Last week, a group of community leaders and government officials gathered to mark the official opening of a new affordable housing community in west Fayetteville. Ozarks at Large’s Daniel Carruth was at the ribbon-cutting and has more.
A volunteer holds open the door to a first-floor duplex with cursive letters spelling out the words “Love” and “Family” above a plush beige couch. The three-bedroom duplex is one of 89 units in the new Cobblestone Farm community. The housing development off Wedington Drive in west Fayetteville includes single-family homes, triplexes and duplexes like this one, and is home to around 300 residents.
What sets this apart from the many housing developments popping up across the region is the price. Rent here starts as low as $173 a month and caps at $753. This community opened to renters earlier this year and is already at capacity.
“At one point, when we opened the waiting list before we had our first unit, there were over 500 people on the waitlist.”
Jim Petty, CEO of Strategic Realty and a Republican state senator from Van Buren, is the lead developer for the project. He welcomed a crowd seated in front of the units and said collaboration was paramount to get this development built after nearly seven years of planning.
“So for those of you that are counting, that’s three presidents, two governors and one pandemic ago. So it has been a process, and it’s our prayer that the lives of these 89 families that currently live here, and those that will live here in the future, will be positively impacted because of this project. And again, we’re proud to have had many partners. We’re proud to have led this process. But we couldn’t have done it alone.”
In 2020, the city of Fayetteville rezoned and annexed the nearly 30 acres where the development now sits and officially broke ground in 2022. Financing for the $21 million project came from a mix of sources. The Arkansas Development Finance Authority provided 90 percent of resources through the federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program and the National Housing Trust Fund, while Arvest Bank helped with construction costs through an $850,000 Affordable Housing Program grant awarded by the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas.
Jim Hall, co-director leader for New Heights Church, another partner organization, said the church is leasing the land for the project at $1 a year for 99 years.
“New Heights was gifted $1.2 million from an anonymous donor to buy the property almost 17 years ago, and certainly no one at that time foresaw using the land for this purpose, to help create a community for folks in need of affordable housing. New Heights is currently beginning discussions — and I can’t say a lot about this right now, but I’m in hopes it will come to fruition rather quickly — with another nonprofit to help create even more housing to meet a niche need in our community. A bigger project is this, but we’re in hopes of doing even more than that project in the future on this property and other properties. I hope other churches and nonprofits will follow suit and do even more.”
Addressing affordable housing through projects like this has become an increasing issue in Northwest Arkansas, with median home prices in the region growing by 240 percent over the past six years, according to a 2024 report from the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas.
Brad Sikorski, president and CEO of the Accelerate Foundation, another partner in the Cobblestone Farm community, said the project shows the power of collaboration.
“You know, I think my predecessor had a saying that kind of encapsulates this: many hands create for light work. And this is definitely a project where any one of us couldn’t have pulled this off by ourselves. I think it’s a step. We need a lot more housing stock in Northwest Arkansas. And so we just, frankly, need 10 more projects like this across Northwest Arkansas. Probably more than that.”
Accelerate is working on other affordable housing projects, including one in Bentonville that will provide homes for the city’s school district employees.
“One of the ultimate goals we have is to be able to move people into their own homes. There are some other novel models we’re testing throughout the Northwest Arkansas community that will not only give folks affordable homes but give them the ability to build wealth and transition that into the dream of homeownership. Those are some of the programs I’d like to see more of.”
Karen Phillips, chief operations officer for Restore Hope, another partner on the project, said the biggest hurdle in creating affordable housing is finding out how to fund it.
“A lot of layers of funding sources, which is what it took to make this happen and to keep the rents as low as they are. You heard how low those rents are. Well, that doesn’t just happen. That requires a lot of different funding mechanisms to keep the rents low. And every funding mechanism you use comes with its own set of rules and regulations and red tape. And every single one of those require a lot of time and effort and setbacks. So yeah, that was part of the process for sure.”
Sen. Petty agreed that while projects like this help address part of the region’s housing crisis, there’s still more that needs to be done, at least from a policy standpoint.
“So I think the first thing that needs to happen is education. Not everybody understands, like Northwest Arkansas, that there is an affordability crisis and availability crisis, in spite of all of their successes and economic prosperity up here. That perpetuates exactly what we’re talking about here today. The rents here on these, I would guess, are $1,500, $2,000 if it weren’t for the programs that fund this.”
He said it will take a combination of tactics, like reforming zoning and building codes, to help course-correct the inflated housing market.
“Currently, I introduced a bill, SB456, that we put into interim study, and that’s doing just that. What can we do to speed up, accelerate the construction of housing, and what can we do to keep the cost as low as possible.”
Petty also identified issues like transportation and wastewater infrastructure as barriers to development.
“There’s just a lot of things that need to happen. And I think the more we talk about it, and the more we do it in a way that is collaborative, and we get our own personal preferences and our own egos out of the way, the sooner that we can get to solving the real problems.”
He said Cobblestone is planning to build 10 more units on the property later this year.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
