This is one of those "heads-up!" articles to remind us the holidays are now over and it's again time to closely watch the mechanisms and manipulations of those running the circus. For example, charging down the pike early this year is a special local election that's a bigger deal than many may realize. Basically, the outcome in this contest will boil down to being an environmental outcome.
Although this Feb.8 vote to fill a vacated Ward 2 city council seat is happening in Fayetteville, many issues that this town deals with are the same everywhere. The little decisions made at local levels are like sand particles pinched through an hourglass. They all matter. They all measure time. And ever so slowly, humans are beginning to equate environmental consequences with time, climate change being the best known.
For over 35 years of time, I've watched our city council's votes, especially their environmentally impacting ones. All too often major changes can teeter over a one vote difference in such things as zoning decisions, neighborhood impacts, street locations, trash and recycling methods, park creation, green space loss or gain, tree preservation or loss, lake pollution, drainage changes, energy generation, increased traffic routing, watershed destruction, etc. These are all environmental action items that sometimes sit on a razor's edge, which is why choosing a new council member is so serious.
Probably the most pressing challenge to Northwest Arkansas is how to have our cake and eat it too. The heavy promotional push toward population growth is changing the land and with it the air and water quality. To have it all, we really need to understand what it takes to sustain basic physical necessities. As far as I know, there are no studies nor policies that outline how much land we can pave, how much air we can pollute, or how much water we can consume before we crash the quality of life we've been bragging about for decades.
So, back to this election. Ward 2 is the center of Fayetteville's downtown, covers part of the University of Arkansas campus, stretches north to the fairgrounds and west to Asbell School. Inside its boundaries are Wilson Park and many of the historic parts of town. But, all council members vote on issues affecting the whole town.
Three candidates -- Leslie Belden, Kristen Scott and Mike Wiederkehr -- have all addressed housing issues in their remarks. (Search their names online followed by "Fayetteville" for best results.) While it's logical to address the needs for diverse housing options to accommodate all comers, there needs to be a parallel guiding principle for sustaining the town's physical health.
An emphasis on density and infilling of housing has been promoted by actions of both the planning commission and city council in recent years. Unfortunately this intense building practice paves over more soil and removes more trees in the process.
An example of promoting density is actually coming up under "New Business" tonight at the city council meeting. Item C.4 on the agenda changes the definition of ADUs, "Accessory Dwelling Units," which are allowed to be built on residential property, to increase to two detached units and one attached unit. These are "separate, complete housekeeping unit[s] with a separate entrance." So, instead of growing a garden or forest, now people can grow more rental units around their house.
Yet, once again, there seems to be no required parallel calculation of what the heating effect of more driveways, rooftops, and vegetation loss will be before encouraging more housing footprints onto property. Leaving a little strip for decorative landscaping and maybe a baby tree does little to mitigate the city's heat island effect, nor does it answer how water can be absorbed into land instead of flooding downstream, nor how denser traffic will affect air quality.
Council candidates Belden and Wiederkehr are currently on the Planning Commission and need to be questioned about their yes vote on these ADU additions to neighborhood density. Candidate Scott's opinion should also be sought. Their answers could open a broader view of their environmental awareness and the trade-offs they are willing to make in the manic drive to grow, grow, grow Northwest Arkansas.
At the national level we were made painfully aware last year of how a one- or two-vote margin can destroy hopes for really tackling climate change and all its accompanying horrors. How much time we have left to change our direction depends on decisions we make now, even the little ones at the local level.