July 20 work-session transcript

I'd like to call to order the work session

of the Planning Commission of Pea Ridge Board

and Board of Adjustment for July

20th, 2026.

Roll call. Rooney.

Yes. Sherman. Here.

Wilhelm. Absent.

Wendell. Yes. Stokes.

Yes. Harris. Yes. Mariela.

Yes. Are there any

announcements?

I do not have any now. Okay, thank you.

We'll move to

discussion on

old business.

This is a

work session only. This is not

for public comment. Public

comments will be held on the

Planning Commission meeting of August

4th.

We will open it up to old

business on the village at City Park.

Can we have some

representation from the developer?

Jason Eagles,

Expedient Civil Engineering, 9200

to Distribe.

I gave each and every Planning

Commissioner a little handout before

the meeting started.

If you have any questions.

We did revise it. We're no longer

looking at townhomes.

We also

are keeping that commercial

100 feet from that north

property line of Tyler Estates.

The west

commercial building, which is where the townhomes

usually were before, is now

a two-story commercial.

Commercial first floor with apartments above.

The east commercial

building is three stories.

First story commercial,

two stories of apartments above.

There's also

an elevation of what an example

of what that building may look like.

Could you state that

again, you're saying?

With the original

proposal, we had townhomes

in the mix.

Hold on a second.

Can you give us?

I think it's the

bluish colored area.

Now that's a

two-story, mixed-use

first floor commercial

second floor.

You can see the green space that we've put to the south

of it as well to help screen the neighbors.

What's on that corner? Is it a residential?

It is. We did add

a residential lot there. That's one of the

terraced houses that will face

the street on the corner. Did you have a change

in the total number of units?

I believe

the density went down to seven. It was like

7.15 before.

It's a reduction. So it was slightly.

It's a slight reduction in the density.

Yeah. And I noticed that on the right side, there isn't any road access

connecting to the park, correct?

So that's.

Well, there's not currently an access point there.

There could be in the future.

That's why we kind of somewhat designed it that way.

But mainly it's for the entrance into the commercial.

That pink spot, pink shaded area.

Is that what you're talking about, Adam?

The pink shaded area?

Well, no, just there aren't any of the roads.

Oh, that's clear.

To the north of it.

Yeah. So if that property were to ever sell,

and they wanted to do something with it,

then it would connect there.

But currently, as it looks like with the park

in the northwest corner at that kind of dirt patch

where that gravel pile used to be, there isn't any.

So no one could drive and go onto the property from the park.

That is correct.

Well, I don't know if we'll have a fence there or something to discourage.

It's only pedestrian traffic by foot traffic that we're trying to encourage

between the two developments, the park and the development.

That does make the connectivity.

That we ask for by putting that stub out on the next property over.

So what a lot of developments will do is they'll put a road in sign,

you know, with reflective tape on it when we do stub outs like that.

Can we bring up the address line as an entrance access plan?

What did you say?

Well, I don't know if he's got that.

I don't know if I emailed that to King, and I prepared that today.

Okay.

To walk you through it.

Basically, there's three exits from it.

Now, how be it the north one is an extremely long route and probably on a dirt road,

it does ultimately end out back on 294 if you follow through,

which would be Easterling Road north and then to the other roads.

Then you have Hickman Drive that's an exit and then obviously the one

that no one wants traffic to would be Hayden Road.

Are you accommodating a full pave on Easterling?

Is that what that's showing?

No.

No.

Do you want to?

That's a full pave.

I don't think so.

No.

I mean, just in the lane.

Adjacent to our development, we'll have to pave that, of course, but yeah.

You're doing full width?

Yes.

Okay.

You are doing full width?

That would be the trade off in lieu of, and Keegan can correct me if I'm wrong,

with other developments we've done with other cities, rather in lieu of doing a half street

with curb and gutter and sidewalk, what we propose is a 26 foot wide paved street,

no curb and gutter, ditches.

Okay.

Possibly sidewalk on one side that faces the outskirts.

We have found that to be, when you're dealing with a dirt road, it's best to have a full

width pavement rather than half of the street be paved and the other half dirt.

The center line never lines up right and you'll have issues with drainage and then obviously

a bump for traffic as well.

What he's proposing, it's still the similar cost to what a full half street improvement

would be, but we're getting a full width of pavement section and then additional sidewalk

if needed to meet the same cost.

And then further on down the line, if future development on other parcels nearby occurs,

that person would go in and instead of doing a half street improvement would do curb and

gutter, storm water for their half, so to speak.

It looks like you have three light poles there, is that what I'm seeing?

I believe so.

Yeah.

You know, I don't have that really in front of me.

I think I picked this up.

You have a bigger picture because I'm sure I can't see straight on this one.

Yeah.

That size, you can't see that.

Obviously there would be lights at the intersections with easterly and then whatever the requirement

interval is throughout the development.

I don't know if it's 200 or 250.

I think prior you had 35 feet as the elevation on these townhomes, is that the max height?

It was.

The commercial building would meet the same condition.

It wouldn't exceed 35 feet.

Sorry.

It's only going to be two stories, the west commercial building.

Carolyn, I've recreated the drawing.

Oh, bless you.

If you wanted to ask any questions about it.

Do you want to walk us through the plans?

Sure.

Here you go.

Actually, I've got it right in front of me here, so that may be a little closer for

me.

So there's eight residential lots that would face easterly with rear loading garages, so

only the front porches would face easterly with a rear loading garage and an alley.

On the north end of the site is comprised of your normal traditional single family lots,

although the houses wouldn't be traditional as I think they're looking more for a craftsman

style house, even on the north lots.

Jason, if you wouldn't mind leaning in my chair a little bit.

Sure.

Let me pull it closer.

I'd say get a hold of it and talk to it.

Yeah.

Like feel like a preacher?

Yes.

Just don't scream?

Yeah.

Let's do that.

You bet.

So the north lots would be more traditional lot sizes, but the only difference there is

those are also

Reloading garages, so everything in here in the development is reloading garages to an alley

and then of course we had the retention size detention pond with the

agricultural

farm to the east and southeast of that

greenhouses and a caretakers house for the farm and also the to maintain the grounds for the rest of the housing a

lot of the in in south of those

Orange colored lots would be the lighter tan lots. That's what we're calling

Terraced housing. They're really skinny lots

multi-story

with

Not much green space

The only thing is those lots

Traditionally those you would have a house that would face the city street right away in this case

We're not going to do a street. We're only going to have the loading rear access

to meet fire code of course

But the front would only contain

Sidewalks it would be a usable green space

So the backyard essentially becomes the front yard to encourage

Family members with other houses not necessarily to be your own space, but to share it with other folks that live in the neighborhood

It's kind of a unique concept

but it discourages

Speeding traffic so safety

It would help with safety because you don't have cars running down the front of the lot where the kids are at

The alleys are in the rear of the lot

where the garages are

Kids are more than likely going to play in that green space than the asphalt Street

One it's not as wide of a space

to its asphalt

So I mean that's our thinking behind it

So that's the Terrace housing east of the Terrace housing the blue shaded building would be the two-story mixed-use

With the first floor is commercial the second floor is the apartments east of that is the

commercial building that is planned to be three stories

We say three stories though. It's going to be two stories with a pitched roof

That's pretty steep with normal windows that third story would be kind of in the attic if that makes sense

So the elevation I handed out this evening kind of which shows a two-story building

What we may change in that is we may try to put a third floor up in that attic and increase the pitch of the roof

There is parking located

Along the commercial areas as well as north east well

Street, we've got some parallel parking along there as well

Where it says picnic table just north of the commercial

There's a street that runs east and west from East rolling over to the city park. The way we were talking about is

There's parking on both sides of that road

Parallel parking. I see

So the alleys are essentially fire lanes. There's no parking within the alley. Correct. We'll have to mark those as such

and that people will park in a garage

Yes, ma'am

There could be some of them there too. I know the lots are for the houses are very small

We could possibly fit it two-car garage

Okay, so they're all two-car grudges what the developers are telling

To park

in the alley

On the parking, okay, correct. We've got sidewalks planned

Oh, shh

you're seeing some of the tree layout. Of course this is very preliminary. We're

just trying to get you to look at the spacing of those trees and see how we're

going to landscape this thing out. How much green space is between the houses

on the south side and the back of curb? There's only one back of curb. That would be

the very southeast west street. Is that what you're talking about? I'm talking about the

street that runs along the south end of the proposal. I believe it's six feet but I

would have to confirm. It may be on my narrative. Do you know what kind of trees

would be proposed there? I mean I think it would be best to have like a some sort

of living fence that would you know provide you know. Morgan if you could get your

mic down. Sorry. Sorry. Block the visual of it from those houses back there. So you're

referring to the trees? Yes.

The trees along the south property line? Right. Like green giants or American

hollies or something similar. Yeah like a three degree giant. Something that

provide a visual screen. And then I was wondering if that street on the south

end is that two-way or is that a one-way street? It's two-way. The alleys are one way but

it's two. Well we've made it 26 feet wide but we're trying to encourage one way just

because of that opposite intersection there.

That's what I was looking at. That would be a very inefficient intersection with being

staggered like that. Unless we just make it an entrance only it would work well. Based

on the parking behind the commercial building or in front that appears to be one way. Yeah.

I believe that was our intent. The south half is all one way with circulation in a clockwise

manner. The alley is all going north.

The area north that north half is two-way except for the alleys. Did you mean counterclockwise

or because you can go on the south street? You're correct. Okay. Counterclockwise. And

then regarding the city park off to the east are there any plans for bollards or anything

to because I know you know you'd probably have issues with people jumping that curb.

I guess there's a right-of-way curb there that's right there along the edge of the alley.

I think that's the development.

Keegan do you have the master plan? I don't even know if you can share that yet for the park improvements.

Oh I do not have that. You don't have it? I can't remember if that had curbing on it.

They have curbing of course but there is a fence there now. I think it's barbed wire.

I don't know what your intent is to keep it or take it down.

There would be some type of block from allowing the cars to drive through there.

Yeah.

And what that is would be determined before obviously we finish this out. But there would

need to be. It wouldn't be optional to just leave it grass where they could drive over.

Sure.

So that would be a requirement. I'm sure you guys understand that. I mean since we don't

have anything more than just this concept plan to work on I'm not surprised that you

don't have anything that's exact but that would be a requirement because we really wanted

it to be where people can't as he said drive over the curb and into the park.

Right. Put a condition or something on the PZD or. But ultimately we would design it

with the preliminary plat where I would approach it but.

Right.

Because this is the zoning.

Correct.

But.

That's why I said I'm not surprised that that's not on this because it's not the preliminary

plat it's the zoning.

Yeah.

I'm just curious looking at the plan. What's the intention for.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What's the intention for how the HVAC would be handled? Would that be ground level, elevated?

What's the plan?

I believe it's going to be all electric units. Is that correct? You're not doing gas. So

I don't know if you heard him. So ICF is the styrofoam forms. That's what these, what all

these homes will be made of. So really high efficient. And they'll face the outside of

that of course. But he said they'll be split units. If some of you are familiar with the

split units.

So many splits.

Yeah.

Many splits.

Okay.

Basically same thing that a hotel uses. It's a form of a mini split.

On the southern facing lots right along that road. Is there any thought or accommodation

to.

not have windows on that facing on that face he's discussed transit windows so like clear story

or when you're saying like you want to go up to the mic so we can get it on the recording

transom windows are set high so the bottom of the window say is six feet from the floor

the windows up above to let light in the house but nobody can look out yeah thank you and that's

just with and on that model you think or is that throughout is that just on those southern models

along the southern line or is it okay well we would do that on one side so the house is on the

property thank you it's pretty much all the terraced housing south side of those houses

without that how far is um the southern most houses from the exact property line

um

which is on the north side of that development of the existing development how many feet can you

tell me so the road is um the road right away is 40 and i believe that's a six foot green space so

i'm going to say it's 46 feet i believe the city has plans uh long term to put a greenway or a

shared use path along hickman um is there i mean it doesn't look like that would there's any

pedestrian connection from um

that intersection over there on the southwest corner uh over to city park you mean over here

right i mean i didn't know if that road on the 10 foot fit in there very well yeah i don't know

if that road there you know if it's going to be one way you know if it's i think you said 26 feet

wide i think that's that could be reduced quite a bit um it would also keep the road further away

from the neighborhood to south well the one thing the reason why it's

26 feet is we will have have hydrants and the fire chief if he's here he could probably attest to that

when you do a fire hydrant the road has to be 26 feet wide now the entire road doesn't necessarily

need to be but where the hydrant is because where they hook onto that sometimes they need that extra

space to operate that hydrant john have you looked at that i can't see john but i know he's here

okay so john's not the fire chief

but he is the guy that looks at this we would still require two-way down there where the parking

is on the south southeast corner as they were saying the entrance into the parking for the

commercial building yes but if we make that runway we're going to have to make sure we have a do not

enter sign turn right turn home way some signage will need to be past that in addition we have the

bike path going through there for park access that's another reason we wanted it wide yeah

thank you i'm assuming that bike path would end up being a striped uh line josh johnson that would

be correct it would have to be shared with the roadways but painted to mark the whole lane so

we have probably two bike lanes going east west through the subdivision okay thank you that would

effectively shrink it down with the strapping to a one-way lane it also encourages slower traffic

a lot of cities are doing narrower roads because it they found out that there's traffic coming and

keeping it wide correct so just for my own knowledge it's okay to have a bike path that

goes both ways on a one-way street okay the speed limit there would have to be less than 25 miles

per hour and the traffic density the number of cars on the street would be so small that

you could have a shared use bike lane on there in both directions and that 26th lane is plenty of

room for it

keegan do you know if there are any uh concerns or issues with uh sewer capacity or water capacity

within the city i assume this is on sewer right i mean yeah yeah i'll mike you can correct me if

i'm wrong with anything i say however um we are working on the upgrades to the eastern lane lift

station which should open up some more capacity so this would go right to the plant in my understanding

there's capacity to handle yeah obviously we would have to run the numbers but i'm quite sure there's

capacity that won't gravity flow mike right it'll have to have a pump okay we're looking to put that

near the detention retention slash detention pond i mean it's pretty close to the sewer plant so

i wouldn't think it'd be that big of a deal yeah and i guess i'll ask this would that

i'm going to ask this a mic would that be at the owner's expense to put that line to the sewer plant

okay correct i understand okay i know last time i mentioned the uh the retention pond

and i had some concerns about maybe the size was too small um there's i mean i assume there's been

no engineering design done on any of this yet just preliminary numbers only okay yeah we'll

firm it up but i can get you a more firmer answer before august 4th to confirm the volume

let me ask you about the commercial aspect of this so you've got this uh farmer's residence and

market piece um but that is localized only if i think that's the intent this is not for

distribution or is it ted peterson answer that okay uh ted peterson two three one three ebb and

lane um the farm will be a serve as an aggregation and distribution point um so we will be growing uh

an extension with greenhouses and so forth and selling fresh product into the marketplace and

working with other regional farmers um so it this won't be exclusive to the neighborhood if that was

what you were asking but yeah and i guess the one i'm driving out here is aside from

the residential aspect residential cars and stuff like we talked about um there's going to

be commercial activity there's going to commercial vehicles box trucks and whatnot distribution and

bring in

supplies in for these stores and these commercial properties so

how would that be handled you know because you know we have this one one way

you know counterclockwise aspect we're talking about um how would that be handled because you

know the timing of deliveries and stuff when you know how would you control that um because that

could be a disturbance you know to neighboring properties i would think we would likely put a

drop location in in next to one of the parking lots that are behind the three-story commercial

where somebody could like a box truck could park with a lift gate

drop things off and then we roll it into the building with uh pallet jacks um you know we've

i've seen it done many times a lot of cities do it you know you go to downtown rogers and you see

Cisco truck parked in the middle of the street you know so it's it's kind of

just a nature of the beast in some ways but we will do the best we can to

mitigate that certainly you know as we're going through design now is the

time to make sure we can execute that yeah I mean expectation in neighborhoods

is garbage trucks you get those at random times right you know you can kind

of schedule when you or there seems to be a pattern developed you know and I

just you know if it's unexpected and random that can be I don't I don't know

why it would be unexpected or random well somebody runs out of stock and they

need a delivery for material or for whatever they're selling sure next thing

you know that truck is you're riding it if you're 530 the morning 6 o'clock the

morning whatever it is you know and I'm just trying to understand if there's a

plan to kind of mitigate that yeah I mean I think you could mitigate that by

connecting the truck to the garage and then you know you know if you're

controlling your deliveries to bed morning but the traffic from the

subdivision they're going to work so you're in an off-peak even if it was a

situation where they ran out of product to wait a couple hours to three hours

for that product to be delivered this is only just to keep kind of a

proportionality this this is a little over an acre of agricultural so it's not

a huge operation so I don't see a truck every day coming through there no I

understand that on the agricultural aspect but there's also other commercial

in the blue and the red and the blue and the red and the blue and the red and the

red buildings so you know from my perspective you know do do they need to

follow that one-way pattern or is it just the commercial entrance is in the

center and then they have to try to figure something out there well yeah

because of the one-way aspect of it so it's just some consideration on that that

back parking lot to the east of that pink building there yeah but the only

thing I know about is open side buildings but also all those next to the

there yeah you know somebody could come in and we could have a loading station

in that parking lot okay right and then they could exit exit out the same okay

that makes sense I mean you could also you could do many things to control

things you could you know this business this week your deliveries are this day

this week to deliveries or this day there is an on-site person that's going

to be there who can help watch and monitor that but I'm just yeah that's

not a box there's ways to control things yeah it just needs to be written

down that's why we have these work sessions you understand that and see if

you know make sense I realize with this being so preliminary we're not having an

actual what we consider a preliminary plan the information is limited for some

of what we would be asking on a regular preliminary plan such as the fire

department stuff like that well they'll talk about

setbacks

for housing and those type of things so I know this a lot of the questions that

I've asked it would have to do with stuff that would come up on the

plumber's flat so until we see that it's hard to ask a lot of really specific

questions this is a broad overview there is each planning area has specifics

nailed down in the narrative that defines your block and area requirements

as required for a PZD

right you know what are your setbacks going to be for your development and in

your trade-offs you have to provide 20% because where we're three acres of

developments we get a 20% green space that's in the PZD dock but we can I mean

if it helps you before the next meeting I can put together a colored map that

kind of shows a typical with this block here's your setbacks in your max hive

and your floor area ratio the FAR they call it and do each block like that and

there's about three blocks of your property or there's a total of your

total do you have any idea what that would

be so I'm sure if we haven't you can put that a little in there and we can

dig into that what is it what do you think would be your setbacks as far as

how does that work for your site so that way is always under your research

for it so I'm not just going to go through the whole process and talk to

people I'm just going to throw you have to understand how you're going to manage

your site for that purpose and what you're going to do is you're going to

prioritize what you're going to do here so I'm going to call out a few of the

I don't think it's that big, no.

Okay.

It's the property across.

I can actually tell you.

It's a property across from the J.C. Beaver Dairy Farm.

It's on the north side of Leetown Road that's been being managed.

It was approved last year.

It's just now starting construction.

It's got heavy dirt work.

If you go out there, you'll see a ginormous dirt pile and a bunch of concrete culverts that are out there.

That's the one.

You won't miss it if you drive down Leetown.

Gotcha.

That is a PZD that's actively being managed in Pea Ridge.

Robert, you remember?

You're right.

I'm sure you remember.

Karen, it was 68 acres.

Yeah, I was thinking it was 68.

Well, that's large.

So that's in comparison to a 10-acre PZD.

The management on that 68 acres is huge, and it's a lot of work.

So these might be questions that you don't have the answer to, Keegan, but I'm going to ask them anyway.

We know that Hickman is on the—

It's on the schedule for impact fees to be upgraded?

Yes.

Do we have a timeline at all on that at this point?

No, because it depends on—the funding depends on the development occurring adjacent to Hickman.

So this whole half of Hickman all the way out to 94 is undeveloped.

The north half or the—are you talking east and west half?

The north half and then the west side of the south half.

Okay.

Those—these properties would also contribute impact fees to Hickman Improvement.

So it's really dependent on property in the vicinity developing.

Okay, so since we said that, we do know that we've—we actually have seen plans on Alex Ho's property.

It's been put on hold for some time.

That's on the south side.

Yeah.

On the north side, if that never develops out, which it's a big farm and it may not, how does that—

the city get past that on these—development of those roads?

Is that one side's not going to become a subdivision?

I mean, we can always do interim improvements.

You know, we've talked about the half-street improvement with this development of doing a full-width pavement section.

But without curb and gutter, that's something that we could explore for Hickman as well.

It would be a lower-cost option.

Or we would look at other revenue sources.

It could either—it could be—

something that comes out of a general fund.

It could be something that gets budgeted for out of the street fund.

But it would be something—those things would require council approval because that's putting money towards specific items.

Okay.

Is there a reason why there were no improvements on Hickman when Arlington and Wellington were built?

Is it—are they only required—I don't know, just—

So when Arlington was built, the—

the code requirement was that you had to pave to your entrance to the subdivision,

which that got abused a lot through development, not just Arlington but others in town,

where, like, you can see that Arlington didn't put an entrance onto Hickman,

so therefore they didn't have to do any improvement.

Since then, Hickman's been added, and so moving forward, I know this portion of—

Wellington is under construction, so those impact fees are collected with each permit—building permit that gets submitted.

So on the Wellington, the reason that it didn't have to do that is because it was on the impact fee list,

and when it's on the impact fee list, it no longer can be—we cannot collect payment in fee of—or in lieu of construction.

Or make them do the construction, yeah.

Right, because it's on the impact fee list.

Okay.

The other side did not put any connection back there.

Yep.

That was—that was built.

That was built under a different set of—

Different set of rules.

Yeah.

No, our development would not—I don't think it would take an impact.

We've got—

Most likely, I mean, if this were to approve, then we could proceed with a preliminary plot.

We're looking at three months approval for a preliminary plot.

Maybe less, I don't know.

Maybe more, you don't know either.

I don't know.

And then you've got six to nine months of civil infrastructure improvement,

and then we have to come back with a final plot, come through the board again,

before we can even sell lots to get mortgages to build each lot.

And then it takes six months, typically, to build each house.

Now, you could build multiple at a time, but if these developers here plan on developing all of them,

they're not going to do all 40 of them at once, or 47.

So the likelihood of this occurring and it being an impact traffic-wise at full build-out is probably three years.

And that's just my best estimate.

So you're doing a pre-sale? Is that what you said?

No, no, no.

A pre-sale of the lots? No.

No, no.

The developers are going to build each home.

We still have to go through all the pre-sales.

Procedures to put in the civil infrastructure, the roads, the utilities, come back with a final plot.

Typically, a bank will loan until that lot's actually official with the county records

before they can get a mortgage on that lot to get a construction loan to build each one.

So let's say it is three years.

I know we don't have a technical timeline for Hickman.

Do we think three years is within a range of when we would expect that to get paved,

or can we just not even speculate on that?

I really can't speculate because it is dependent on the actions of others.

Yeah.

My guess is if that isn't paved, no one from the neighborhoods can be taken Hickman and then going south.

They'll continue down on to Chapman.

Does this meet our long-range plan?

Yes.

I would say so.

This is mixed-use neighborhood.

This is land use for this property.

And that calls for a mix of residential uses.

And then also some smaller-scale commercial.

So especially on something of this size, it's pretty unusual to see something offer that kind of variety on roughly 10 acres.

It's usually something we'd see more often on a 40-acre or larger.

But as described, as adopted through our future land use map,

it's not.

It's not.

It's not.

Let's check in the boxes for all three of the things we're looking for, which would

be, or two of things, a mix of residential uses and some commercial as well.

Can you speak to the things that we look for around city parks?

What kind of things that we do?

I mean, I know we want to drive, obviously.

Yeah.

Use of the parks.

So can you speak to those things?

So what we want to do?

As far as driving people to the park, to be able to use it.

I don't mean driving by car.

I mean, bring people to the parks to work, to use them.

Yeah.

Some of you may remember when we adopted the new future land use map last year.

One of the things that we intentionally did was increase density around city parks and

schools to allow more people access, easy access to those.

We're talking about success of the city parks.

It often comes down to how many people use it, how many people are patronizing it, and

the more people we get close to parks, the more people have very good access to the park

to be able to use it.

It's not a guarantee that they will, but it becomes an embedded community asset for a

lot more people than had it been, you know, like a state style residential development

out here.

I received a few emails from concerned residents.

Oh, go ahead.

If I may really quickly, the Pea Ridge Open Space and Parks Master Plan speaks to what

Keegan was just saying, and it says under action items, encourage the enhancement and

development of parks to co-locate with neighborhood scale, commercial, and retail spaces.

I received a few emails from residents, and one of the common themes outside of the road

infrastructure, obviously, was...

I mean, is there potential for any of this to be low-income housing?

It could be.

Even through a PZD, though, the city cannot restrict property from being low-income housing.

That would violate the Fair Housing Act.

There's been several Supreme Court cases about that, so unfortunately, if somebody wanted

to put low-income housing in here or purchase any of these homes and convert it to low-income

housing...

There's no authority to restrict that.

That would apply regardless of what was developed here?

Correct.

That could happen in any existing neighborhood in Pea Ridge today.

I will add, ICF is not a cheap undertaking, so if a person were looking at doing low-income

housing, it would cost them.

I don't understand what you just said.

ICF is the...

They're concrete walls.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

It's expensive.

Concrete's $170 cubic yard.

I didn't know you were speaking to the...

Yeah.

But I understand now what you're saying.

Yeah.

And this is more of a general question, but if this, or anywhere in Pea Ridge generally,

was developed into apartments, what's the requirements between apartments and single-family

homes, like a buffer between those two?

I know we have commercial and residential, but I'm thinking of the Benton apartments,

across from Walmart, behind Wendy's.

There's a neighborhood behind those apartments, and there's nothing but a wood fence between

the two.

So do we have anything that would, in our codes, that would require any sort of buffer

there?

Or is the Benton built before those were adopted?

The apartments were zoned first, and then the neighborhood located next to them.

Even so, to answer your question, not specific to the Benton, because I know that wasn't...

Benton, because I know that was a different circumstance, but we do have the residential

compatibility standards that, for any property that has a zoning of, I think it's R2, R1,

RE, and AG, I think AG is included in that, it would double, potentially double the setback,

at a minimum, one and a half times the setback, and then it gives the Planning Commission

some discretion to state it.

If anything, at a minimum, a privacy fence, six-foot privacy fence is required, but Planning

Commission has some discretion to determine if anything beyond that would be appropriate.

Of course, in our case, we're mainly single-family.

The commercial's in the southeast corner, and we're keeping that 100-foot from the property

lines.

And you had mentioned earlier, you said about seven units per acre, so that would be 70,

roughly, right?

Well, no, because an acre of that is taken out for...

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Okay.

There's another way you could say that.

At least, that's what the state has to do, is take that 50 square feet, the grid space

requirement, which is the park and the detention pond.

So, basically, nine times seven would be 60.

63.

I believe that Benton has 150 units on seven acres.

There's no livestock?

This is just...

Correct.

So in the narrative, we've even nailed that down, which basically, that's like a contract

that's saying, we can't change that without becoming back before this board.

So, when we say it's only going to be food-driven, that's all we can grow there.

We can't do anything else.

So, we've got a lot of land for that.

a contract that's saying this is we can't change that without becoming back before this board so

when we say it's only going to be food driven that's all we can grow there we can't do anything

else no animals well animals are foods that to some people true statement no chickens

In first. Sorry.

Yep.

Any other questions?

Anybody else have any questions on this?

Don't end it yet. I'm thinking.

Okay.

Sorry. My brain's old.

I know I have another question. I'm just trying.

Somebody else ask a question. Give my brain time to think.

So let me clarify. On the south portion, there's already a fence around that neighborhood.

There is.

And then you're adding another fence on that strip on the south of your, behind the curb on the south of that roadway, or no?

If there's any of those backyards, there may be one or two of those backyards that does not have a fence.

I think most of them don't, actually.

So I think we would have to add the fence plus the trees.

Okay.

To screen it.

Okay.

Question came back here. I'll be you. I trigger anything.

It was a general question.

Are you going to have an HOA?

Yes.

What did you say?

HOA.

Oh, an HOA.

Homeowners Association.

Will you be in charge of the HOA, Ted?

Will it ever be not you in charge of it? Will it ever be driven by the people that live there?

And for what it's worth, I went to the third floor of the Benton and specifically stood on the rail and looked to see how well I could see the backyards and the homes in Fox Spur.

From the top of the fence, it kind of went to, I guess, the bottom.

The bottom of the back door is about what I could see when I looked through that, and there will be about 50% more space with this commercial building compared to that.

So it would be even more difficult than the Benton to be able to see down into the backyards.

For what that's worth.

Yeah, I think I made the comparison when I counted the tiles at the last commission that this room is roughly 60 feet long, so it would be another 40 feet.

That's the distance from the south property line to that first commercial building.

So my question came back.

Okay.

It was like the light came on because it was about lighting.

So my question to you is, having seen some developments, not so much residential, but some residential, but in the commercial areas, how much light pollution that we're seeing.

For instance, on 72 Highway going west, some of the lights.

Goodness, I lived quite a ways.

Off of that, and some of those commercial businesses had LED lights that lit up the windows in my living room.

What kind of plan do you have for the lighting out there?

I mean, I know we have some specifications, but I would certainly want to know and to see that we were respectful, especially of the people who are living, and even the people that are living in the neighborhood.

Sure.

But also the current people.

Sure.

That the lights are not.

They're not going to be lighting everybody else's yards up, because it is a problem.

So what we do with a lot of other developments is we'll use downward shielding that directs the lighting down.

Now, I don't know if any of those developments have that or not.

It's supposed to direct it directly down where it doesn't.

It's not obtrusive to the neighbors.

That's one mechanism that I see a lot.

I would want to make sure that we had, you know, we knew that we were going to.

Focus on that and that it would be on there and be as a requirement and not just something we say, oh, we're going to do this, but actually make sure that we that we designated that that would have to be the case.

Because even people that live over on 265 on the east of that, some of that light, some of those commercial areas can really even affect their.

That was how far it was for me, and it was still extremely bright.

Right.

Lighting is not modifiable through the PZD, so they'll still have to meet our lighting ordinance.

Okay.

Yeah.

And that's the other question.

Perfect.

The big question.

So because this is the PZD, it does not preclude developers from having to still do the things that we require through other.

I mean, they're still required to meet those those requirements.

They don't get exempt from what the city has as requirements, such as that lighting.

Yeah.

Lighting, landscaping, screening, buffering, drainage manual, all the water and sewer.

All of that is still enforced fully.

I just want to make sure that it was known that there is no pass on that.

Yep.

They still have to to do those things.

Is it based on the stated type of building?

So like the commercial section is has to be held to commercial standards and the residential is held to residential standards?

How does that work?

Yeah.

So kind of getting at two different things here.

So then if this were to be approved, they would come in with a preliminary plat.

And all of their civil infrastructure, like their sewer and water, all their stormwater and drainage, would still have to meet our specifications for that, just like anybody else.

And then when they come in for a building permit for the residences, they'll meet the residential code and then the commercial would meet the commercial code.

There's no changes to any of the building codes either.

So good question.

What the PZD gives you the power to change?

Is land use, setbacks, parking, density, those types of things, in exchange for public green space?

With regard to the lighting question, I mean, we have property line standards, right, for a meter read, like 0.5 or something like that?

It's zero.

Oh, it's zero?

Okay.

So zero lumens on the lot line.

I know we discussed that on the latest church that was out here.

Their lighting, you know, had to be as well.

So I knew that we had covered that.

I just wanted to make sure that there was nothing that was going to allow them to bypass those regulations.

Ted, would you be offering this as like a farmer's market, or would it just be sold through the commercial area?

If you're going to grow crops and sell, this might not be a question you have an answer to right now.

But I'm just curious if this would be something that you grow and then have a farm stand, if you will,

on the property that somebody could come to, or they would come to the commercial building to purchase those things?

Yes, they would come to the farm store, quote, unquote.

And that allows us to do multiple things.

You know, we can, as a commercial space, we can accept EBT and SNAP benefits and double up and senior citizen coupons, things like that.

So that would be, you know, essentially we're growing the food on site and then moving it over a couple of, you know, 100 feet.

To the farm store.

Okay.

Yep.

Anybody else?

Warren?

Yes.

You guys are doing a great job.

This might be a stupid question and probably another tad question, but do farmer's markets collect taxes?

And if not, this store would collect taxes?

No, it would on the commercial end.

It would on the commercial end, yes.

Right.

Farmer's markets do not, unless it's a non-edible product.

So candles or, you know.

Some kind of a craft type scenario.

I wasn't 100% sure.

Okay.

Good.

We'll see everyone on, okay, August 4th.

Keegan, are we bypassing the bone?

Yeah, I'll just, I mean, I'll just let you know we do have a rezone that's going to come to you next month.

153 Halleck.

It's at the corner of Halleck and Slack.

And they're going to ask to go from.

neighborhood commercial to C2 and because the public hearing hasn't been

held we'll just hold all that discussion until the meeting. Thank you. Subdivision

edge treatment text amendment. Yes so I know Morgan asked us to look at

increasing the standards along arterial and commercial or excuse me arterial and

collector roadways on the edges of subdivisions. We've been kind of batting

this one around as staff a little bit and talking about and I want to gauge

the Commission's thoughts on is this something that we can do as an either or

in reference to improving the edge treatment of subdivisions or allowing

for that green space recovery.

Sure. So as I mentioned we are working on the

green space requirement that we adopted last year because what I think some of

us are concerned with is adding more stringent requirements on top of having

just gone yes last year with the green space requirement and obviously when you

increase costs it gets passed on and increases the cost of the homes and

whatnot. And from what we've looked around at a couple of news newer

subdivisions in Northwest Arkansas it looks like a lot of cities are now in the

area of the green space requirement and the green space requirement is a little bit more stringent.

So I think we're going to look at what we can do to improve the edge treatment of subdivisions and other things that we can do.

Like when we.

get pull the green supply covenant you

steps we're continuing on this

with the green space.

that actually the word you

just thought of as the

flooringuces and stuff is

овые are

looking right now are

being

but

the

trick or

trick.

some of these

fix

it

that

I wanted to bring here because I think, you know, we talk about affordable housing a lot.

We're talking about just wanting to make sure we're not locking too much onto the barrel for new development.

But anyway.

Well, to that point, though, what I'd like to bring up is, you know,

there are some developments out here right now that, yes, we require these screening and this edge treatment, right?

But they've halted progress, and now we just have an exposure.

And I'm wondering if there's something we can put in there to sit there and say,

if you're going to move off the project for a determined amount of time,

then at least you have to install your screening.

With phase one.

With phase one.

Yeah.

Because otherwise you're just looking at this blank canvas with mounds of dirt,

and, you know, I think we have to press upon that.

Keegan, is there?

Is it possible for us to have the screening or the buffer not, like, can it be part of the setback?

Or, you know what I'm saying?

Like, if the setback is 25 feet or 30 feet, can we have a 10-foot buffer

and not have to push the helms an extra 10 feet away?

Yeah.

We could do it where it would be like a planting screen easement.

I've seen that done before.

Typically those would involve leaving those as planted space,

and so you'd probably have to define, like, a rate of trees.

It could be per lot or per linear of feet.

And then it usually also does not allow a right of access,

so you wouldn't be able to put, like, a driveway through,

which I know we've kind of already covered with other ordinances,

but that's typically how I see the structure.

That way we wouldn't decrease the loss per acre.

Right?

Right.

And I also want to add that, you know, increasing, you know, costs to develop residential

I don't think would be necessarily a bad thing considering the strain on the infrastructure,

but in promoting more commercial development.

But I guess the concern would be if we ask too much of the developer, would they, I mean,

at what point do they just build right outside city limits?

Well, here they don't really have that option because we don't directly,

they border anyone that has open land.

In the county, they would have to do septic,

so they wouldn't be able to get the same price per acre.

So they couldn't, like, if it was a large development,

they couldn't put in their own treatment plant?

No.

The state would not allow that.

The state of Missouri does, but down here, they don't.

Yeah.

Now, they could decide just not to do business in Pea Ridge altogether

and, you know, go elsewhere in northwest Arkansas, but.

I'm just thinking of the discussion we had about,

um,

our road infrastructure being funded by sales tax, you know?

And so, um, if we can, um, increase the ratio of commercial to residential,

uh, I think it would be beneficial.

Um, but I'm not advocating to, you know, stop residential completely, but.

Well, I'm going to add this, too.

If we're going to ask to be upgrading the fences, um,

then I have no problem asking to not put in the cheap boards,

um, on the perimeters of these subdivisions.

However, as a city, when we do a project, we can't do the cheap as well.

And I can point out where that happened recently if you want,

but I think most of us should know where that is.

I will say, having worked at a city that regulates fences

and a city that does not regulate fences,

I think we definitely would want to be very careful

about whether we want to enter that business

because it gets time-consuming and it gets pretty nasty.

Do you think adding a, doing a buffer would be easier to, or less, uh,

we'd have fewer issues?

And it's not so much like new stuff.

It's more like maintenance of those fences once they've been built.

That's where it becomes political and messy and, but.

Do we allow for a landscape berm?

We do.

We have had some landscape berms.

It hasn't worked out very well.

Okay.

Um, and the people haven't taken very good care of the berms after they were built.

That's how it becomes a maintenance after the fact.

It becomes a maintenance, and I'm, yeah.

You guys see it every day, I'm sure.

This is why I kind of, I think that, you know,

uh, just having a tree strip, you know, a buffered, you know, strip full of trees,

that way it's more of a low-maintenance type of, type of, uh, deal rather than fully landscape.

One thought we discussed on that too is, you know,

right now our code requires a tree be planted with each new home.

Out in the front.

Um, and possibly thinking for those double frontage lots that have their backyards facing,

you know, collector arterial.

We just say you've got to do it on both frontages.

That could be a, a pretty simple addition.

It's a good compromise.

I mean, the reason the fences, uh.

Your mic.

Sorry.

Yeah, I think that's a good compromise in that.

But the reason the fences are like that is because the sun's hitting it 24-7, 365.

So if there were some trees there.

So it would prolong it a little bit.

Well, I think what we're trying to, what we're trying to solve is the, you know,

not having the fences visible from the arterial and collector streets.

Correct.

You just have a better overall street scape.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I think with something we need to be cognizant of, though, is because our utility easements,

um, which Mike can speak to since I'm pretty sure he's on it, uh, maybe wrote those, um,

on how's that going to affect on the front and back.

How's that going to affect utility easements?

Yeah.

And the utilities, because that was a big thing that, um, I know that the utility guys

were very concerned with.

We're very concerned.

Road right-of-ways and our apartments.

Well, if it's a crust, and then we see color, or carved-out spots for the mantles where

they put decorative stone to kind of protect the dirt.

Those stones don't pass.

Mm-hmm.

Now we've got mantles that are .

We've got to go through once a year and try to find and re-assimilate them back into

our system.

And we've got concerns.

And I'm, and I'm just thinking for the water, but you've also got to let...

You've got fire, you've got the phones, gas, everything's moving out to the front of the cities, and they're running along collectivators that do that for maintenance.

Nobody wants to have to go into the back garden to do it for maintenance.

So that's just something that, in our utility perspective, the water's sort of recessed that in perspective.

When we fully understand that we're going to prevent our utilities or our assets, we can't get into maintenance without it being overly costly.

Thank you, Mike.

All right, we'll move on to the table of uses.

Yep, this one's pretty straightforward.

I think we've talked about this a couple times, Michael particularly, but just turning multifamily in C2 from permitted by right to conditional use.

So.

And that's all stemming from trying to protect, again, some more of that commercial property that we can hopefully receive more sales tax from for funding other projects.

Anything on the quintessential lots?

I don't have an update for you right now.

Okay.

New business, we're going to skip over to Bone, Rolling Meadows, we've got that coming up on the next.

We need to talk about that.

We need to.

That is, yeah, so right now they're coming up on their one-year expiration.

So they're just.

They're just going to ask for another one-year extension of their approval.

Any questions on that one?

It's blank on our drop box.

Yes, it's because I don't.

They didn't change any plans, so it's just.

Okay, we'll close out on.

Go ahead.

No, go ahead.

You have something?

Not yet.

Okay.

We can just close out new business and we'll go to other business.

Active transportation presentation.

Well, I'm excited to announce we have been working on our active transportation master plan.

So this is going to be our guiding document for what active transportation, sidewalks, multimodal trails, side paths are going to be incorporated into our city.

We've been working with half for almost a year at this point.

And we're here to present that information to the board so that we can get your feedback.

Before we move to finalization.

But what this will take out is those questions about what should we be doing here?

We'll actually have a priority matrix as well as a network map that will help us make those decisions and put it in writing for everyone to see.

So with that, I'm going to present Austin with half.

Yeah.

Thank you, Josh.

All right.

On to on the fun stuff.

Right.

So.

Yeah.

So we've been kind of nearing the end of our project for the active transportation plan and really just wanted to take the opportunity tonight to just kind of give you guys an overview of what it's about.

Some of the things that includes and some of the assessments that we have done thus far.

And, you know, I know we're getting later in the evening.

So just FYI, I'm going to try to kind of move quickly, hit the high points here and let you guys get out of here at a decent time.

So with that.

We'll go ahead and move on.

So just going to briefly recap on the project itself, what that includes, our timeline.

We'll run through some of our needs analysis, what we perform there, what those findings were, and then jump into the actual proposed network system itself.

And ultimately, after that, talk about how we start to look at prioritizing those things, how we prioritize those, what the criteria was for that.

So I'm Austin Thomas.

I'm the project manager.

I'm the project manager for the project.

I'm a senior community planner in our Fayetteville office with HAP.

I won't name every single person up here, but I just want to make the point there's been a lot of really talented people involved in this project outside of myself that have had an impact.

And that includes staff, too.

Keegan has definitely played a role here.

And Josh certainly has played a role in where we're at today.

So I want to give credit where it's due there.

Okay.

So project purpose.

Really.

So project purpose is to assess where we are at today, looking at existing facilities.

What is the level of service provided to residents in Pea Ridge today in terms of the active transportation facilities that are present?

And then obviously beyond that, starting to look at what opportunities are there to further that and increase the access for residents to those types of facilities.

So even though we are largely focused on those things, you know, within the city limits.

We are also looking at things through a regional lens, given the relationship that is there from a larger connectivity standpoint within the Northwest Arkansas region and some of the peer communities.

So although we don't go to the level of prioritizing the projects outside the city limits, given there's limited control of those things happening, we do want to acknowledge those things and talk about how those relate to the recommendations that we're making within the city limits.

So as Josh mentioned, we started, I think, back in the early 2000s.

We started, I think, back in the early 2000s.

We started, I think, back in the early 2000s.

And we started talking about these things and talking about what we're looking at.

We started talking about these things and talking about what we're looking at.

So we're both with you on that.

But, these are smart steps,...

Forgive me if I'm out of time.

Now I'll make me say something that I noticed earlier.

And this is about the

first thing that I thought you were going to say and I'm sure I've heard a lot of about.

Is that it's like, wow, there's a lot of trouble, isn't it?

Yeah, it may be a little bit of a mess.

But I think it's a good way to begin.

the volume and speed of development in Pea Ridge is such that there's no better time than today

than to start looking at implementing these types of facilities in the system. It is

infinitely more expensive to look at these things retroactively when our corridors are largely

built out, things are largely developed, than to go ahead and, you know, put these things in place

now so that we can begin planning ASAP. Today's the best time. Beyond that, looking at general

quality of life, I think the, you know, the success of active transportation at large in

the Northwest Arkansas region has proven out the value of that across the board. That's something

that, you know, luckily here I don't think we have to hammer that down too much anymore. Everyone

knows how valuable that is, so we want to make sure that we are also, you know, capitalizing on

that same momentum in Pea Ridge that some of the peer communities are. And safety. Safety for all

user groups, especially those that are the most vulnerable.

Seniors, children. That's definitely a part of why we want to do this and why we want to make these

recommendations. So talking about what is included. So one of the things we did was to perform a needs

analysis, and the idea here is just to understand where the city stands today and where some of the

most critical gaps are within connectivity in Pea Ridge. Obviously identifying, you know,

opportunities within the system to make sure that we're able to make sure that we're able to make

those connections and those projects, and then ultimately looking to prioritize those so that those

can be incorporated into capital planning on the city administration front. So as I mentioned

earlier, I'll kind of roll through this. We won't talk a whole lot about each phase, but we are nearing

the end of the process in our adoption phase. Kind of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. So

excited to be here and be rolling through things. So one of the things I wanted to talk about is just

the structure itself. So we do have four total chapters in the plan. The first chapter, Chapter 1, is

really focusing on just establishing some of the things we just talked about, just the value of active

transportation in general, how that relates to Pea Ridge before going into Chapter 2 where we kind of

provide an overview of some of the existing conditions in Pea Ridge in terms of the mileage of

facilities that are here today, and kind of start to look at crash data and things like that to

assess where some of the largest problem areas are and where we can have the most impact. Chapter 3 is

where we establish the types of facilities, kind of providing a toolbox of sorts for staff. That's a very

open-ended subject. We could talk about types of active transportation facilities until we're blue in the

face, but it's a way to just kind of establish some best practices, some resources for staff to lean on

when it comes time to pursue implementation of these various projects.

And then Chapter 4 is where we do the prioritization for the projects that we recommend based on a set of

criteria that we've established with staff and stakeholders. So with that, you know, we have engaged two

separate groups throughout the process, thus

are one being our technical advisory committee which is primarily consisting of department heads

from city staff to get that staff input that's very important for us to make sure that we're

we're getting that input and we have you know consensus across the board on the staff front

but also our stakeholder group uh kind of comprised of you know community champions

uh from various some from the mobility alliance some that have been brought in specifically for

this project just to make sure that we are uh getting you know the voice of others outside

of city staff and half staff alone so with that i want to talk a little bit about the

needs analysis and particularly the trip potential analysis so in short the trip potential analysis

is really a way for us to look and say where can we get the greatest bang for our buck in

the recommendations that we make from an improvement standpoint for active transportation

uh and some of the things we we utilize to do that are looking at barriers in connectivity

looking at crash data and various other things to start to make those

things i mean and i'm actually going to step around if i can for this one because you can take

the mic off take it right with you okay so there's a lot on this map right so there's quite a bit to

to unpack but i'll just start pointing some things out for you guys so one thing that is shown here

is looking at some of the things that we're going to be looking at in the next couple of weeks and

looking at some of the things that we're going to be looking at in the next couple of weeks and

at crash data to look at crash frequency uh so kind of the blue the purple and yellow is is

actually crash frequency um you can see as you would expect some of that kind of aligns with

some of the intersections here in peer ridge um so we've gone to highlight some of these just to

emphasize this a little more but uh something else you're looking at we went and took the

zoning classifications in the city and grouped these uh so we've proved

these into low density residential medium density residential and high density residential

reason being we want to look at the relationship of residential density

to these corridors and then ultimately coming down here this is the pedestrian traffic volume

so this is actually based on publicly accessible gps cell phone data it's kind of big big brother

type stuff but it's a really fantastic tool that we have access to now to start to actually look at

frequency of pedestrian trips so the dark purple you see down here is 150 to 250 trips during the

year this was assessed which i believe was in spring of 2025 and the row is in kind of this

light lilac is a 1 to 15 trips a pedestrian traffic volume so in addition to that we do have

parks shown here and public schools throughout the city so like i said there's a ton shown here but

when you start to look at all the public schools throughout the city there's a ton shown here but when you start to look at all the

these things together you can start to make relationships between what is shown in terms

of the pedestrian route frequency in relation to schools in relation to parks and in relation to

some of these subdivisions that have a higher residential density so the trip potential analysis

is really a way for us to take a look at those things and try to better understand those relationships

but also more importantly look at where we can get the most impact from the projects that we recommend

all right

so true potential analysis can you guys still hear me all right yep okay good deal

um moving on another thing that we have performed in the needs analysis is to do a regulatory review

so this is essentially looking at the code of ordinances and some of the other relevant plans

that the city has in place to understand how those may impact active transportation and then also to

look at potential tweaks and amendments that may help to support some of the things that we outlined

outlined within this plan so I'm not you know for the sake of time I'm not going

to dive into these things too too deeply but I will just briefly point out a few

things if I can get this to there we go are you trying to go backwards yeah I am

I got it now sorry okay so just just to highlight a few key themes here and

these are things that I think you guys are probably very aware of but master

street plan coordination so the coordination between the master street

plan and what we recommend here within the active transportation plan is

extremely important some of the things we've talked to staff about are you know

the required facilities that support the master street plan within those

cross-sections there's a number of I think it's anything and correct me if

I'm wrong Keegan I think it's minor collector and above is including

collector arterials collector and arterials are including some of those

the 12-foot

section and the other section is the section that is the master street plan

site path I'm not mistaken and then the six-foot side sidewalk on one side so one

of the things we looked at was to kind of do a a build-out scenario for that to

understand what does that look like assuming those things get fully built

out what does that actually look like in terms of the frequency and spacing of

those facilities and is that you know is that necessarily the best approach or do

we want to be a little more strategic about some of the investments that we

make on the active transportation front so that that's one of the things that we

looked at alongside staff but you know

having those things in lockstep the master street plan and the active

transportation plan obviously with the relationship between those two is

extremely important so that's something we want to make sure that we're

emphasizing tying future land use to active transportation goals this one is

in a lot of ways I think common sense but you know if we are indicating from a

land-use perspective that we want to have a higher density in a particular

area then we probably want to make sure there are active transportation

facilities aligned with that to make sure we have connectivity there which I

think that's something that we want to make sure that our active transportation facilities align with that to make sure we have connectivity there which I

just sitting here tonight I heard a lot of conversation about connectivity within

some of the developments so that that's fantastic to hear leveraging design

standards again I've heard a lot about integrating connectivity into

development tonight which is wonderful but you know I think design standards

whether it be multifamily or commercial you know finding ways to further

integrate active transportation into those requirements to make sure that

you're getting connectivity within site design

bike racks as a required amenity there's a lot of ways that you can kind of bake

that into the development process and something else I'll point out there is

just making sure that active transportation is you know at the

forefront of those tech flat review committees to make sure that you know

active transportation is getting a chance to be involved in development as

much as possible is always a great asset active transportation parks and open

spaces the city's open space master plan is a great asset and we're going to be

looking at that as well as a lot of other things that we're going to be

talking about as we go through this next slide

okay so I'm going to go to the next slide

so I want to talk about the

so I'm going to go to the next slide

to talk a little bit about the proposed network I won't spend a ton of time here

all this to say we have taken the time to as I mentioned earlier kind of

establish a toolbox for staff where we talk about what are some best practice

you know resources design guides that can be utilized towards individual

project design and then outlining the different types of facilities that are

out there to utilize towards the recommendations that we make so talking

about selecting facilities so one of the things we do when we do an active

transportation plan is to break out essentially when I talk about projects

or corridors I'm breaking those out by a number of different classifications so

in this case we have corridor context breaking those out across those

classifications and then going further to break that out in what we're calling

roadway context which is acknowledging the context that is outside of the

right-of-way

right that's also something important consider even though an arterial may

roll through a downtown it's it's a different context in a rural area right

things change from block to block we want to make sure that we're

acknowledging the context of where that roadways at despite the classification

despite the speed limit so level one this is essentially your shared use pass

this is a this is the greenway right this is a trail this is completely

independent of a roadway corridor level two

are the neighborhood greenways I heard a little bit about shared roadways earlier

tonight this is your neighborhood greenways marked shared roadways within

neighborhoods low speed limits safe to you know operate without those being

necessarily painted bike lanes I guess we'll say level three is getting up into

a little higher speeds we're still not exceeding 35 miles an hour probably in

operating speeds but we're getting up into the level where we probably want to

consider maybe looking at a protected bike lane potentially based on the

context of where it's at and the speed limits within that particular area as we

get into level four that is essentially we are either looking at a a protected

bike lane or we're looking at you know a side path it's we're getting into the

the realm where we certainly would not put someone on the roadway

without it being protected.

And I'm not talking flexible bollards.

This needs to be actually protected

in a way that could be useful in the event of a crash.

So and last but not least, regional.

Like I mentioned to you guys, we have not

gone through prioritizing regional.

But we did want to call those out and at least

make the distinction of what type of corridor those are,

whether that is something where we're

looking at a potential facility that's associated

with a roadway corridor or if it's

something that's completely independent of that.

It's a greenway.

So we call those out in the network map itself

just to make that emphasis.

So prior to rolling in the map, I

do want to talk about the network matrix.

In terms of how we apply this, so for each one of these levels

that I mentioned, we break these out across those three

different contexts.

So whether that be traditional, for more urban context,

more density.

Whether that is suburban, more dispersed residential

development, or if it is fully rural.

So for each one of these classification levels,

we further break those out based on the context.

And within that, this is the way that we

start talking about what type of facilities

might be appropriate for each one of these corridors

that we designate.

We don't want to go as far as saying, this is it.

It needs to be a protected bike lane.

Because the reality is that each project really

deserves a design that is specific

to that particular project.

But what we can do is look at recommending

a series of options that we think

would be most appropriate.

So that is the idea here, is to kind of provide this

as a way for staff to have a reference of which direction

should we go here, and then from there,

decide what may be most appropriate

from further investigation and review

of that particular corridor.

So all of this is translated all into, you know,

the network map itself.

So the idea being that we have taken these corridor levels

and assigned them to the map, and then

go through the process of subsequently prioritizing

the projects that are shown here.

So this is not something that we have developed in a vacuum.

This is something I think credit needs

to be given where it's due.

Josh spent an enormous amount of time

when he first came on board with the City of Peter Ridge

beginning to think through what, you know,

what does an active transportation system look like?

What areas might be appropriate for a trail?

What makes sense here?

So we had really a fantastic springboard,

even when we started this, to come on board and say, OK,

yeah, let's build from what's already here,

and then kind of flesh that out further.

And ultimately, you know, that's panned out

to what we have here, which I think is a great product.

So you see here in the lighter purple,

you have the existing trails, kind of the darker purple

is funded trails.

The salmon color are those regional connections

that are off street I mentioned, the shared use paths,

and then those that are in the orange are our roadway

corridors.

A lot of these have been drawn from regional plannings,

planned corridors.

So we want to make sure that we are coordinated and lined up

with what's going on from a regional perspective as well.

So jumping into our work program and priorities,

like I mentioned earlier.

You know, this is really kind of where

the rubber meets the road in terms of, you know,

we've identified these things.

How do we implement them?

How do we prioritize them, right?

So the first thing to do here is to establish the work program

itself and some of the recommendations

that come within that.

We have broken that out in the document itself

under a number of different categories.

Investments, operations, policies, studies, programs,

and regulations.

And for the sake of time, I'm not

going to jump into all of these specifically

and talk about these.

I think I look forward to when you guys can get the full draft

and read through those things.

And of course, I'm happy to answer any questions you guys

may have.

But for the sake of time, I'm not

going to roll through every single one of these right now.

So in terms of establishing priorities,

like I mentioned to you, we went through the process

to define a criteria that we would then

look to establish these projects by.

So what you're looking at here is, I guess,

the full project priority map.

And I think we are just under 60 total corridors

that we've identified for potential projects here

in Pea Ridge.

And I think that also represents a little over 50 miles

in total of facilities, assuming that was totally built out

as well.

So this is broken out across high priority corridors,

medium priority corridors, and low priority corridors.

So really, with the high priority corridors,

we're looking for those, going back

to our trip potential analysis, those

that really have the potential to have the greatest impact.

So jumping ahead a little bit to talking about the criteria.

So some of the things we looked at for this

were obviously addressing gaps that were glaring in the system

today, looking at the pedestrian route volumes

that I mentioned earlier, looking

at residential densities.

A lot of the things that we looked

at within the trip potential analysis have translated

into the priorities that you see on this map today.

Also looking at safety.

Based on where the higher crash frequencies are present,

we want to make sure that if there's not

a facility present there to provide a comfortable trip

from a pedestrian standpoint, that that's something

that we are considering.

So from here, we are looking to hopefully go ahead.

We have not gone through the full priority

prioritization of these projects.

We still have two more meetings with our TAC and PAC.

We're looking to have here the next month to kind of talk

through the prioritization of those projects

in those corridors.

But after that, we're hoping to kind of go through the process

of reviewing a full draft with staff,

and then hopefully, as I mentioned earlier,

be looking at coming back maybe for a potential adoption

in August if everything goes well.

So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you guys

might have.

That was great to see.

That was good.

So we've all been working.

Yeah, thank you.

And I apologize for us kind of trying to flip along

while we went there.

But yeah.

It was great.

I would like to.

Anything else?

Is there a combination?

I know we have a lot of gravel riders around here

and stuff like that.

I mean, is there connectivity to that or potential?

In talking about gravel routes?

Yeah, so that's something that's come up quite a bit.

And that's kind of a tricky one, because there's

this thought of we have a lot of fantastic gravel routes.

And the thing is.

If I put that on a map and say, OK, it's a gravel route,

what does the reality look like that it's not

going to be developed and paved?

And certainly a lot of these are county roads as well.

So that's something we've talked about a little bit.

It'd be in a perfect world.

We could maintain those things in perpetuity as a gravel route.

And I think some of them, we probably

have the substantiation and support

for that to happen in some way.

But in terms of how those factor into the system, we've certainly

looked at some of the more prominent gravel routes

and how those relate to the system internally

within the city limits to potentially have

a kind of what we would call a gateway opportunity of entrance

of additional branding and things

like that at some of those entrance points

from the gravel routes.

OK.

Yeah.

Yeah, you're right.

It'd be nice if we could just keep those forever.

All right.

Anything else?

OK.

Well, thank you guys so much.

I appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

Thanks.

All right.

Moving on to open discussion, is there anything else?

Yes.

OK.

So I wanted to have a discussion and start,

at least at this point, I've talked a little bit to Keegan.

And I've been talking about this for about the last two years.

We have to set some standards for the depth

of our commercial lots.

Because allowing the commercial lots

on the front sides of these subdivisions that's coming in

to only be 50 foot deep or whatever, 100 foot deep,

is not allowing commercial development

at the breadth of what we are looking for in the city.

The scale, yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, my goodness.

We go take a look at what's happening out on Lee Town.

On the north side, we allowed a tiny piece, a postage stamp

piece of property to put a commercial development in.

It limits significantly what can go in there.

Same thing happened out here on the north side.

On the north side of 72 Highway, about where Casey's is.

We also had a lot on the, it'll be east of Simple Simons,

west, just west of the, what used to be a tire shop.

There was a lot there that was supposed

to be commercial, it was so small.

Eventually, they said, oh, can't we just build a house on that?

And we allowed it.

So that took away commercial property along our corridor.

So we have to establish, and there are some standards

to establish.

They're already established.

that we can actually adopt to have the depth of these commercial lots,

I'm going to call them lots, but commercial development areas,

to be a minimum.

And obviously that allows still flexibility in there.

But we have to do better.

A lot of these developers come in, they bring us a plan,

they don't even know what we're expecting.

They've seen what else we've allowed.

They come in and that's all they bring us.

And then we tell them to go do something different

and they come back with five more feet.

And then they come back again and it holds them up.

If we had these standards we're going to see prior,

then they would know what we're expecting.

And I really feel like that that needs to happen.

What are the depth of the lots in front of the Benton?

I don't know.

Yeah, I was going to say between those

and what we've heard from market and industry folks

that have looked at Peerage before,

250, it seems to be the sweet spot number

that we've been hitting across the board.

It's what we've been hitting,

but if we want places like Aldi's to come in here

and Dr. Supply, et cetera,

we have to have more depth on some of these.

We absolutely have to.

And I think maybe if you say general frontage,

that only fronts those major roads is 250

and then maybe if it's on a corner,

maybe you get additional depth.

We can look at that.

I did talk to the mayor and he had some numbers as well.

Some of them were asking for four.

Oh, okay.

So he went to, when he came back from a meeting,

he actually let me know some of that,

that some of these businesses actually are asking for.

So if we're going to ask for those type of businesses to come in,

we have to have the space for them.

What businesses are those?

I did not talk with him about what businesses exactly.

There were some.

There's going to be one coming.

I don't feel like I'm a leisure to say.

Not the name, just the type of business.

Well, retail spaces.

I mean, let's face it.

He's talked to like Ross and all these different ones.

They need more space.

What about like, I know we'd love to have a small hotel.

Okay.

I don't know what size that they would need.

There's a lot of different configurations hotels can use.

I'd say you're probably looking at a minimum

depending on how they would design their parking.

You have three to 400 feet.

Yeah.

No, I agree.

I agree that.

We can get into a habit of pigeonholing ourselves

into what what businesses we can accept.

Absolutely.

I mean, that's what's coming is the availability.

It's driven by that.

And if we want something different,

we have to build by the space for that other thought we could do is depending

on the amount of frontage that you have on an arterial and collector.

We can say if you've got a longer frontage,

you have to provide more variation in depth than if you had a shorter frontage.

Right.

I mean, for instance, chain of the behind seven and all that depth is different.

And it's allowed for multi level.

I think those are all the way up to like 500 feet.

Right.

But if you have a large again, I'll say Ross because I always talk to those people,

those type of businesses that are pretty good size box store,

they parking and some of them have outlets on the front.

They have to have more depth.

So if we set the depth, if we sit there and say, okay, we're going to build this.

Yeah.

That's a good point.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's a good point.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We're not going to ask for a minimum of 300.

Let's say that's the number.

Okay.

But with the, within that development, within that depth, you could go single box or you

could go double, double depth.

Right on, on the storefronts.

Right?

So you can accommodate the different businesses.

It gives us more commercial availability.

It doesn't have to be a big building.

Yeah.

It can be such as what we talked about, the double depth that's out there, I forget what

that's called, that development's called, but behind seven.

Okay, Pharisee 3.

So it allows for that as well because not everything has to be right on the front of the street

and still be, I mean, a very viable business.

I mean, you think about who brought up hotels very often are second tier.

Absolutely.

And sometimes in the downtown areas, they're 10 foot off the street.

So, I mean, that's the other thing about asking about like unloading and loading

in these very dense spaces of residential.

I mean, cities I've gone to, even other countries,

they do their deliveries at 2 o'clock in the morning

or they do them at 8 o'clock in the morning and traffic has just stopped on the street

because they stop there, do their unloading, and that's just how it happens.

Is it inconvenient for the people that are trying to get through?

Yeah.

Is that what they do?

Yeah, that's what they do.

I'll tell you from living.

People are loading and unloading on the streets every single day downtown.

Absolutely.

And that's, I mean, when you were asking those questions, I was thinking I see that constantly.

Yeah.

The reason I asked that question is because I want to see if there's a way to mitigate that

and have some control over that versus having these trucks stop traffic and cause disruption.

You know, if there's a pathway forward to that.

In a downtown style.

Yeah.

If there's a pathway forward to development, you would require service alleys.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There was others, but it's late and I'm going to shut up.

So what's the request?

That research be done to define?

Absolutely.

Yes.

At the very least in our main corridor, our development corridor.

In the very least.

Yeah.

In the very least, yeah.

But I think we need to define it even a little bit more further.

But that would be a start.

Like I said, I've been discussing this for a while and it's finally come to,

to the fact that, I mean, I have businesses that have spoken to me about coming in.

They're just like, you don't have any space for us on this.

There's, they're not deep enough.

We don't have parking.

We don't have, and so I'm just like, I've talked to the mayor about this on multiple.

And so, like I said, when he went to the, whatever meeting he went to recently,

he came back to me and said, Hey, you know, you're right.

We need to be looking at this.

So, and that was, he was the one that brought up, I believe the 400 at that time.

Keegan.

Do you know how our parking room?

Yeah.

Minimums, um, um, how they compared it, like Bentonville's

they're fairly similar.

Um, Bentonville, they do distinguish downtown versus, uh, not downtown and they have a much lower

required meant for parking in downtown Bentonville.

Um, but as far as the outside downtown, we're very similar.

Um, for retail, we are looking at one space for 250 square feet.

Um, and then there are some uses that are specified beyond that.

Like, I know we have bowling alley listed in there, which we don't, we don't even have one, but it's like a number of spaces per lane.

Uh, I think like hairdressers or spaces per chair, um, daycares based on your amount of employees, plus like a few extra spaces beyond that.

So the reason I was, I mean, the other day I went to the, uh, new dollar.

General over there, uh, on the, I guess the north, uh, west side of town.

Um, you know, and I counted it 42 parking spots.

I've never seen more than five cars there ever.

And so I don't know if that was the required amount of parking for that, uh, location or if they went above and beyond.

I don't, I couldn't speak to that.

That was before I was here, but, um, I do know it's probably 50 50 when we get.

Okay.

Development in whether they would say, oh, we don't, we don't need that many, or, uh, we're actually going to build more than that.

So for them to get trucks in there, they had to have, and be able to turn around.

They actually had to have a size parking space.