here that says, I mean, if it was up to me, I'd take most of these requirements out. Personally, I don't feel like they need a CUP for what they're doing. Anyhow, I'm for the amendment and anything else we want to take out of there. Okay.

Any others? JP Wilson. Oh, Washington, I'm sorry.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So just in listening to everyone, I just really want us to consider the amendment to the amendment as well as the amendment. So I know that we've pretty much made up our mind that we do believe that the studio should continue to be in that neighborhood. We can all agree on that. I think the flip side of that that we also need to be considerate about is we also do need to consider the neighbors as well. And so I just believe that This as the planning board has approved it is what we should go with. They knew that number one and number eight was similar. They knew all of those things. So I just feel that the amendment to the amendment as well as the amendment in my opinion is not really necessary. Let's trust what our planning board has already done and vote on it as is because yes while we do want to vote in favor of the Smartos to be able to enjoy their property the way that they want to, We also have to be considerate of the neighbors as well. And I feel that what is presented to us will be the fairest way for us to do that. And that maybe it's not up to us to go through to say, oh, we don't need that condition. Oh, we don't need that condition. Because if we didn't need the conditions, why would the planning board have included them in the first place? So I will not be voting in favor of the amendment to the amendment or the amendment. And I encourage you guys not to do so either.

Any other discussion? Seeing none, so this is a vote on adding to the amendment was a motion to add by J.P. Wilson and seconded by J.P. Messengel to remove item eight under planning conditions, which is provide reasonable screening to neighboring properties. All those in favor say aye. All those opposed. I think that those take it. I think that the amendment to the amendment fails. So back to the original amendment, which is removing item one under signage, lighting, screening conditions. Any additional discussion on that? Seeing none, motion by J.P. Massengill to remove number one under signage, lighting, screening conditions, seconded by J.P. Lemming. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? I believe the ayes have it, so that amendment passes. Back to the discussion. Any additional discussion on this or other amendments? JP Coger.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would just, considering what was suggested by the attorney for, I can't remember, I don't remember the name, anyway, about changing the hours of operation, can we just hear from Ms. Hawley and see how that would affect her business, or if that's a... So, just

To be clear, the conditions state the hours are Monday through Saturday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Yeah, but sometimes we, you know. I'm just saying that's not what I heard said. I'm just making sure we understand what's in the conditions.

Okay, thank you. I was just curious about that.

Could you repeat the question?

Thank you again, Mr. Chair. The attorney that was here said something about maybe changing hours of operation. And I don't, I would just like to hear from you how you think that would affect your business or how you, so we could at least hear that. That's all I was asking.

I'm limited by school hours. So I can only teach when students get out of school three, four o'clock. So that would, yes. and working parents. This is my colleague, Mary Kelly. She's the orchestra director at Bentonville West. And if you don't mind, she can help answer this question also.

So the biggest thing is that most parents work until 5, 6 o'clock. And so if she's cut off at 6 o'clock, some parents won't be able to come. And part of it is that the students need to have their parents there during the lesson so they can absorb what is happening in the lesson and learn. And the way that Holly teaches is um the parent and the child learn together so the parent is super important is an integral part of the lesson so if parents can't come then then that really limits limits the um the instruction that she can do okay thank you very much i appreciate it jp pawn are we ready to

for a motion to pass this as it's been amended? I move we pass. 11.1 is amended. I believe that's the number on this.

So your motion is to ratify the conditional use permit. Yes. No, wait a minute.

We never voted on that other amendment. Yeah, we did. We voted on the motion. Oh, and it passed. Yeah, so to ratify.

First of all, we haven't read the ordinance at all. Oh, that's a good point.

What we need to do is get rid of the pre-reading. Let's read. We need it read.

Motion. Move. We need to have it read. Councilor, will you read that ordinance, please?

No. Sure.

An ordinance ratifying a conditional use permit recommended for approval by the planning board for the HS Studios project.

We need three readings on this. Move to suspend the rules and read. Second. Second time by title.

So I have a motion to suspend the rules and move this to a second reading by JP Pond, seconded by JP Ecke. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? That passes.

Please remain there for a second time.

OK. An ordinance ratifying a condition.

That's one order.

Yes.

I may be wrong. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. But aren't they still allotted a time to speak? before we vote.

They will before we take a final vote.

The final vote, yeah. I mean, we go through this, we get the motion, citizens comment, and then we vote on the actual ratification. Thank you for the clarification.

Yes, sir. An ordinance ratifying a conditional use permit recommended for approval by the Planning Board for the HS Studios project.

Move to suspend the rules and read the third time the title.

So I have a motion by JP Bond to suspend the rules and move this to the third and final reading, seconded by JP Dean. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, please read that for a third time.

An ordinance ratifying a conditional use permit recommended for approval by the planning board for the HS Studios project.

Move to pass. Second. Okay, so I have a motion by J.P. Pond to pass the ratifying of this conditional use permit seconded by J.P. Ecke. Any additional discussion? So the only thing I'm gonna add is if you look at our ordinance, the conditions we are to use to base our decision on, in my mind, this meets all of them. I have no issue with it, compatible, safety, I mean, all those, what, seven, eight things that are there, I think it aligns with those, from my personal opinion. So I just wanna put that on the record from that standpoint. Any other discussions? Okay, citizen comment. Citizen comment on the ratification of this COC, yes. Three minutes, 15 minutes total? 12 minute total, go ahead.

Good afternoon, my name is Kenneth love it currently residing in Prairie Grove. One of the men spoke about Arkansas code 14.1 dash 106 was enacted by act 659 2021 the statute significantly limits. Government ability to require permits or prohibit business operating from residents. are setting the precedence this is the only person that you have put into place as a seat as a cup that's going to be bite you in the butt in the future let me continue reading a government cannot generally require a permit home occupation permit or local approval simply because a person is operating a business from their home the general assembly specifically found that such requirements create unnecessary barriers for entrepreneurship. So I know Judge Deakins wasn't here tonight. This is probably the reason why he's not. because I've seen a lot of discrepancy from him in the past. But the proper way to do things is to treat everybody right. Arkansas has a state preemption. It says state legislatures dictate the broad framework and limits of local zoning authority. If the state passes laws expressly regulating specific land uses, Counties and municipalities must adhere to those rules. Y'all create rules as you go, is what I've seen. This does not need to be a cup. All these people that teach piano, all this kind of stuff, I grew up with my sister doing it, they have the right to do it in their own home. There's a reason why people build in the county. There's a reason why they build out where there's no HOA. So they have the right to do what they want to do with their business. Let's see. Sorry I'm taking up so much time. In zoning and land use, state law always takes precedence over county law. If a county ordinance directly conflicts with the state statute, the state statute law wins. The county zoning regulation in question should be stricken from the records, as it is useless in this case, in my opinion. Local zoning must comply with state standards, and counties cannot legally pass laws that contradict state zoning frameworks.

Don't set this precedence. Thank you.

Additional comments?

Good evening. I'm Brandon Stanley, and I live in 2314 with my wife. We bought our property in 04, and we built there in 09. And so we've been running up and down that driveway, that easement, for almost 17 years now. And she's had her business for longer than that. And I would say, if you look at even the numbers that she gave, 20 to 25 extra trips a week. And so we're talking about four or five trips a day. And if you think about a typical place that has maybe teenagers, Amazon packages, I feel like we get four a day of those. And so it's not a burden. I think about if it were a burden, then When I drive down that shared easement especially, I should have to be pulling backwards to let cars out more often. And I think I can count twice since we've been in that property. So that was my main point. I've got a lot of other points, but I think we beat this to death at this point. Questions? Thank you, sir.

Any additional citizen comment?

Hey, my name is Tomas Jandek. I live in 3843 East Chatsworth Road. And I've lived in Fayetteville for 26 years. So I'm speaking here because my 10-year-old daughter, Terry, is a Holy Smarter student. I can pretty much narrow this thing down from all the points that I wanted to make to just one. I really didn't like sort of the argument that this may be sort of high intensity business. I cannot speak to sort of the. Intricacies of land use and neighborhood problems. I'm not neighbor, but I, but I can speak sort of how, in my opinion of apparent holistic model studio operates a vast majority of the time. parents drive the kid one by one, we meet at most one other car and sort of our kids go, take the lesson, we park far, far, far, far, far away from the street and we leave. So this is completely different from high intensity commercial use. There are no strangers coming to the house, no signage, no deliveries, no nothing. Group studies and the recitals, I think that there was a little bit of a problem with how the numbers were presented. I can tell you from an experience of a parent who went there, very many times, vast majority of the time, these students, if they are at the recital and they play the final piece, they are going to fit to this thing. So this is not... I can think that at one point we started adding 20 plus 14 plus 23. We are talking about North Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, right? This is a really, really, really relatively small violin studio, quiet, single purpose, dedicated to teaching children, really, really, really high quality. Kids learn discipline. Kids learn sort of... musical excellence. Many students go on and go to regional orchestras. Holy Smarter students play before Northwest Arkansas, Symphony of Northwest Arkansas, So I really think that this is a very, very, very limited small operation. By absolutely no way this is high intensity business as it was a couple of minutes ago argued. I really hope that this excellent studio can continue. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Additional citizen comment?

I'm a little shorter here.

Thank you all very much for your time. My name is Talena Baer. I live at 2337 North Fox Trail. And it'll be as of seven years next month that I've been there. And a year ago this month, which is about the same time that property at 2316 was purchased, I adopted a dog from here in Washington County from the shelter. And I walk him on our very quiet road because he refuses to do his business in my yard. So twice a day, between two to six miles, I'm out there walking him on a typical day. Now I can't provide you with a official traffic survey, but what I can provide you is an autistic human with good pattern recognition. And I pride myself on being like, ooh, who's that vehicle? Ah, I bet that's an Instacart for Megan. And pretty soon, oh, yep, they dropped it off. And I'm kind of ashamed to say I didn't even realize when I learned that Holly, who I wouldn't even have considered a friend before all of this started, just an acquaintance I'd met a couple of times, I didn't realize that while she was a teacher of violin that she actually did it out of her home, so I need to brush up on my tism skills a little bit then. But what I have noticed is a pattern of the resident at 2316 causing nuisance and burdensome issues. I now where I used to walk regularly without any hesitation after hearing that he and found out that he pulled a gun on my neighbor for weed eating on his own easement I now walk with a body cam in fear and I hope that whatever you guys do with whatever you pass that whatever provisions are put in there there is no ambiguity for this particular individual to try to work around that. So I really encourage that, especially since I know you were discussing the screening trees, et cetera. While Holly herself is not in the actual POA, so therefore, she's not performing lessons in a POA. But the POA also does prohibit big privacy fences. So just whatever that you guys do end up doing, please make sure that an individual who likes to be a nuisance and likes to cause issues for neighbors cannot find a way to weasel around and have ambiguity in there. I would just really request that. And thank you guys so much for your time for this issue. Really appreciate you all.

Thank you. Additional citizen comments? We got about a minute, 50 seconds left.

I'm Larry Terry. I've been a resident there since 2004. No problems, no issues, not a lot of traffic. It's like a normal neighborhood. One thing y'all do need to keep in mind that we had a vote. We put a ballot out for everybody in the neighborhood. And every resident except one voted in favor of a Samara vote. I had no problem with anything that was going on there. And while you're talking about these rules and things, you might keep in mind we do have a POA. And some of those won't allow, some of those that you have up there to begin with, they can't put a fence around that property and things like that. POA stops certain things. So keep that in mind.

I got 43 seconds. Anybody else would like to express comments?

My name is Mary Kelly. I just want to say that part of the reason Mrs. Smartow had to have the recital off her property was because she was afraid of the security of children coming because of her neighbor. And having the recital in an alternate location is burdensome because you have to pay for it. And so it's a burden on her to have to do that. So thank you. Thank you.

Sorry.

So I have a motion by J.P. Pond, seconded by J.P. Ecke, sorry, to pass the ratification as amended. Mr. Allen, will you call roll?

Justice Massengill. Yes. Justice Rivera-Lopez. Yes. Yes. Justice Lyons? Yes, sir. Yes. Justice Ecke? Yes. Yes. Justice Dean? Yes, sir. Yes. Justice Washington? Yes. Yes. Justice Koger? Yes. Yes. Justice Dennis? Yes. Yes. Justice Hiers? Yes. Yes. Justice Rios-Stafford? Yes. Yes. Justice Lemming? Yes. Yes. Justice Ricker? Justice Pond? Yes. Yes. Justice Wilson? Yes. Yes.

That passes. Thank you, we're all very happy. I'm sorry, we have another one right behind you, and I think it's gonna go longer.

JP Lemming? Can we take about a three minute pee break?

Yes, all those in favor? So let's take five minutes, because I think we'll go long, long time, and then we'll be back at, let's just say eight o'clock. We'll start at eight. That's seven minutes.

I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

. .

I got your back.

Thank you. Thank you.

We're ready to start back. Everybody come back and take their seat, please. All right, thank you. So the second one tonight is the appeal hearing for the Fox Hunt Landing Project Cup. Miss?

I need to take the .

Is Dave Vector? Dave Vector?

Thank you.

Director, I don't need your permission.

No, no, it's there. I need the presentation.

You're fine.

Thanks, Dave. 2026-100. The other one, the 100. Yeah, that's one. All right. Welcome back. Good afternoon. Foxhunter landing condition use permit was heard by the planning board and approved by the five member attending on April 30th. The applicant is requesting commercial flex spaces on 2.25 acres in the county. It's located on, it has one address on Fox Hunter, but actually also on the highway, as you're gonna see. Just let me clarify here, because they have mistake, it's not a mistake, it's confusion. Normally when we have an appeal, all the appeals are compiled into one section. appeal case or one case number. For some reason, they had, at the county clerk, they had multiple employees, they were not aware of how the process works, so they had to accept four different appeals, which normally they'll be compiled into one case. So you're gonna see multiple cases, but basically it's the same appeal for one condition use permit. The first one was submitted by Mr. Kirby McAllister representing Barrington Park subdivision in Fayetteville on May 5th, 2026. And I'm pretty sure they're gonna speak to their grievances and what's happening and why they're opposing that project. So I'm gonna move forward. The next one was submitted by Mr. Paul Simpkins on behalf of Timber Crest Subdivision in Fayetteville as well. The third one was submitted by Ms. Karen Kimbrough on behalf of Covington Park Subdivision in Fayetteville. And the fourth one was submitted by Mr. Paul Warren on behalf of St. Joseph Catholic Church. This is the vicinity map of the area showing where the subject property is going to be. This is like a zoom in location of the property, the site map itself. And this is the neighbor notification. The neighbors are being notified for that project by the applicant. So this is just like a quick map showing where the subject property versus where the appeal were originated from. You can see Barrington Park, Temple Crest, Covering Park subdivisions, and the St. Joseph Catholic Church. Once again, I'm gonna show all the appeals here. This is the letter that's being sent to the applicant by the By the appellant, we asked the appellant to notify the same number of the neighbors that they were notified during the planning board. So 18 neighbors were notified by the applicant during the planning board on April 16th. Staff, to the time of the planning board meeting, received eight neighbors in opposition, citing increased traffic and incompatibility with the surrounding residential area. The CUP APU notification, the appellant notified the same 18 neighbors. And to the right, you can see that consent letter that was received by the planning. Okay, here comes the project. The applicant is requesting a condition use permit to construct and operate three commercial flick space buildings. Proposed hours of operations are Mondays through Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. with a maximum of five employees per business. The subject property is 2.25 acres and is currently under contract contingent upon the CUP approval. Building A, and you can see A, B, and C. There, that's a sketch they presented for the CUP. It's 40 by 150, building equipped with all necessary utilities. Access will be provided by two paved driveways, one from East Mission Boulevard, Highway 45, and the other from East Fox Hunter Road. There will also be nine paved standard parking stalls and one ADA-compliant space. Building B and C will each be 30 by 120 buildings equipped with necessary utilities. Access will be provided via a paved driveway from East Fox Hunter, each building. will include one ADA compliance parking spaces with a shared gravel parking area located between the two structures. A monument sign is proposed at the southwest corner of the site is in compliance with the Washington County standards, along with the installation of security and privacy fencing. The septic system layout and configuration will be finalized following further coordination with the Arkansas Department of Health. They got the PERC test approved, but for the design, they said we have to discuss this further. If approved, this project will be required to go through the large-scale development process where all the maps, all the designs, the engineering, and all of this will be presented to the planning board. It's just a general view also of the approved CUP in the vicinity. Close to this project, back in the day, we had almost nine CUPS that came forward before the planning board and were ratified by the quorum court as well. Part of the notification process, the city of Fayetteville owns a piece of land there, and they send us this letter saying that they have no objection to this project. being on that location because it matches the regional link streets as classified by the city of Fayetteville and matches the rest of the area for business uses. And that was sent on June 22nd after the notification for that appeal happened. And we have the planning conditions listed there and I'm pretty sure the applicant was was present at the meeting. And he saw all of this. And he received an email as well. Any questions? GREG MCKENZIE.

Questions for Director Atta? JP Massengill. JOSEPH MASSENGILL.

So the buildings that are going to get built, what's the intended use?

GREG MCKENZIE. They're going to be flex spaces. and we approved multiple flex spaces in the county before. Flex spaces will vary on the tenant, And I'm pretty sure the applicant himself is going to go over this to make sure that whatever is being discussed previously is what's going to be discussed here as well. Fixed space is based on tenants, as I said. It could be a carpenter, it could be a dentist, it could be a lawyer. And that building, the shell of it is going to be there, but the interior is going to be modified based on the size of the tenant or the request itself. OK so like a hair salon or something like that could be yes, I could make it have customers. Yeah, it could be and like by the way when this book happens is so like a hair salon and they are required to have a further and for further look for me from the state they have to get that like separate.

Thank you mm-hmm.

JP women. Thank you. Sam you mentioned the fact is the septic that close to the city of federal they don't have septics.

Even if they have the septic the city of federal like any city they always have preference like to support like they're like. They will go outside within within that looks at the limits first so I don't know if they have septic that's been there, but I'm assuming they never said so all the subdivision that's around it that don't show be in the city there were there sir. Let's go back here the subdivisions in the county most likely they have back in the day that used to be a look favor planning area remember so that's why you might have you might see Lots of lot sizes that less than one an acre because it was approved by the city. But I'm assuming they either have like septic, approved septic by the health department, that's why they have it, or it might be an agreement back in the day by the city of Fayetteville to support it.

So is that green all in the Fayetteville? Is that all in the city?

All green in the city of Fayetteville.

So basically this lot is really the city don't want to fight this battle.

Well, I don't know what the city wants or not.

So, okay. Is the cemetery to the north of that, I mean to the east of that road?

I honestly cannot tell you yes or no without seeing the overall map.

Okay, I see it.

Thank you.

J.P. Lopez. Thank you, Chair. Director Atta, was this formerly in the ETJ?

We're talking about the subject? Yes, that we're considering.

Oh yeah, that used to be, let's go back here.

Yes, that used to be in the planning area, city of Fayetteville planning area.

Okay, that makes sense, thank you.

Other questions for Director Atta? Seeing none, is the applicant here would like to speak to this?

need you to push that bottom right button for me please oh it's what are you doing ah it's on very good my name is jay young with development consultants incorporated we are development consultant that the applicant hired to assist with the application and with the site concept sketch that's before you we have looked at this with the applicant we think it is a a good use of the property and an appropriate use of the property in a good location on the highway and on Foxhunter. And I'm going to allow the owner to answer most of your questions, but I do want you to know I am here to answer any questions you've got that might be specific to the development design of the property.

Good evening, thank you all for being here, of course. And my name's Mike Parker. I live at 4457 East Pesofino Lane, a little further out. So I drive by this property all the time. I thought for years, I've got a very small construction company, zero employees, two independent contractors that operate the equipment. So I always thought this would be a great place to put my construction equipment to store it. have a base for it. Finally came up for sale. Someone put it under contract right away before I could. I understood they were trying to use this property for residential purposes. And after doing the soil test and all this, found out you can't build anything residential on this property. I couldn't even build a one-bedroom house on this property. You're in the county. You don't have city sewer access. And because the current owners that have owned it for decades, just being good neighbors, they've let the surrounding subdivisions put their fill on the property. Even the cemetery, when they dug graves, they put their fill on this property, which didn't hurt their use because they always used it for commercial. The county parks their county trucks on it. They're commercial trucks. Right now there's a giant firework stand on it every year for, I don't even know how, for as long as I remember. So the ground has been compacted in for a parking lot. They couldn't get it to perk out to build a house on it or multifamily or whatever they were gonna do. Well, we had the professionals come out and there's a small part of the property that is undisturbed. We are so low invasive of our use that it met the health department's requirements for our use. We're gonna have three or four half baths. You know, like a house would have a kitchen with dishwasher, washer, dryer, tub and shower. it wouldn't support that. But for us, it would work. So because the property is commercial and so expensive, To try to make the payment on it, I thought I'm gonna have to build a couple of more buildings other than just mine. My building's building C, I mean B, right in the middle, and behind that's building C. They're kind of out of sight, which I like. We're gonna have a privacy fence around it, one access off Fox Hunter. Friend of mine's a builder. He needs a space to store equipment, and I was gonna use part of building C to store records and some furniture. Building A is visible. It's gonna be really nice. Nicely landscaped, paved parking lot, all that. I have a really nice upscale interior decorator that wants that building. We've been looking for a long time for her space. It's perfect. She needs about half of it for warehousing her product and about half of it for a showroom. So occasionally she'll have an appointment there to consult with her client, show them her product, that kind of thing. So we presented what we wanted to do to the planning commission. Of course they passed it unanimously. four, five, six people commented their concerns and they heard everything and that's the way it went. So I thought we were going on to large-scale development, and then I got a call, hey, somebody's appealed this. I thought, well, why in the world would someone appeal this? It doesn't affect anybody else. The only two properties that join it, I've opted to purchase the brick house that joins it on Foxhunter, and because what we're gonna do, it's gonna increase the value of what's around it. This is like a $2 million project. So I wanted it to buy that. I didn't have to buy it to buy the land. The other property that joins it are two duplexes on Mission Highway 45, a state highway. I used to own those, I sold those a couple years ago to a friend of mine who's an accountant. And when I found out I could possibly purchase this, I called her and said, hey, could I buy those back? I offered her a really pretty good profit. And she said no, she wanted to keep them, but would let me know. So that's the only two properties that join it. I mean, I've sold properties all around this in all these neighborhoods. I sold my daughter a house in the neighborhood across the street. We don't affect those values. I've built three similar buildings to this on my properties, and I'll guarantee you it increased the property value according to Washington County tax assessors. In 49 years of being a real estate broker and developing several high-end properties, affordable housing as well, We've never done anything or built anything that adversely affect anyone else. So when I read this appeal, it's like defacing property values. It's the opposite of that. What we're gonna do is something nice. I drive by this, I wanna be proud to say, hey, that's mine. I don't wanna do something that would hurt any other property. Another complaint was drainage. Well, they should have known now because of the regulations in the county, you have to have an engineered grading and drainage plan, retention detention pond. We've had to do soil tests. The other thing was traffic. I said, we'll have 15 employees and increase traffic. Well, the state Highway 45 has about 12,000 cars a day. We don't have any employees. The one building A, she's a owner operator. I'm building B. I'm not gonna hardly ever be there. My guys better not be there. They need to be out making some money. Really, my construction company's for clearing my own properties and for clients to help them put in a driveway or dirt work that I sell property to. Building C is gonna be for storage. So it's so low impact, we have two driveways off Fox Hunter, one off of 45 State Highway. There's a quarter of a mile of line of sight on each direction on 45. I can't imagine anything detrimental. One comment I saw was, oh, the height of it. Well, we're planning on single story buildings. If you look at a two story house, we're gonna be lower than them. It's the highest and best use. I've served on planning commissions. Follow the rules and regulations was our job. Highest and best use, as long as it doesn't hurt someone else. This fits all that. Not only is this the highest and best use, it's the only use. If this was turned down, the sellers, they would just have to keep it. What else can you do with it except the fireworks stand? You could have a car lot or mini storage, but that probably wouldn't get approved, because that would be high traffic. So anyway, I'm trying to address these things and I just couldn't imagine one person I understood really stirred up over a thousand people in a big radius to send you all, I'm sure you've gotten lots of emails, petitions, on and on. So I just, I couldn't imagine. I thought for these sellers, about three or four years ago, I stopped by there to try to buy this to the lady that owned the house next door. She was in a wheelchair and she said, oh, I don't wanna sell. I gave her my card. So about four years later when this came up, found out the son who was raised in the house and his wife, who's here, they're having to sell this to take care of their mom. She was in a wheelchair. Now she's in memory care. She's in extended care every day, very expensive. If they don't sell it, I don't know what they would do. But it doesn't affect anyone else adversely that I can fathom what we have planned. So anyway, that's my sad story. I think the seller would like to address y'all if that's okay. Or is that another time period for that? Sorry? The seller would also like to say something if that's okay. Is that all right or no? And I could answer any questions too of what we have planned.

Yes, that's part of your applicant, yes. Okay.

I'm Sarah Logie. I am Laura Logie, the seller's daughter-in-law, her co-guardian. And her son's back there in the back with our real estate agent. And like Mr. Parker said, we are selling this land and the house because we do have to pay for her care. And I'm sorry, I am nervous. And it is a bit upsetting. Because I see a lot of people in here showed up to object to this sale and this use that I've never seen before. They aren't really neighbors. We aren't part of the HOA. We aren't part of a POA. My mother-in-law has lived there since, or had lived there since 1973 or 74, and I mean, yeah, when my husband was growing up, Fox Hunter Road was a dirt road. He played on the farmland that these neighborhoods were built on. That's when it really was rural. It's not now. It's Highway 45. It's crazy busy. There's businesses all up and down it, both directions. And like you said, I mean, basically to turn down the CUP, renders that land useless unless these HOAs decide that it meets their standards for what should be there. And I do feel like that that's an undue burden on us. I also think it's gonna be an undue burden on the county and anybody else who intends to buy it if it's not Mr. Parker because we're gonna have to come here and do this again. I mean, anybody who wants to buy it, they're obviously going to have to try to file the application for the CUP. We're going to have to go before the planning commission and then come back here or we have to sit on it. and find some other way to pay $8,000 a month for memory care when this is basically my mother-in-law's life savings. So I would appreciate it if you would consider those facts as well in determining whether or not to approve the CoP. And then also when hearing objections from people I've never met in 27 years of marriage. Thank you.

Thank you. Questions for the applicant? J.P. Massengill.

Yeah, so for the applicant, what kind of, I don't know where they went.

Okay.

What kind of business would you envision going and building a?

An interior decorator.

Oh, it's just one business?

We're designing it for her, yes. She needs that much, she needs half the building for warehousing for materials. Oh, okay. Like tile and whatever you redecorate a house with, you know. So yes, that would be for her use. My building would be building B in the middle and I would occupy part of C and a friend of mine who's a builder, the rest of C is, that's what I'm designing for.

You're doing primarily storage in building B and C and then an interior decorator in building A?

Yes. Okay, looks pretty good to me, thanks. That's why I'm trying to buy it. If it was a lot cheaper, I would just build my building and not worry about the other things, but just the entry level things here is almost a million dollars. It's not residential.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions for the applicant?

Thank you, sir. Thank you.

Next item is the appellate or representation of the appellate here and would like to speak.

Hi, guys. I'm Kirby McAllister. I live at 1803 North Hartford Drive. I'm the president of Barrington Park Subdivision Inc. The subject property is adjacent, just immediately adjacent to the north side. More of it?

Okay.

If you lift it a little bit, lift it a little bit. Okay. Oh, the mic is up.

Now.

Now go.

So, okay, okay, gotcha, hey, there we go. Okay, Kirby McAllister, 1803 North Hartford Drive. I'm the president of the Barrington Park subdivision. And this subject property is just adjacent, just on the north side of our subdivision. We passed out some materials. One of our speakers tonight, Matt Cooper, took pictures from his dining room this morning and then outside just to show you where this property is in relation to his yard. So it's a photograph. Each of you should have it in your papers there. So this appeal, it's really personal to about 1,300 people. in our surrounding neighborhoods. You guys got emails from folks supporting the appeal from Pipers Glen, from Ridgemont Estates, Candleshoe, Madison, Timbercrest, Barrington Park, of course, and then the people on Fox Center Road. I think you should have gotten about 120 emails supporting the appeal. So it's very, you know, they're concerned. And, you know, we live in a, the quality of life in this neighborhood is really special. It's a huge residential area with all these subdivisions on the edge of, you know, on the county, just about. And what we don't want to see is an incompatible commercial land use wedged in the middle of our neighborhoods. And this will lead to a domino effect of more commercial use, incompatible properties. You've got property to the north, to the northeast. So luckily for us, there's guardrails in place to protect us. Washington County, back in August adopted the Freedom and Property Protection Zoning Act, number 2025-44, and I'll refer to that as the zoning ordinance also. So the zoning ordinance provides protections for areas surrounding conditional use properties. and the ordinance lists seven criteria which must be met before conditional use can be approved and ratified. So after we, and we is folks from different subdivisions, and after we reviewed these criteria in the zoning ordinance, reviewed the applicant's plan, and rewatched the April 30th planning meeting, We believe the applicant only met one of the seven protective criteria. Justin Casulli will follow me and he'll discuss those criteria in a few minutes. So I believe there's one question for the honorable court to consider tonight is does the conditional use permit application package, does it meet each of the seven criteria required by the zoning ordinance? We don't believe it does. Some of the clearest proof comes from the April 30th planning meeting itself, from the applicant's own words and from board members who voted yes If we look at the application the applicant asked for a conditional use permit to build three commercial flex space buildings for quote office retail And or storage purposes now this term flex space. That's not a use it describes I think one of you mentioned it, an empty shell that can be finished out as one space to rent out for a business or multiple. It can be configured for an infinite number of uses. In fact, the term flex space doesn't exist in your zoning ordinance. And the point here is that flex space is not a use, and therefore it can't be a conditional use. But the important word in what the applicant described, he said three commercial flex space buildings. The word commercial is the key word. And in your zoning ordinance, commercial is defined as a profit-making activity, including but not limited to, buying, selling, trading, and merchandise or services, office spaces, retail shops, and industrial units. All right, industrial units, what is that? Any unit, and this is defined in your ordinance, any unit of divided space in which the use accommodates industrial activities, including production, manufacturing, assembly, warehousing structure, distribution of goods. So hopefully you see, what we see is this conditional use permit, it's not a permit for a specific use. It's a permit for an infinitely wide category of commercial uses. Now during the April 30th planning meeting, The applicant described the project similar as tonight, very small development, pretty low impact. He said then 15 vehicles a day, and even that, he said, was on the high end. He stated on the 30th there'd be fewer than 15 employees. There would be storage for the applicant, storage for a contractor, and the large building would be used by an interior designer. And that's the picture the planning board was shown, small, quiet, 15 cars. And he also mentioned something that he said, hey, this is a concept plan. And to me, a concept plan is something that might not be nailed down in stone. It's flexible. It's changeable, movable. And so I just socked that word away, CONSA plan. Now, after the public comment period, after he presented, the planning committee officials, hearing comments from people that got up, they had concerns, the people that got up, of what uses could and could not be allowed. The planning board then responded, trying to suggest limitations on the property, and that's within their power, right? And they offered suggestion, hey, let's limit the use to just office and warehouse, no retail. The applicant wouldn't agree. His words were, I'm not going to. The more restrictions you put on the property, the more it's devalued. And then one of the board members said, this is in the same conversation, flex space, that could be anything and everything, they're so open. The planning director said, it's up to the applicant. So I guess think about what this means. The planning board was shown this small, low impact development, but you're being asked to approve a conditional use permit for three large buildings, two storage buildings that are 30 foot by 30 foot, 120 foot long, another building that's 150 feet long, about 40 feet, and we don't know what the use is. And something else that's significant that I didn't understand until after that meeting, the conditional use permit goes with the land. The applicant can sell tomorrow, the conditional use stays with the property. And that's described in section seven of your ordinance. You know, this is an ever-changing set of structures that I'm not even sure, since it's a concept plan, is that actually how it's gonna be built? What's it really gonna be used for? You know, if it's gonna be used for an interior designer, then that's the use. If it's gonna be used for commercial, that is about everything encompasses every business I've ever worked for. I work for an industrial steel manufacturer in Rogers. I guess we fit that definition of industrial use. So we're afraid we don't want something like that right next door to us. So to us, this conditional use permit's a blank check for anything and everything, and that's what our neighbors are going to have to live next to. On traffic safety, I wanna touch on just a couple of things and I'm almost done and I'll turn it over to someone that can speak better. Yes, there are about 12,000 vehicles that pass the Highway 45 Covington Fox Center intersection every day. And there are hundreds if not thousands of vehicle turns and highway crossings each day at that intersection. And something that you might not know, Hunter Road, Fox Hunter Road, it's used by hundreds of vehicles a day. At least half of the residents of Barrington Park use it. We've got 134 houses. All the residents in Ridgemont Estates, they've got about 30 houses. All the residents on Fox Hunter. And then it's used even more during the school year. Nine months out of the year, it's a really popular cut-through for parents that live in Covington, north of Covington, out toward Goshen, to cut through Foxhunter, taking their kids to St. Joe's School. And I know about this because I get complaints as the POA president, hey, why are all these cars going fast through Barrington Park? Well, I dug into it. Yeah, it's a cut-through. So there is a lot of traffic. And then... Covington Park's a major cut-through for Vandergriff Elementary and for McNair. And my point will come clear here in a second. It's a major cut-through. And the way the schools were designed for buses and cars to leave, you go into those schools off of Mission, and you come out of those schools after you drive the kids off on the back of the neighborhood. So you've either gotta go around through Covington and get to this intersection, that we're talking about, or you go through several busy lights and such. So there's a lot of activity. This intersection, I mean, it's dangerous. One of the people at the, April 30th meeting said, in their words, the elevation of the road 45 goes up, there's a blind spot there, you can't see the traffic coming down, it's so dangerous to exit. The new commercial driveway on 45 would sit even further up to the east, up the hill with even less warning to see what's coming at you. From my experience, just the other day I went to the fireworks store, as they were talking about, the fireworks tent, and I parked on Fox Center Road. I didn't go through the main parking, but I parked on Fox Center Road about where the north entrance or the east entrance would be for the storage buildings. parked there, shopped for fireworks, got back to my car. And when I was pulling out and looking to the left on Fox Center, man, it was tough to see. It was tough to see a line of sight of what was coming. And of course, people were going fast everywhere. So I think that poses a dangerous safety hazard. Now, the applicant didn't perform a traffic study. and his engineer's sight line math assumed that Fox Center had a speed limit of 25 miles an hour. Well, a planning board member corrected him and he said, hey, that road's unposted. He said, if it's unposted, it's 40. You won't have your sight lines by this math. Well, the engineer admitted during the planning meeting Well, he said, I'll have to double check that math. Well, the corrected math was never presented before the vote to approve the conditional use permit. So to me, that's something that is a hazard hanging out there. Then also, I just wanna point this out on that planning meeting. I believe it was the planning committee chairman He described, he said, yeah, there's 12,000 cars a day going down 45. It's a busy intersection. Someday there's gonna be a light there at Fox Hunter and Covington and Highway 45. And that's not our concern. That is the Highway Department's concern. That's a state concern. And I just wanna point out that one of the criteria for approving a conditional use permit is will it, cause any public safety hazards. And nowhere in the ordinance does it say, well, if you're at a state highway, you don't have to consider public safety hazards. So I just wanted to point that out. And I appreciate your guys' time. And Justin Casulley will pick up where I've left off. Any questions for me or anything?

Well, let's go ahead and finish what the appellate wants to say, and we'll go to questions.

Thanks, Kirby.

Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the quorum court. Appreciate the chance to speak for a few minutes. I'm excited because I didn't know that I was going to get to see the moon rise tonight from this beautiful vista. So it's good to be here. I just want to follow up on a couple of Kirby's comments. specifically related to the operative ordinance, because they're the rules of the game. They're the rules that the planning board is supposed to abide by, the rules that the quorum court is supposed to abide by. They're the rules that the property owners, when they buy their homes in this area, assume will be operative and complied with. So I'm speaking specifically of the seven criteria in the act for a conditional use. So just to set the table, the subject property is designated or zoned as agricultural residential, single-family residential. That's its current state, as is every property around it. Just to be clear, there isn't a single commercial property that borders the subject property right now. It's all residential or zoned agricultural. It's a field. So that's the lay of the land, right? So in order to change that, in order for the property owner and the developer to use it for something other than agricultural residential, they need to have this conditional use permit granted. And it's for a conditional use, a conditioned use, something that is defined, something that is understandable, not flex space. that that's open-ended and this was uh discussed at length at the planning board meeting and you could refer back to that meeting for a lot of questions and concerns about what is flex space what does that mean so that's what that's what gets us into the conditional use paradigm of the seven criteria one right off the bat is a notice requirement that the budding property owners receive notice of the application and the hearing. One of the property owners, St. Joseph Catholic Church, never received notice. So right off the bat, there's a defect in the notice requirement. The cemetery is not? St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery is literally across the street from the subject property. Okay, the St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery is literally 25 feet across the street from this property, and the church is located a quarter mile down the road. I'm a parishioner there and a former member of the parish council, and the operations manager, Mr. Paul Warren, who submitted one of the appeals, couldn't be here tonight. He's traveling, but he did authorize me to speak on their behalf. And so I contend that there is a defect in the notice requirement. That's the first problem. Next is this issue of adequate utilities, roads, drainage, and other public services available or adequate or will be made available or adequate if the use is granted. Again, without knowing what the use is, how can the applicant contend that they've satisfied that requirement? The discussion from the planning board meeting and a little bit of what you heard tonight is that the use matters. It matters. One of the buildings is what I would call like a strip center. It's three storefronts, three commercial storefronts is how it's been pitched. Those things could be anything and everything that constitute a commercial, if the cup is granted, that constitute a commercial use. So we don't know what the impact would be. We don't know how many customers there would be, how many employees there would be. The applicants asserted something like 15 employees total if there was maximum occupancy. But that's just an assertion. The same argument could be made with things like the leach field for septic, runoff, on and on. The next is that the proposed use is compatible with the surrounding area. And here is the biggest issue, which again is merely an assertion by the applicant and the developer who admittedly has a financial interest in commercially developing the lot, that it's compatible with the surrounding area. Yet there is not a single commercial property that abuts the subject property. There are over 1,300 homeowners in six different subdivisions, dozens of which are here tonight on a summer Sunday in the week of 4th of July who have emailed you, who have petitioned you, and who are waiting eagerly to speak to you and to say this is not a compatible use with the surrounding area. Why should one person who has a pecuniary interest in the property, why should their assertion carry the weight over dozens or hundreds of surrounding homeowners who say, no, it isn't a compatible use? How is a commercial property, a commercial use with retail stores on it that could be anything and everything in the midst bullseye in the middle of all these residential homes, a compatible use that is currently zoned as residential agricultural. The burden is on the seller developer to demonstrate that these criteria have been satisfied, not on the homeowners, surrounding homeowners to rebut it, The next thing, the last several criteria are very similar. The establishment, maintenance, operation, and conditional use will not be detrimental or endanger the public health, safety, morals, comfort, or general welfare. Kirby spoke a little bit about the traffic. The same thing, this conversation came up at the planning board meeting. Could this someday, since the cup transmits with the property, conveys with the property, could it someday be a Casey's gas station? Yeah, it could. How about a club car wash? Yeah, it could. Domino's Pizza? Yeah, it could. What about what it is right now? Could these three spaces, could they be, they'll be an interior designer or an accountant. Well, that sounds lovely. Could they be a vape shop? Yeah, they could. Could it be a liquor store? Yeah. Could it be a Cupid's adult bookstore and lingerie? Yeah, it could. 25 feet from a church cemetery. And hundreds of feet from all of these residents. I'm one of the residents. I'm 2280 North Covington Park Boulevard. I'm one of the residents that lives within the 300 foot notification area. So my property line is a few hundred feet from this. Again, without knowing what the use is, without it being conditioned, then a flex retail space could be anything and everything, a flex commercial space. What it is right now or what it's proposed to be in order to achieve the approval for the cup is not what it might be in two years or five years or ten years from now. And you can bet that the developer, if they're given an opportunity, the future owner, to sell it to a Casey's gas station when they have both this property on the corner and the adjacent property, five acres of land, that they'll do so. Why wouldn't they? I would. because they'll be gone. But the homeowners, many of whom are here tonight, will continue to live in these communities, to raise our families there and take our children to school. And it's not acceptable for us. We don't get to pull up stakes and say, well, you know, so it is. Now it's a vape shop or now it's a club car wash or whatever, smack dab in the middle of this rural residential area. The point that I want to leave you with is that the act that this court passed constitutes the objective rules of the game. And that is against which both the planning board and this court should evaluate the application, which is deficient in at least five or six of those seven criteria. The applicant has failed to meet their burden of demonstrating that they've satisfied those criteria. And those are the rules of the game. All of these extraneous concerns are not relevant. Sick mother-in-laws while terrible situations is not relevant to whether or not the applicant has met their burden of satisfying their criteria to change the zoning of this subject property from agricultural single family residential to commercial. And I suggest to this quorum court that they have not. And I urge you to reject this application and overturn the planning board's recommendation. Thank you very much, and we have one more speaker on behalf of the appellate.

Thank you, Justin. Good evening, members, Mr. Chairman. My name is Matt Cooper. I live at 3746 East Chadwick Drive in Barrington Park. Just to give you a frame of reference, you saw the pictures, but my back fence parallels Foxhunter Road, directly parallels Foxhunter Road.

So my backyard is literally 30 feet.

It's across the street from Foxhound Road. It's across the street from Foxhound Road, 30 feet from the property in question. So we're right there. And I know exactly what impact approval of this CUP will have because there's no better example than what we have right now going on and what we have going on at this time every year, and that's the fireworks stand. The fireworks stand is almost literally in my backyard right now. I shared some pictures with Kirby, which I think he hopefully shared with you guys. You can see it from my backyard. You can see it from my patio. You can see it from when you're sitting in my living room watching TV. If you're on my patio, you can hear the customers coming and going, cars coming and going, and everything else. So while it impacts everybody, as Justin laid out, It impacts me, my family, my immediate neighbors significantly. I'm going to come back to the fireworks stand. I want to tell you a little bit about how we wound up in Barrington Park. My wife and I bought our house in November of 2014. I was 47 years old at the time. It was the first house that my wife and I ever purchased. We came into the game of home ownership relatively late in life, because for the 25 years preceding that, I was on active duty in the United States Marine Corps and the majority of my time was in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and other areas where we would all agree nobody would want to buy a house. So we were very excited when I transitioned out of the Marine Corps after 25 years to be resettled in northwest Arkansas and especially in Fayetteville. And we had to rent when we got here, but my wife spent months with a realtor, we had a great realtor, Paige Crockett, looking at houses, as soon as a house would come up, the two of them would go look at it. And we spent several months doing that in the city. And the day she went to 3746, let me back up, my wife found this house before the realtor did. She called her up and said, I wanna see this house. They immediately went to the house, my wife called me, I was working for Walmart at the time, And she told me, she said, I found the house. This is the one we want. And she was adamant. And I said, if this is the one we want, I don't need to see it. Tell Paige to offer them what they're asking. So we offered the asking price that day, bought the house, and we've lived there ever since. Very, very excited. My kids were young at the time to move in there. Barrington Park offers everything that anybody could want for a neighborhood. a neighborhood community, safe streets, a swimming pool, but mostly an environment that Justin just described that is surrounded by neighbors and neighborhoods and people doing the same thing all day together. I listened to Mr. Parker and I know he has an agenda But I listened to him say that this is going to improve the value of homes around it. And I saw some of you actually nodding your head as if you were in agreement with him. I would ask you, please look at the pictures that I provided coming into this meeting. Because what I will tell you is this, quite simply, if we had come, if my wife had come to look at this house in July with the fireworks stand there, knowing that it was going to be there, 365 days a year, she would have walked away immediately. Immediately. She wouldn't have called me. We would have never bought that house. And since this whole thing has come up, everybody who's come to my house, I've taken them to my backyard or my patio, and I've asked them, if that were commercial enterprise right there, because when I say right there, I mean right there, what would you think about it? To a person, they've all said, I would never buy this house. And my question to you is, would you? If you woke up tomorrow and found out that the property adjacent to you that had been there for however many years you and your family had been in your home had now been rezoned to become commercial, would you be OK with that? And the only reason they could give you that it was rezoned was because, well, it's got to be rezoned, otherwise it won't sell. Is that a reason? Again, we have never purchased a house. You know, I told some folks I was not going to bring this up, but it's been brought up. So I feel like, for personal reasons, I have to address this. I was going to attend the planning meeting on April 30. I did not attend it. I planned to speak, actually, and I did not attend it. The reason I didn't attend it is my 84-year-old mother passed away two hours before that meeting started. She passed away from dementia. And she was living in a memory care unit in Springdale. She'd been up there. She'd been in the memory unit for the previous two years of her life as dementia ravaged her and took her life. I know exactly what it's like. And it troubles me that it could be used to tug at the heartstrings of people to somehow suggest this is a good idea, because it shouldn't be. That's all I've got, pending any questions you have for me. Thank you.

Any questions for the appellate? JP Massengill.

Well, I'd like to start with a question to Mr. Atta, if I can. So if this CUP is approved tonight and the applicant comes back with something much different during the large scale development, what would happen?

If you read the conditions, one of them that says any modification, any changes, it requires another CUP application or an amendment to the existing CUP. So that's one thing. So we just approved back in March something similar to this on Highway 412 where the south of that property was a subdivision and the west of it was a church.

OK. So if we approve the CEP, they come back with something much different.

And they have to reapply and amend or reapply entirely.

OK. Yeah, I heard a lot of concerns about what this might be other than what's actually been presented.

So you still have the chance to add conditions. You can make it either or.

OK. So Matt, the last guy that just spoke, I heard you say quite a bit about a firework stand that was a considerable nuisance to you. And are you telling me you would rather continue to have a firework stand than have a business?

No, please let me clear that up. The firework stand is a nuisance. We hear it. We see it. We live with it every single day. However, let's be clear. We all know that the firework stand is there as a part of the celebration of our great nation. And we know that it's going to be leaving in a few short days, which makes it acceptable to us and to everyone around us. I mean, we know it comes at a certain day of the year and it leaves. On July 5th, then we pack up that tent and things will go away. So yes, it is a nuisance. But again, I'm just using it as an example to you that, any commercial use, and I don't care ABC building and interior decorators, it doesn't matter what it is, it changes the dynamic, as Justin explained it much better than I could, of all the neighborhoods surrounding that piece of property.

Yeah, I'm trying to understand why having a interior decorator business that's probably gonna close at whatever the operating hours are would be a problem, A bigger problem than having.

Have you seen the pictures that I that I that I submitted and if not I'll try to get them resubmitted I mean having having a storage shed. In you know 30 feet behind your backyard where used to be there a residential house or a or a field. It makes a difference to the palatability of your home to you to your family into future potential buyer. So we're talking about any commercial use. And again, back to the other question, we don't know what's gonna be put in there.

Right, what would you propose to be there if not this?

Here's what I, I'm not proposing anything. Again, Justin said this better than I can. I don't have to, I'm not up here to defend it. They're supposed to defend it. What I'm saying is it was zoned for a specific function Why are we changing it? Is the only reason that you can give us you're changing is because that's the only way it'll sell? That's not a justification to rezone this property. I'm sorry.

So is there a use you would be acceptable with other than raw land?

Yeah, a residential house. And I don't accept the fact that that's impossible to do. I don't buy that. Okay. And it's already been stated that a residential house won't perk? Well, then it is what it is. And it's a piece of property that could be sold in whole.

Have you or anybody that you know offered to purchase this property? I'm sorry? Have yourself or anybody that you know that's opposed to this offered to purchase this property and leave it as a bare lot?

I can't answer that. I don't know.

OK. That's all I have.

Any other questions for the appellant?

JP Lemon.

Thank you, Chair. I know we've talked about there's no commercial businesses touching the property, but there's a fire station right up the road. How far? There's a church right up the road. How far? That joins it. And if you go the other way, ain't they a sign shop the other direction? And ain't they a... There's another building down there that they're building that's kind of a... the same type of building that's already been built back toward town. Is that correct? Is it a half a mile? So the fire station will be on the other side of this property to the east of it, is that correct? On 45 Highway?

I'll be nice and say that I helped build the traffic slide we submitted.

uh no there was 0.52 miles first commercial property uh across from vandergrift and i think it's 0.47 miles is where the sign shop rapology you talked about and those buildings i actually that rapology is not the first building there's another one that's soon closer that's right but all that's commercial is that correct those are yes half a mile away so how many commercial business would you say was from 265 to where this is going to be how many commercial businesses are on 45 counting the school counting harps counting the bank counting the tar shop counting i wouldn't i wouldn't count the shopping center at the corner outside the intersection if you if you look and measure along the road there is uh the end of that shopping center ends at mcnair middle school If you're going to count that front lawn of McNair and Vandergriff, if you count that as commercial, it's there. And then there's a neighborhood bank that's down at the next light. But then there's nothing until you go farther down like you were describing. There's no fire station there.

The closest fire station. Nob Hill, is it Nob Hill or Goshen? Goshen's got a fire station on top of the hill.

It's a mile and a half down the road on the right.

Yeah. But that commercial business is further out than what this is already. Is that correct?

Those are much farther out than this, yes. Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions for the appellate? J.P. Koger. Yes, for the appellate, no. Questions for the appellate? No. Okay, any other questions for the appellate? Okay, we'll move on to discussions with the members of the court.

J.P. Koger. Okay, thank you very much. So I went to this property and I think it would be hard for the applicant to find a place that was more incompatible than this place is. So a lot has been said tonight, but I want to focus on this criteria that we're required to consider under our zoning ordinance. Excuse me. And so I want to talk about that and why I think this is not a good thing to do. I don't believe it's compatible with the neighborhood. I don't believe it's in harmony with the neighborhood. I think it will be detrimental to the safety, comfort, and general welfare of the surrounding area. I think it will harm the use and enjoyment of other property in the surrounding area for purposes that are already permitted. I believe it will substantially diminish and impair property values. I just don't see how it couldn't do that. I know if I lived there, I would think that that would be the case. And I also believe that it will impede the normal and orderly development of the surrounding area for uses, again, that are already permitted in that zone when this use is not permitted in that zone. That's all I have, thank you.

Any other discussion? All right, I do. So again, as been stated, the members of this court is required to evaluate the application based on specific criteria, not on the basis of general opposition alone, which is, again, what I have done and what I think others have done. I disagree a bit with my colleague. Compatibility with the surrounding area, I think it is compatible. As been discussed, there's already commercial businesses within a half mile. There's a commercial self-storage facility .35 miles from this land. There is a commercial service firm on Chadwick Drive, which is adjacent to the boundary area. City of Fayetteville's wastewater treatment facility is .4 miles from this parcel. And there's already a flex-based commercial development Washington County Road 349, which is about a half mile away. So there's considerable commercial already in the area. This isn't the first commercial coming into the area. And I believe, given that, it is compatible with that area. As far as traffic safety, again, I think what's been identified by the engineering record documents approximately 30 additional vehicle movements per day over what's there. That's very minimal, modest of what's already there. and I'm sure it's very less than what the fireworks stand produces, why it's there for that limited amount of time. On the site distance and the engineering analysis, they documented that we know highway 45 is 45 miles an hour, and it meets the minimum site distance of 500 feet for left turns, 430 feet for right turns, which is required under AASHTO guidelines. for the Highway 45 access points on Foxhunter Road, which is a posted 25 miles per hour. I personally found the posted sign on that road. It's 280 feet for left turns, 240 feet for right turns. Plus there's a stop sign at the end, which gives you additional management of that traffic. And I'm not seeing anything to contradict any of these engineering analysis challenging those findings. other than simple opinion. I know I heard and I've seen between the emails and watching the planning board meeting on the April meeting, there were concerns about building height and lighting. I think this conditional use permits provides more restricted use of a building being built there through the LDS and the lighting. Realistically, somebody could come in, buy the property, Put a barn six stories high, it's agriculture, it's not even gonna come through the cup process. They can put any lights on that property they want on it. You have no control over it at all. So I could come in and put a hog farm there, put a chicken farm there. Now you're gonna have semi-chicken trucks coming down around Fox Trail on those roads. I think that increases the safety hazard don't think anything this business is coming increases the safety that hazard is already there it doesn't provide any additional safety hazard so conclusion you know based on the criteria we have to i believe the proposed use is compatible with the surrounding area which already includes commercial use within the notification boundary the traffic impact the added traffic impact is minimal and supported by documented engineering analysis that has been provided on the record, the site distances at all access points meets applicable AHHTO standards. The cup conditions imposes enforceable restrictions providing greater protection to the neighbors than what I can go put on there from an agricultural standpoint, quite honestly. And I don't believe the proposal will not endanger the public health and safety or injure neighboring properties enjoyment or impede the orderly development of the surrounding area. Additional discussion, let's see, J.P. Safford.

Thank you, Chair. A couple questions for Sam, or Dr. Atta, sorry. A little similar to the question that J.P. Massengill asked, but different. This is about once the three structures, if this is approved, and the three structures are built, which if it's approved, that's what has to be built, unless it's a CP process. Yeah, it's no doubt.

I mean, the engineer is here. He can also speak to that if you want to.

Well, hang on. I have a different question. Oh, OK. OK. My question is, if it's approved and those three buildings are built, then if they want to change something on the property subsequent to that, that triggers a new CUP process and a new public hearing and a new vote.

Yes, ma'am. It's going to be either applying for an amendment or altogether, and that process has to reset again.

Right, so the idea that once we approve a CUP that they can then subsequently just build anything

is false this is it like abc and that's exactly what they need to build right okay uh another thing uh that came up we have special rules in our code that governs sexually oriented businesses do we not we do have like uh business land use and we have a definition for it and i guess like mr la curvy he mentioned that and we mentioned this like during the planning board so we don't have specifically you can't do this you cannot do this so remember we are not the city of fatal We don't have aggressive planning. We don't have zones for specific use. We either have this or a conditional use.

Oh, OK. Sorry. I thought he was coming to tell you something. But we do have this specifically mentioned in our code.

We do have, let me see. We didn't have specific for like, you mean flex spaces or anything like that?

Restrictions on sexually-oriented businesses. I remember seeing that.

We do have commercial land use. A use that is connected with or further is an ongoing profit-making activity, including but not limited to the use of land for the primary purpose of buying, selling, trading of merchandise or services. office spaces, retail shops, and industrial units. So that's our definition for commercial use.

For commercial use, okay, all right. Thank you. I went and drove around this property and the other property that we just heard a little earlier today, both, and I made some notes on, to me, just driving up Mission Boulevard, I saw little commercial properties dotted through there. There was the Priority Bank at Star Drive, right there at the corner, about .3 miles away. The opposite direction going outbound, To the east, I saw the Rover Oaks Pet Resort about 0.3 miles away. There's a little kind of a shopping strip area right there. Had three businesses in it, Best Friends Animal Hospital, Sensational Skills Therapy, and the Watkins Family Health and Counseling Clinic. I measured that about 0.6 miles away. My husband mentioned that when he was a kid, he took tap dancing lessons there. And that must have been about 50 years ago. So that must have been the 1970s, which I believe would mean that that little shopping center predates all the subdivisions in that area by quite a few years. Then there's some storage units at Oakland Zion Road, about .7 miles away. And then beyond that is Rapology, 1.1 miles. White Lotus Salon, about the same distance. So I counted one, two, three, four, five, six, at least eight businesses within a mile of this location. That's all I gotta say, thank you.

Yeah, the court approved their apology a few years back.

J.P. Pond. Yes, thank you. I just wanted to just kind of make a comment on where I'm at on this. I've got to receive the input of all these individuals who bought homes in these neighborhoods, many of which, or who, they did it with the idea that they were buying a home in an area that was zoned for agri or single family dwelling. Many of them that I've heard from would not have bought that would have not made that purchase for that was going to be there forever home with the idea that in this in this this neighborhood not a mile away not really even a half a mile away this is a neighborhood that was going to be a place a residential area and and Yes, you know, you come up with this notion that, and no farmer would do this, of course. It's zoned agri or single family dwelling. There's no place there that's appropriate for, or would be a good place or a good condition for commercial poultry or commercial hog farm. That's just not a notion that, would be brought up by anyone that's ever been a farmer. And I'm just saying that because that's just not, it's just not feasible. It's not even any kind of way of looking at it. So I will be, I'll be voting no on this, but, I can see, I can see both sides. Thank you. JP Massengill.

So, listening to all the arguments against this, I didn't hear anything about safety. Didn't hear anything about noise, lighting. As far as traffic, it's on a major highway. It looks like they've got multiple points of entry and exit. Don't see any concern with that. The biggest argument is compatibility. Incompatibility doesn't mean that it's not the same as the surrounding properties. It means that it would inhibit the uses that are around it. This, what has been proposed here, I do not see where that would inhibit the enjoyment of the residential properties around it. So I do not see it as being incompatible. Another thing I would like to point out, the CUP that we approved before this was a home-based business. You know, it's getting harder and harder for home-based businesses to expand without having a place to expand. I would say that we need more spaces like this to allow businesses to have places to park equipment and to operate. So I'll be voting yes.

J.P. Dennis. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to take this time to apologize to our county judge into our county attorney because this group we succumb to a political group that came in put a lot of pressure on us and we didn't do our job of zoning we should have completed the zoning we should have been adults about it and said listen everything between on highways between one city and another city if there is any closeness left at all, are going to be subject to commercial growth. And to think it's not is wrong. Everybody says, well, I've lived here this amount of time. I've lived here for 75 years. And in 1962, my father bought a farm halfway between Prairie Grove and Farmington. And the gentleman that sold it to him said, well, son, you know that'll be commercial property one day. No way. no way i'm buying a whole farm and i'm going to live on it and you know and sure enough mr schaefer knew what he was talking about about back in 1962 said all these highways will be commercial now he wasn't he was just a good old farmer but he knew it we know it now all you folks know it too you know that the the land on the highway between one town and another with hundreds of thousands of people on it every day. Commercial people are gonna wanna buy it. The gentleman, and thank you very much for your service, sir. I appreciate you. Your house will be very valuable. You don't recognize it right now, but it will. It will be very valuable being right on the road. And I've seen it happen over and over and over again. And so, you know, It's our fault that y'all are experiencing this because had we done what we should have done last year and created that this was a commercial area and named it as a commercial area, then you would have said, well, I knew it was a commercial area when I bought it. And of course, I'll tell you what happens when we declare something a commercial area, your prices are gonna go way up. They are. Your house will be a bargain. I mean, we'll make you money. It'll make you money. Trust me, I've seen it and you've seen it too if you just look at it. But anyway, I just think we need to apologize to the county judge and the county attorney and Dr. Ada because we had the opportunity to do it and we didn't do it. And so I think that's something we'll have to do in the future. To y'all, I apologize, but I don't want to fight with you about different things, but I will say this. What is the commercial, what is the big gray building just east of that, one up to the next street and you go up the hill? That's the most beautiful area of Fayetteville I think there is. And you see forever in that valley. But when I came back down and when I went up, Big gray building, had three great big commercial garage doors on it. I'm just curious about what it is. I'm not, it's not part of my decision.

JPD, this isn't a conversation. But anyway.

Please finish your statement. Back to the chairman. So sir, thank you very much. At least I got it off my chest. And I think we need to work on it in the year coming. Thank you. J.P. Koger.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. First off, the gentleman's house is not on the road. It's in a residential subdivision. And the place this site is probably from here to where Mr. Sism is sitting is probably where the next house is. I mean, there's a fence there, but it's very close, very close. It's not on the road. And these other commercial things that were mentioned, they're on farther down either way, from what I saw when I went there. And now I have a question for Dr. Atta. What exactly would have to change, say it got passed and then the applicant made a change later, what kind of changes would?

Any change that pertains to the condition and the use.

What about the buildings, like if he wanted, if it turned out there was gonna be a car audio shop there or?

Same idea, so like that's the use is gonna change, but when we approve like flex spaces, remember we approved multiple of them, that would be like number seven maybe or more. So you're approving the business and the building. What's inside it, it might change, but like you're approving the use of the land itself. Thank you. Based on the definition we have. Yeah.

J.P. Ecke.

Thank you for recognizing me. I call the question.

There is no motion on the table. Do you have a motion?

Well, I'd like to make a motion that we end discussion and we approve the conditional use permit for, what is it, number, what was number six?

Fox Lane. Yeah, Fox. Fox Hunter Lane. Fox Hunter Landing. Yeah, thank you.

Fox Hunter Landing Project. And this is on first reading.

oh yeah that's right so you need to actually yeah so we need a reading so let's have the first reading please sir an ordinance ratifying a conditional use permit recommended for approval by the planning board for the fox hunter landing project thank you mr chairman i'd like to suspend the rules and advances to the second reading that was you okay thank you Okay, so we have a motion by J.P. Ecke to suspend the rules and move it to the second reading, seconded by J.P. Dennis. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed? No. That passes.

An ordinance ratifying a conditional use permit recommended for approval by the Planning Board for the Fox Hunter Landing Project.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion that we suspend the rules and advance this to the third and final reading.

So I have a motion by J.P. Ecke to move it to the third and final reading, seconded by J.P. Dennis. All those in favor, say aye. All those opposed? That passes. Third and final reading, please.

An ordinance ratifying a conditional use permit recommended for approval by the planning board for the Fox Hunter Landing Project.

I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman.

I turned off my mic. I'd like to make a motion that we pass the Fox Hunter Landing Project CUP.

So I have a motion by J.P. Ecke to pass the ordinance ratifying the conditional use per minute, recommended for approval by the planning board for the Fox Hunter Landing Project, seconded by J.P. Dennis. Any additional discussion? Citizens comment. Okay, so for citizens comment, line up. If you're opposed, line up to my left. If you're supportive, line up to the right. And then that way we'll just, we'll fund you through, we got 12 minutes, three minutes each, total of 12 minutes.

Okay, so I wanna clear up this. Repeat your name and address, please. Kirby McAllister, 1803 North Hartford Drive. So I wanna clear up this issue of, or question of, when do you have to go back and have the CUP reviewed? So he's gonna put in a storage, two storage buildings, used for storage, right? And he's going to have a interior.

This isn't common, this isn't questionnaires.

And he's gonna have an interior decorator, okay? He's gonna build the buildings. A year from now, the buildings stay the same. Now a vape shop moves in and displaces the interior designer. It doesn't have to go back to a conditional use permit. The buildings are there. The conditional use permit was for commercial uses. Is that okay? So he's not bound to put in an interior designer and two-story buildings. These could be used for anything and everything, commercial uses.

Thank you. For support, no, I'm gonna alternate that way, okay? Thank you.

Good evening again. My name is Cal Tackett. I'm here to speak in support of this project. I feel that communities grow when businesses serve local families. This project makes productive use of the property suited for this development, such as the other properties that are nearby, as all of y'all discussed tonight. Some are more nearby than I think what we even realize. I think the storage facility, a storage facility housing, I mean, I looked at when they had it for sale a few years ago i think it's a couple hundred units right there and it gets a lot of traffic and it does really good and um i know at one point we had two veterinarian clinics down the road i used to live kind of behind one of them in fact part of our property did a join part of that commercial property that was no problem for us um I've always lived in Fayetteville, I've lived here my whole life. My family came over here, I'll keep this short, because I don't enjoy personally seeing the moon tonight, my family's missing me, but since 1959, and we've lived in all areas of Fayetteville, and we love Washington County. We own properties that are some within closer distance to here, I mean, an eighth of a mile from here. Some of those properties have made my family, they're living their whole life, We've always gotten along quite well with the community around us. As my grandma always said, which we're very fortunate to have her, she's actually just celebrated her 74th wedding anniversary with my grandpa, and we're so proud of that. She's very good at real estate, and she often would say when people would have a complaint about a situation like this, because we would move over time. As a kid, I know my parents did as well, and as she accumulated and sold real estate, you can't just complain about it. If you wanna complain about it, then you gotta buy it. And this property, in my opinion, is, I mean, it couldn't be more picture perfect when you take into the account of the other properties that are up the road. And then not to mention, but just really quick, as far as existing, situations within the property. These people have been there since the 70s. I've not asked my family, but I'm sure we probably know them as well. And long before any of these subdivisions were there, which I respect, and these subdivisions are probably superior to the subdivisions that I lived in a half mile down the road. I don't know. But we still had the commercial properties next to us, and we had probably density-wise just the same. So I'm not seeing the difference here. I believe this type of thoughtful growth strengthens a community, supporting small businesses, creating jobs, expanding services, and following a careful planning process that has already carefully been reviewed and approved. It also respects property owners who have invested in our community and met established standards. When a project provides public benefit, it deserves our support. Thank y'all very much for your time and service. to our community and I appreciate you all staying here so late to hear this tonight. Thank you. Thank you.

My name is Deborah McLeod and I am a resident at 3918 East Caston Drive. I've lived in that house for the last six years. I moved down here from Kansas City and brought my mother who is now 89 years old and probably needs memory care. but she lives in the house with me. I'm a retired nurse of 40 years, and I would like to address the statement you made earlier about the you heard no safety issues. I'm here to tell you I'm a grandparent of two boys, one of which that went to Vandergrift for the last five years. And I used to work in the emergency room, and I can tell you I've seen multiple accidents at that crossover going across East Mission off of Box Hunter into Covington. The buses trying to turn out of there at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. There is major traffic. but that is really not my biggest complaint about the traffic. I think that the property values I worked for, 60 years to be able to afford to buy the house that I live in now. And I could sell it tomorrow and put my mom in memory care, but I've chosen to stay in that house and take care of her and keep her there. And it makes me very sad to hear that you all have made these decisions without looking at all of the people that live in this neighborhood. And Ms. Cogar, i thank you very much for your response to us excuse me only address the child please i i thank miss coger for her response i appreciate that um i also you know want to say that the front of our the entrance of our um barrington park is right up fox hunter and if you ever have done a site visit and driven in that way you'd see the beautiful area that they've created and honestly those of us that use that probably will never use it again we'll probably end up having because of the traffic issues to go into the other way to get into the subdivision and i just really wish you guys would take a step back and think about all the things that have been said tonight before you give your vote and i thank you for your time thank you in support

Hey, good evening. My name is Mark Moore. I live at 928 Shrewsbury. It's also on the east side of town there. I'm speaking tonight in support of the development. While I deeply respect our neighbors' desire to preserve the current character of this area, I believe we must also respect the rights of property owners. Land ownership comes with The reasonable expectation to develop and use one's property in a way that is safe, responsible, and compliant with extensive array of requirements and guidelines. Indefinitely restricting this parcel from any low impact commercial use despite its location at a state highway intersection places an unfair burden on the current landowner. The Planning Board has already recognized that this specific proposal strikes a fair balance. That balance honors the owner's property rights while placing strict protective limits on operations to ensure we remain good neighbors. I believe we must also remember this approval does not grant a blank check. It comes with strict operational limits and mandatory future approvals from the Arkansas Department of Health and a large scale development review. Previously, the planning board thoroughly vetted these facts and voted unanimously, five to zero, in favor. I respectfully ask this quorum court to trust that rigorous process, honor the balance that has been struck, and uphold the planning board's decision. And I thank you.

DAVID BURRAGE. Thank you. Shelby Heffern, live at 1857 North Barrington Drive. The one thing that I want to make sure that everybody understands on the quorum court and the chair understands the biggest concern is the use. Everybody, the Army was kind enough to PCS me to my address in Barrington Drive 18 years ago. You can't live in Northwest Arkansas, Benton or Washington County, either one, and not see growth and development, to your point. the growth and development is the use of the property. I'm not that terribly opposed to even it being commercial. Now my neighbors are gonna choke me for saying that. My issue is the use, the descriptive use, so that I see it's somewhat of a foregone conclusion with this body, potentially from a vote standpoint, but the thing I will charge you with is follow that. We all have jobs and work. We don't have time to chase this around all the time. Following the process, the process was not followed. We studied the process. We got plenty of attorneys in the neighborhood. It was not followed truly. So we're going to grant this. It's going to go. Our concern is the use. I don't even care that much about the building. It's the use. We don't want, I don't think it's going to be a dentist or a hairdresser, things like that. That might be welcome, to your point about commercial growth. The challenge is, is it ought to be a vape shop or a sex shop or whatever else we want to put in there. There are things like that that you can't, that's the charge I ask of this body when they come back and they want to amend or they want to do a new CUP. Will you be sitting in these chairs? Will we have the energy to do this again? I don't know.

Thank you.

We're down to minute 43 total time left. So I have a motion to suspend the rules and extend the citizen comment time for an additional 15 minutes. I have it by JP Pond, seconded by JP Koger. All those in favor, say aye. All those opposed. So all those in favor, raise your hand. For those in favor of suspending the rules, and 15 more minutes, raise your hand.

All those opposed.

That requires two thirds vote, so that fails. Ma'am, you have a minute 43.

I'm Ray Lynn Hillhouse. I'm a resident of Barrington Park. I'm also an attorney. I've studied what the CUP would entail compared to the ordinance because of how it's written. It really can be anything and everything. There's nothing to make the, as Dr. Atta confirmed, there's nothing to make them come back to this process if they do the change of use within these 13,200 square feet of building that's within a half mile where there is no commercial use. That means we could be facing dominoes. We could be seeing any type of wholesale use. It could be a distributor. There could be a micro data center because even those could fit into this size of building. The ordinance contemplates looking at a use, making sure is that compatible because this use runs with the land. It's going to go on for our children, for our children's children. until someone changes it. So this can become everything. We have no problem with development there, but we want to know what it is. And if what it is that you're approving is a designer, is someone's self-storage for their own equipment and their builder friend, write that into the CPU. CUP tonight, restrict him to exactly what he said he would do. The purpose of the CUP ordinances are to protect the neighborhoods. Those are at least something that could be evaluated, 12 people, but these other possibilities could lead to hundreds of traffic and cars. You have a Domino's in there, you have a Subway sandwich, you get all the turning traffic. We already have the turning traffic there we are face on with covington park which is turning again in and out it's very dangerous as several people have testified and sure many more would testify if they were allowed and if this body wanted to hear all right your time is up ma'am thank you thank you so that's time is up for citizens comment thank you everybody for your comments and your participation

Excuse me, we spent an hour and 45 minutes talking about violin lessons and now you had multiple neighbors lined up to oppose this and they didn't get a chance to speak. There were, I believe, 100 some odd emails that referenced noise.

Ma'am, you're out of order. We did it through the correct process. There was a motion to extend time that failed. The process is three minutes per person for a total of 12 minutes. We've ended the 12 minutes, we have the in-citizens comment. So I have a motion on the floor by J.P. Ecke to pass the ordinance ratifying the conditional use permit recommended for approval by the Planning Board for the Foxhunter Landing Project. Seconded by J.P. Dennis. Ma'am, we are conducting business here. If you cannot conduct business, please leave. So I have a motion to pass an awareness ratifying the conditional use permit recommended for the approval by the Planning Board for the Foxhunter Landing Project by J.P. Ecke, seconded by J.P. Dennis. Mr. Allen, please call roll.

Justice Massengill? Yes. Yes. Justice Lyons? Yes, sir. Yes. Justice Ecke? Yes. Yes. Justice Dean? Yes. Yes. Justice Washington? No. No. Justice Koger? No. No. Justice Dennis? Yes. Justice Hiers? Yes. Justice Rios-Stafford? Yes. Justice Lemming? Yes. Justice Pond? No. Justice Wilson? Yes.

That passes. That ends our meeting tonight. We are adjourned.

Thank you.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.