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Every large town in Northwest Arkansas used to be a small town, so each has much to share about handling growth, Pea Ridge Mayor Nathan See told a recent forum on housing.
But small cities are learning some lessons and innovations to share too, he and other speakers at the forum said.
The biggest lesson learned in handling growth in Pea Ridge is “speed to market,” according to See, a speaker at a May 27 video conference by Groundwork, the workforce housing advocates.
“Speed to market is huge whenever you’re growing at a fast rate,” See said.
Delays in construction cost developers money — costs that show up in purchase price or rents, he said. His city has emphasized streamlining processes for issuing permits and making inspections, he said.
At least equally important is connecting with the community to let them know about planned projects, especially projects that bring in different kinds of housing — such as apartments and townhouses — other than traditional subdivisions of single-family homes.
“Community engagement is huge. I don’t care what size you are,” See said. “I don’t care if you’re a growing community or a declining community.”
Keeping the community engaged lessens the chance of uninformed opposition that would delay or stop a project, he said.
See hosts an open-agenda meeting at 8 a.m. the first Friday of every month, he said.
“What this does is give you a time to set the culture of your community. Where do you want to head? What are you going to go after? What are you advocating for?” Those meetings also allow him to identify and recruit “champions for your community” who talk to people who didn’t attend the meetings, he said.
“Let their voice be heard,” See said. “Talk to them. What do they need to see? What are we missing? What do we need to have?”
City leaders learn what the city needs from these meetings, he said. For instance, he has learned of the need for more housing accessible to the disabled, he said. Then he meets with developers to learn how to attract those types of projects.
INNOVATION IN CONSTRUCTION
Paying for infrastructure — streets, wastewater and utilities — is vital, See said. In 2004 Pea Ridge implemented impact fees. Those fees do not cover the costs of needed expansion of infrastructure but do provide a “down payment” on those improvements, See said.
Then there’s innovation, according to See: Pea Ridge will bring an Arizona company to town to build a fire trailer — a movable model home the Fire Department will use for demonstrations and training, setting fire to the furnishings inside. The company uses a fireproof home-building method that is also less expensive than regular construction, See said. The company that will make the trailer, Xtrata of Tempe, Ariz., hopes the trailer will show the soundness of its construction method.
Xtrata’s method of construction is already being proposed for construction of new homes in Bella Vista, according to an investor interviewed Tuesday.
Xtrata’s construction method involves a dense form of foam cut using hot-wire tools, according to the company’s website. The structure is then coated inside and out with sabscrete, a weatherproof material that bonds to the foam giving a stucco-like appearance that can be sanded smooth and painted. The company claims its method costs at least 15% less in both money and time than regular construction, is more resistant to fire, can resist hurricane and tornado winds and is extremely energy efficient as insulation.
“Every time I come back to Northwest Arkansas, there’s more and more traffic and the airport looks different,” Cory Nemoto said during a phone interview Tuesday.
Nemoto is co-founder and principal KECO Capital of Honolulu, Hawaii. KECO funds real estate ventures in Hawaii, where housing costs have surged, Nemoto said. That brought his attention to Xtrata, which Nemoto now promotes. Nemoto was recommended as a contact about Xtrata and the challenges posed by growth and rising housing prices by See.
Besides cost considerations, Hawaii suffered wildfires in 2023 driven by high winds, Nemoto said. That made the fire and wind resistance offered by Xtrata’s method attractive along with the speed and lower cost of construction, he said.
COMMUNITIES UNLIMITED
Rural towns in Arkansas — even those with declining populations — have lessons of value to Northwest Arkansas, said Audra Butler, another speaker at the forum. Butler is director of rural housing at Communities Unlimited.
“We are a community development finance institution, a fancy way of saying we have the ability to lend,” Butler said of Communities Unlimited, a Fayetteville-based nonprofit that addresses housing and other needs in rural communities in seven states from Texas to Alabama.
“We’ve worked a lot in the Delta in Arkansas,” Butler said. “One of the things we did was work with a partner to bring in a modular manufacturing facility.”
The group is finishing their sixth home in Pine Bluff using a modular design. The facility building the modular homes hires apprentices who learn building trades at that facility. The skills learned by those apprentices can then be applied in traditional, on-site construction of homes. This helps create the workforce needed in any region, including a thriving one, she said.
Any town needs a comprehensive, professional assessment of what type of housing it needs, Butler said.
“I know most people on this call are probably rolling their eyes and saying ‘OK. We don’t need another piece of paper. We need to build homes.’ But the question I always ask when I’m confronted with that, and it happens in every community I go into is, ‘How do you know what you need? What type of home do you actually need in your community?'”
Without an assessment, “you have a really high probability of getting it wrong,” Butler said.
Doug Thompson can be reached by email at dthompson@nwaonline.com.
Doug Thompson
Doug Thompson is a reporter with more than 40 years of experience, including more than a quarter-century in Northwest Arkansas. He covers state politics from a Northwest Arkansas perspective and issues of regional importance for the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He previously served as a state Capitol reporter, business and agriculture reporter, editorial writer, columnist and regional reporter for southwestern Arkansas. Before that he covered city government. He moved to Northwest Arkansas in 1998.
