Agenda Highlights 9/3/24
At the Fort Smith Board of Directors meeting scheduled for 9-3-24, the Board will vote on a zoning change that would allow for 12.38 acres that were previously the Goldtrap-Gardner Boys and Girls Club baseball field that has been disused for 4 years to be developed into a 68 lot single family residential subdivision with 1,200-2400 square ft homes expected to sell in the $250,000 price range, 2 detention ponds, sidewalks, and a greenway. If the change is approved and the land sale is completed, the Boys and Girls Club intends to use the money from the sale to make improvements to the Goldtrap-Gardner facility including a new state-of-the-art recreation center.
The Board will vote on a zoning change for 6000 Midland that would allow for the vacant building that previously housed the Lighthouse Restaurant to be used as an event center.
The Board will vote on a zoning change that would allow two existing metal buildings on a property in the Extraterritorial Judicial Area at 9800 Hwy 271 to be used for auto repair and offices.
The Board will vote on an amendment to the Unified Development Ordinance that would remove container storage as an approved use in Commercial Heavy zoning areas, require conditional use approval in Industrial Light areas, and would allow it in Industrial Moderate and Industrial Heavy areas.
The Board will vote on whether to lease the County’s half of the Parrot Island Water Park for $1 per year resulting in the City of Fort Smith having sole control of and responsibility for the park instead of sharing control jointly and splitting financial responsibility equally with the County. The Board will also vote on whether to purchase a set of 5 water slides for the park that are available at a deep discount because they were built for another park elsewhere that backed out on them. The project would cost a total of $4.2 million for the entire project including the slides and installation, concrete, and other related expansion work. The funding would come out of the General Fund. The City would make a down payment of $1,260,000, pay to have the slides delivered, then pay the next 30% when the slides are delivered, and then pay the final 40% when the installation is completed. The purchase of the water slides was initially approved by the Board at the 7-9-24 meeting with the plan at that time being for the County to pay the other half of the price of the slides, but the County did not approve spending for what would have been their half of the purchase price. Following their decision to not fund the purchase of the water slides, the County proposed leasing their half of the park to the City. The lease and the purchase of the slides were both originally discussed and tabled at the 8-6-24 meeting. The lease was tabled again at the 8-20-24 meeting.
The Board will vote on proposing a modification to the consent decree to the State and the EPA that would result in an end date to fulfill the consent decree requirements of 2036 (giving the City 10 years longer than the current end date of 2026 that the City says it will be impossible to have the work finished by). The proposal would include a plan for finances for the work and a schedule for the work that would honor the sewer rate freezes from 2023-2025 and maximum sewer rate increases of 3.5% from 2026-2030 that the voters approved when they approved the 5/8% sales tax to go to consent decree sewer projects. This issue was discussed at the 8-27-24 study session meeting.
The Board will vote on approving bids for various water treatment chemicals from AR Lime Company, Brenntag Southwest, Carus LLC, Chemtrade, Citco Water, Donau Carbon, Enviro Tech, Pencco Inc, Thatcher Company, and USALCO.
