FCRA board approves new plan to allow extensions for property development

The Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority (FCRA) Board of Trustees on Thursday (July 17) passed a resolution to allow more time for property owners to complete building projects on land purchased from the trust.

The board has discussed for more than a year raising fees on requested extensions for property development. In July 2024, the board voted to give up to 180-day automatic extensions to any contracts for property that have deadlines for construction improvements coming due before the first of the year.

A key reason for requiring development to proceed as planned for purchased property was to avoid a person or business acquiring property for the sole purpose of price speculation.

They also discussed raising fees for contract extensions on developing sold property, but board members said higher interest rates and inflation made it difficult for some property owners to make planned property improvements. With that in mind, they wanted to further study what steps could be taken to raise the fees in order to incentivize property owners into moving forward with property improvements.

The issue of fees has made multiple appearances on the board’s agendas in the past 18 months.

“I would like us to come up with some sort of solution. We’ve had this before the group three times,” said board Chair Dean Gibson. “I would like to try to come up with an item that will give a little incentive to try to develop the property. The cities are saying they want to push the development. We have property here that was purchased from before 2017 that is still not developed.”

The FCRA has had extensions available for more than 10 years, Gibson said. In the past, a development extension had a $100 fee and had to be approved by the board. Extensions were granted for three months to a year.

The proposal presented to the board Thursday had property divided into two categories — property sold from before 2017 still requiring extensions and property purchased from 2017 to the present. There were fees set per extension for each group. Each extension would also require certain criteria to be met.

The fees in the suggested resolution increased steadily for each extension and were more for those who had older property. Daniel Mann, FCRA executive director and CEO, said there were four properties in the pre-2017 tier.

Property owners in attendance said the fees were too much considering the economic climate.

“It’s ridiculous that you want to assess those fees on developers who have been working here a lot,” said Steve Beam. “We have two buildings sitting empty. Development will happen as the economy allows and there is demand. There isn’t right now.”

Realtor and developer Chuck Fawcett said “developers are sucking wind right now.”

“If you are going to do something like this, now is not the time to do it,” he said.

Trustee Scott Archer agreed with the property owners and suggested the resolution be changed to have all property in the same tier and for the suggested fees to be cut in half.

“We need to have something more reasonable for consideration. … Or we are going to be looking at owners selling back their property,” Archer said. “I don’t think we need to not be in the property buying back business. People who have the property, we need to help them.”

The resolution approved set fees for the first extension at $750; the second at $1,500; and the third at $2,500.

Each extension will give property owners an additional 18 more months to make approved improvements. Property owners will have the opportunity for three additional extensions. Further extensions can be granted if voted on by the board, according to the resolution.