By Rick Harvey

Eureka Springs Times-Echo

The Eureka Springs City Council wants the opinion of a local realtor before it considers selling a piece of property to be used as the site for 10 tourist lodging cabins.

Rodney Slane, representing Landmarks of Eureka Springs, LLC, has offered $50,000 to purchase 1.9 acres adjacent to the Queen Anne Mansion and Resort on West Van Buren Avenue. The offer includes property owners dedicating another 0.3 acres to the city’s parks department to be used for an all-purpose trail.

“Rod Slane approached my office about wanting to purchase approximately 1.9 acres that is adjacent to the Queen Anne property up on top of Planer Hill,” Mayor Butch Berry said at the city council’s regular meeting on Monday, Oct. 27. “Everybody knows where that’s at, and their purpose is so they can add additional rental units to help supplement Queen Anne’s financial feasibility up there and through there. So, they have offered us and they’ve met with with parks and walked over looking about establishing a trail back down through around the area that still gets down to Black Bass Dam, and also met with Simon [Wiley] with public works to see if there’s any issues there. …” “There wasn’t any negative part of that. So it’s really up to the city.”

After city attorney Heather Owens clarified with council members that it’s not required by law for the city to get bids or an appraisal for a piece of property before putting it up for sale, the debate began about what would be the best route to determine whether the amount offered is sufficient.

Berry and city council member Terry Mc-Clung felt that the offer was suitable, but the remaining council members said they felt it was important to get a fair market value from a realtor before considering the sale.

“I feel like an appraisal is a good idea,” council member Rachael Moyer said. “How do we know if $50,000 is an appropriate price for that land unless we get an appraisal? Even if it’s not lawfully required, I think it’s a good idea.”

While council members agreed that an appraisal could cost the city around $1,000, they decided getting the opinion of a realtor made sense.

“I like the idea of a realtor,” council member Harry Meyer said.

No one from Queen Anne was at Monday’s meeting and council members had some questions about the plans for the property.

Councilman David Avanzino questioned the need for more overnight lodging in a city where some “businesses are struggling to keep doors open because heads aren’t appearing in beds.”

“… I guess my first question is, is there some kind of feasibility study that’s been done?” Avanzino said. “Do we know that this is even going to impact the city in a positive way? I applaud them for wanting to do it, but is it worth turning over land for pretty much next to nothing to see this happen?”

McClung said what a property owner does with their property “doesn’t concern” the council.

“They have the right to do whatever they want to do,” McClung said.

Moyer said she wants to make sure the property, particularly sewer usage, wouldn’t impact adjacent Black Bass Lake, adding that she understands the property owners’ vision.

“I can appreciate their position because I think the Queen Anne has sat basically not used for many years, and it sounds like their business plan, they’re trying to make this a viable business again and I can appreciate their position on that,” Moyer said.

McClung stressed that he felt $50,000 is a “very, very fair price,” but the other council members disagreed, voting 5-1 to have a realtor’s opinion before moving forward.

A representative of Landmarks Eureka, LLC was also requested to attend the next council meeting.

“I think it makes common sense, and is in the best interest of everyone to do the appraisal,” Avanzino said. “If it comes in at $35,000 or $40,000, then that’s what we offer. If they want to pay $50,000, let them pay $50,000, but stand by what it’s valued at.”

PLANNING ORDINANCES approved The city council approved a pair of ordinances put together by the planning commission to have structured policies regarding fences and metal buildings.

The fence ordinance establishes regulations for non-historic district properties in the city and agricultural zones and regulates permitted “materials, design requirements, setbacks, visibility standards and exceptions.”

The council approved the first two readings of the ordinances, but tabled a third and final vote to give members of the public a chance to offer feedback before it is finalized.

The council also OK’d the first reading of an amended ordinance regarding the city’s commercial metal buildings policy, including requirements for zoning permissions, facade requirements and material standards.

There had not been a fence ordinance for the city other than the guidelines set for historic properties by the historic district commission.

“This was the result of Paul [Sutherland], our code officer, coming to us and asking us to create a fence ordinance,” said Ferguson Stewart, chair of the planning commission. “We did not have a fence ordinance. We had guidance from the historic commission, but there was no fence ordinance for him to use to enforce against.

“We went through a lot of research, fellow cities, asked an attorney to look over everything. … What you see is the result of four months of work by the planning commission to create a fence ordinance that I believe will meet all the criteria that we need.”

The fence ordinance will only apply to individuals who are building new fences or replacing 50 percent or more of an existing fence.

VISION PLAN

The city planning commission is in the midst of brainstorming ideas for revamping the city’s vision plan, but that’s not stopping Moyer from continuing her focus on the council doing its part as well.

Moyer brought up the topic during Monday’s meeting, passing out information she has gathered regarding past plans and sharing her ideas of an ad hoc committee being formed — separate from the planning commission — to develop a vision plan.

“About a month ago, I brought up the issue of planning and we had a conversation here which led to a workshop which I thought was really productive,” Moyer said. “In the last planning commission meeting, I overheard they were talking about reviewing the sort of various bits of plans that existed.

“So over the last month, I’ve taken it upon myself to kind of try to reach out to folks … to try to find all the plans that exist. Because the original plan was 1996, I felt it important to try and find all of the plans that had received any sort of community input to them.”

Moyer said she took all the information she has found and compiled it to understand “what’s there and what’s missing.”

“To be honest, I’ve had a lot of feedback from the community on this, really positive feedback about wanting to take the steps to grow our city,” she said. “They find that visioning is encouraging to them. I receive more feedback on this issue than literally anything else since I’ve been here on city council. So, that tells me that it is really important to our community.”

Moyer continued to stress the importance of having a vision plan and why it should be a priority.

“A vision plan for the city is really important,” she said. “We have a declining population. We have declining revenue. We need to grow. Kind of looking back at what’s been done, and also talking to other communities, what I understand is that plans often do go sort of unfulfilled, but it’s primarily for a couple of reasons, and one is they fail to have any accountability to the pieces of the plan, so no one organization or group is assigned and given sort of full accountability for that. The other is you have to budget to the plan. So, if budgeting to the plan never happens, then this stuff doesn’t happen, and that’s really tricky, I understand, when you’re a city the size of us and you struggle to pay for infrastructure changes and things like that.

“But, it does happen, our community can do that. It just requires some strategy and long-term planning, and a sort of comprehensive approach. I feel like this is an important direction that we need to go.”

Moyer said she was “encouraged” to listen to the latest planning commission meeting on the topic, but she also understands how busy city planning director Cassie Dishman is, thus the idea of forming the ad hoc committee.

“…Talking to other communities, they use ad hoc steering committees to help accomplish this goal, and I think that is an important consideration,” Moyer said.

Berry said Moyer has done a “great job” compiling the information, but continued to stress that he thinks he issue is one for the planning commission.

“…I think the planning commission is still the resource for a lot of this and what you’re talking about,” Berry said. “They are the principal portion of the city that deals with the planning. We are a legislative body. We’re not a planning agency.

“I think the planning department has done, and in the past, has set up those committees that you’re referring to, and I’m sure they’ll take your thoughts into their consideration.”

OTHER ITEMS

The council approved the third and final reading of the annual vote to continue the city’s property tax levy, and renewed the group tour franchise for Joe Gunnel Tours, something that’s currently voted on every two years.

Finance director Michael Akins also told the council that sale tax revenue in September and October was up compared with the same two months in 2024.