BENTONVILLE -- Benton County planners on Thursday got their first look at plans for a small private school "for children who learn differently."
Kimberly Parker, representing the Clover Community School, met with the Development Review Committee, which provides people interested in development in the county an opportunity to learn what they will need to meet planning requirements.
Parker told the panel the school plans to turn a residence at 5101 Rocky Ridge Trail near Little Flock into a 10-student private school.
"It's a nature, farm, community school," Parker told the group. She said the school will keep the property in its current state, including keeping a pair of donkeys, some goats, chickens and Guinea hens at the site.
"It won't look any differently 10 years from now," she said.
Parker said the school will use two large buildings as classrooms for the students, ranging from kindergarten through eighth grade. Other buildings will be used as space for arts or exercise. She said there are also plans to put in a large garden and involve the students in the process of planting and tending the garden and then selling the harvest at the Bentonville Farmers Market.
Parker first asked the committee if the school needed to go through the site plan review process since it would be using existing buildings and not changing the land. Taylor Reamer, planning director, explained the county regulates land use and shifting from a residential property to a school is a change in use. Reamer said residential and agricultural uses are exempt from review.
"Any nonresidential or nonagricultural uses have t0 be approved by the Planning Board," Reamer said. "This is going from a residential land use to an institutional use."
Parker said she has worked in public schools as a special education advocate. The website for Clover Community School said the school aims to help students with problem solving, self-regulating and to develop a passion for learning in a hands-on, natural setting.
"After not being able to make a difference for kids in the public schools, I teamed up with a couple of teachers to open this school," she said.
Reamer said the plans submitted provide 85 percent to 90 percent of what will be required. He said the most likely timeline for the project is to go through the Technical Advisory Committee review in July and be the subject of a public hearing by the Planning Board in August.
Also Thursday, the committee reviewed proposals for an expansion of a metal fabricating business near Rogers and two proposals for new recreational vehicle parks, one near Siloam Springs and one near Garfield.
NW News on 06/15/2018
