Fort Smith Board supportive of military overlay district proposal

Fort Smith City Directors touted a proposed Military Compatibility Area Overlay District in the city as beneficial and needed during a study session of the Board of Directors on Tuesday (May 28).

The proposed “Military Compatibility Area Overlay District” was developed by the city to “protect public health, safety, and welfare of the community and preserve and maintain existing and future operational capabilities of the Fort Smith Regional Airport/Ebbing Air National Guard Base.”

Though neither the military nor the federal government has specifically requested the city do so, the city hired Matrix Design Group for $210,000 in 2022 to help to draft the document, which City Administrator Carl Geffken said was done in order to make the city more attractive to the Air Force for the Foreign Military Sales Program.

Ebbing Air National Guard Base, home to the 188th Wing in Fort Smith and co-located with the Fort Smith Regional Airport, was selected in March 2023 by the U.S. Air Force to be the long-term pilot training center supporting F-16 and F-35 fighter planes purchased by Singapore, Switzerland, Poland, Germany, Finland and other countries participating in the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. Initial estimates are that 1,500 military personnel and family members will be associated with the new center once it is fully operational.

U.S. Air Force officials have said the earliest planes and pilots from foreign nations could arrive at Ebbing would be in late 2024, part of the military’s fiscal year 2025 beginning in September 2024. The full complement of 12 F-16s and 24 F-35s from various nations could arrive in fiscal year 2026 at the earliest.

Through discussions among city staff and feedback from the public, the original document from Matrix, a planning consulting firm that works with cities who have military installations, has undergone many changes since the original draft was given to the city in June 2023.

“I went through and read the first document from a year ago and each successive of the seven iterations that showed the changes in red. … I think the city has gone a long way in addressing what might have been a concern in that first document as being too stringent and too unclear to both loosen the requirements and make it very clear and something that is reasonable and people can understand,” said Director Lavon Morton.

In the proposed overlay district, the city set out a proposed set of guidelines dealing with lighting in areas near the airport, sound reduction requirements in new construction in the area included in the overlay and height restrictions on new construction on property connecting to airport property. For property physically contiguous to the airport, there are more stringent guidelines proposed for new construction that include a maximum height of 35 feet above the established airfield elevation and a 30-foot buffer between buildings and the airport property.

Also, any property to be sold to a foreign entity, defined as any non-U.S. owned entity, would require approval by the Fort Smith Board of Directors. Director Kevin Settle asked if the board would need to approve if the property were rented to a foreign entity. Maggie Rice, director of planning and zoning for the city, said she did not think the city would be able to determine the property were rented unless the renters needed a building permit of some type.

The Fort Smith Planning Commission voted four to three against unified development ordinance (UDO) amendments that would create a Military Compatibility Area Overlay District on May 14. Rice said she believed most of the concern over the ordinance at that time was due to the security restrictions. Many of the concerns brought up in the meeting were addressed in the latest edit of the overlay district, which removes the property west of Old Greenwood Road and north of Phoenix from the airport buffer.

“I think this is exactly what we need to do to help protect us against … foreign governments doing everything possible to try to learn the secrets of the F-35,” Morton said. “I think the security issue is addressed as well as we can do it with what we are doing. I think it is absolutely what we need to do.”

The ordinance is on the agenda for the June 4 Board of Directors meeting. Director Jarred Rego has asked that it be tabled until the June 18 meeting, since he will be absent from the June 4 meeting. That action can not be determined until the meeting.