I am upset about the plans for Willow Heights and I just found out that the Housing Authority agreed to sell the property for $1.2 million, which is the final outrage. Has nobody toured South Fayetteville lately and seen the many expensive green houses going up? Doesn't anyone know how expensive lots have become that are this close to downtown. The site is beautifully placed and is historic. Over a million might have sounded like a good deal five years ago in that area but it is now quite a steal at five times that.
On expanding Morgan Place:
1. It is enlarging the housing of the poor into too large of a segregated area. A proven bad idea. See Section 8 vouchers.
2. This would shunt more poor people farther and farther out in south Fayetteville.
3. And most important to me is the total lack of necessary neighborhood amenities: The closing of the Southgate IGA is a sign no one is going to build a grocery anywhere close.
4. Willow Heights has been deliberately (or at least easily) left to decay so that a valuable land can be sold and developed, let me guess, into expensive green houses that are proliferating in the neighborhood.
Mary Lynn Kennedy
Fayetteville
Highway officials should study rapid rail options
I drove from Rogers south on Interstate 49. Rather, I sat in stalled traffic.
There is an alternative to this: Rapid rail, as in the Northeast. There is right of way from Fayetteville to Bentonville that could be utilized.
Is the Arkansas Highway Commission considering this? Why not do a feasibility study?
C.L. Kehmeier
Rogers
Commentary on 06/25/2017