Fort Smith Director makes revisions to planned duplex development ahead of second vote

Fort Smith Ward 1 Director and real estate developer Keith Lau will return to the city’s planning commission next week to be considered for a second approval after having made revisions to his duplex development plan at 1001, 1011, and 1021 N. 49th St.

Lau won the original planning commission vote on May 14 by a 6-2 margin, but an appeal to the Board of Directors from approximately 40 neighborhood residents resulted in the plan being sent back to commissioners on June 5.

Each of the six planned duplexes will contain two units, with around 1,402 square feet of heated living space per unit (or 2,804 per duplex). Each unit will contain four bedrooms and a “common space” living area with a kitchen.

At a study session on Tuesday (July 3), Lau and project architect Brett Abbott detailed revisions that have since been made to the project following a June 25 neighborhood meeting. Abbott and Lau felt good about the meeting, though Lau acknowledged there wasn’t “100% buy-in” with two residents still objecting to the design. Even so, compromises were reached, Abbott told commissioners.

“Basically, the main things the neighborhood concerns were about were the number of people being on the property, signage for no parking, drainage — we’ll be doing a drainage study — and Keith has agreed to have one person on the property to handle any potential issues with the tenants and mitigate problems before the police are involved,” Abbott said.

Lau agreed to limited guest parking in favor of more landscaping and installing No Parking signs on the street with tow warnings.

“There will be a screen for the guest parking in front of the buildings and the trash-and-recycle cans located on the first floor of the project. There are also storage units for each tenant, but you won’t see any of that from the street,” Abbott said, adding that Lau also agreed to “get an engineering letter to show we’re not impacting the neighborhood (traffic) dramatically.”

Abbott intends to have that letter before the commission prior to its July 10 regular meeting. Additionally, the properties will be under a professional landscaping contract, and there will be no multi-tenant leasing with just one lease per unit. Roommate arrangements will be up to the name on the lease, but, Abbott said, the project will work “within the limits” of Fair Housing laws to try and ensure no more than one tenant per room.

To the point of rental prices, Lau hasn’t released those yet, but told Talk Business & Politics in an earlier interview they would be in line with UAFS Sebastian Commons housing. Lau said he wants to build the duplexes on North 49th because he already has property there, but it’s difficult to upkeep it because the price points don’t allow him to keep the best tenants.

“They park in the yards, don’t cut their grass. You’ll notify them, and they still won’t do it. With these, we’ll have lawn care, and they’ll just be professionally managed and cared for,” Lau said.