Northwest Arkansas Council outlines visionary plan
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Covers of the vision documents. Courtesy the Northwest Arkansas Council
Leaders of the Northwest Arkansas Council on Wednesday revealed a vision for a regional approach to plan for development, housing, transportation, water and land use.
Why it matters: NWA's current path is fractured and gets harder to manage as each city grows, potentially undercutting the area's affordability and livability as its population is set to hit 1 million by 2050.
What they found: "The strategy finds that the region's most pressing challenges are interconnected," authors of the Northwest Arkansas Council report write.
- "Housing availability affects commuting patterns. Development patterns influence infrastructure costs. Transportation access shapes workforce participation. Decisions made by one community increasingly affect outcomes across Northwest Arkansas."
State of play: The report centers on familiar growing pain issues for residents but goes further by laying out a regional playbook for policy collaboration.
The proposed strategy is organized around six priorities:
- Growth — Build communities and preserve rural land
- Infrastructure — Steer development where services can be sustained
- Housing — Add options for different stages of life
- Transportation — Improve connections to cut congestion and trip times
- Water — Plan across city lines
- Governance — Strengthen regional coordination
Stunning stat: Using historic trends, existing regulations and population projections, report authors calculated that if current growth patterns continue, the region would consume another 59 square miles by 2050 and generate about $20 million a year in net surplus.
- Yes, but: A more focused model would cut land consumption to about 37 square miles and generate an estimated $340 million annual regional surplus for infrastructure, mobility and conservation.
What they're saying: "There's a lot of issues out there … the fact that we have $6 billion in needs for highways and $3 billion in revenues … rising house prices, we have a lot of challenges to address," Nelson Peacock, president and CEO of the NWA Council, told Axios.
- "I believe what we do here over the next six months, two years, five years helps us figure out if we're going to be able to have the kind of region that we enjoy today."
What's next: Three of the priorities — housing, transportation and water infrastructure — have detailed tactical outlines in an accompanying document.
- The council is finalizing the last three outlines and plans for them to be available in the next week.
What we're watching: The council says it plans to move from strategy to implementation in May by convening regional leaders, assigning responsibilities and setting metrics to track progress, Peacock told Axios.
- "Hopefully this vision will help us clarify some of the things — the big things — that we need to do … so we can get working on those quickly," he said.