BENTONVILLE — The rewriting of Benton County’s planning and development regulations is nearly done after more than a year’s work.
Tom Allen, justice of the peace for District 4 and chairman of the Quorum Court’s Legislative Committee, said the panel reviewed the proposed regulations last week and forwarded them Committee of the Whole.
“I’m very satisfied,” Allen said of the revisions.
The Legislative Committee begin reviewing the regulations earlier this year and finished Sept. 19.
“They’ve streamlined it quite a bit, made it simpler and easier to read,” Allen said. “Those who do some developing out in the county will be pleased if they have a relatively small project they don’t have to go through the full large-scale development process any longer. They can have an administrative review and be done with it.”
AT A GLANCE
What’s Next
Benton County’s Committee of the Whole will discuss revised planning and development regulations at that group’s next meeting, set for 6 p.m. Oct. 8 in the Quorum Courtroom at the County Administration Building, 215 E. Central Ave. in Bentonville. Once the justices of the peace are satisfied with the regulations, the Quorum Court will consider adopting the regulations.
Source: Staff Report
John Sudduth, general services administrator, oversees the Planning and Environmental Department. Sudduth said planning staff will make some minor changes suggested by the Legislative Committee and present the finished document at the Oct. 8 meeting.
The goal of the revision was to simplify the process as much as possible and clarify planning rules and regulations, Sudduth said.
“They’ve been put into an easy-to-read format for both the planning staff and for our citizens,” Sudduth said.
Ashley Tucker, Planning Board chairman, said he's also satisfied with the revised rules and the review process. Tucker said he was disappointed in the lack of interest shown by the public and by those involved in development in the county.
“It’s been a collaborative effort by the board, by the Legislative Committee, the staff and the different interest groups that are involved in development, the professional engineers and surveyors,” Tucker said. “I’m really happy with the product and I know the board looks forward to hearing what the Committee of the Whole has to say. I would say that, no, we’re not completely satisfied by the public input, although that’s not unusual in county government. I still wish we could have had more public input, but short of having one-on-one conversations I don’t know what else we could have done.”
Kurt Moore, justice of the peace for District 13, is a member of the Legislative Committee and chairman of the Committee of the Whole. Moore thinks the final review will go smoothly since the justices of the peace had their input through the committee process.
“There was not to much discussion of changes at the last meeting,” Moore said. “We did some tweaking on the section on in-home occupations. There was some discussion about lot splits and deleting material in one section that was covered in another. We did make some suggestions that there be some language included about roads in county subdivisions, making it clear that there needs to be some sort of property owners group or some covenants included with the development and that the county will not be responsible for maintaining those streets. Sometimes people don’t understand that the streets are their responsibility and the county doesn’t do maintenance on subdivision streets, and even though we’re not responsible if we refuse to do it, it still looks bad.”