City's housing approach
not fully thought out
I am opposed to any ordinance the City Council might pass to amend the accessory dwelling units section in the Unified Development Code without the completion of additional research already underway.
This ordinance should be tabled until the following are considered:
1) A survey is being conducted by city staff for public input on infill policies and ordinances. That survey must be completed, compiled, and taken into consideration by the staff, the planning commission, and the council, as part of the planning process for any additional infill policies.
2) A storm water survey will soon be undertaken. That survey should be completed, compiled, and taken into consideration by the staff, the planning commission, and the council, as part of the planning process for any additional infill policies.
In addition, I am concerned that the approach the council is taking to create affordable housing is misinformed. A recent report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition states that there is no housing market in the US in which an hourly paid worker with full-time employment can afford a fairly priced two-bedroom apartment in any state in the country, including Arkansas. The law of supply and demand mandates that the rent for privately held units, whether in someone's backyard or in a new high rise apartment building will rise to the current market price that is already unaffordable. Affordable housing will only remain affordable, that is lower than market rates, if subsidized by a public entity.
I strongly urge the tabling of the accessory units ordinance to allow for the appropriate planning process to be completed.
Margaret Ann Holcomb
Fayetteville
President puts world
in precarious position
"Peace for our time." So said Neville Chamberlain after his visit with Adolph Hitler. The year was 1938 and the place was Munich, Germany. Hitler was agitating for the right to invade the Sudetenland, home to people mainly of German extraction, but at the time a part of an independent nation, Czechoslovakia, created by treaty at the end of World War I.
Chamberlain flew to Munich and on bended knee agreed to the invasion of that democratic state. When he flew back to England he stepped out of the plane waving the agreement and proclaimed "Peace for our time!" More fool he.
A year later in September 1939, the German army crashed into Poland and Chamberlain was forced to declare war on Germany and the bloodiest war in history began and eventually consumed 72 million innocents.
While President Donald Trump does not wear a mustache or carry a furled umbrella like Chamberlain, Trump is a dedicated and willful ignoramus and has now put South Korea, Japan and much of the western Pacific and quite possibly the whole world in line for the next world conflagration. This time it will be nuclear. More fool he.
George Santayana reminded us that those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.
Tom Clark
Fayetteville
Commentary on 06/21/2018