Fayetteville Long Range Planning Committee members agreed July 24 to invite a representative of the Arkansas Manufactured Housing Association to the committee’s next meeting to clarify how recent state legislation constrains local regulation of manufactured housing.

Committee members and staff said they previously met with the association’s executive director, who helped draft the state law and offered guidance on which local rules remain allowed and which are preempted. Staff told the committee the state law limits some local tools — for example, staff reported the city may not be able to apply different setback standards to manufactured homes than to site-built houses in the same underlying zoning district.

The committee discussed whether to pursue a modest cleanup of Fayetteville’s current ordinance language to remove obsolete provisions, to pursue conditional-use permit pathways for some manufactured housing situations, or to draft more expansive code changes and test the furthest options allowed under state law. Staff said they remain unclear on how conditional-use permitting interacts with the state’s limits and asked the association representative to explain that point.

Members asked staff to circulate draft ordinance edits, the questions prepared for the association representative and the meeting notes in advance so the committee can maximize the representative’s time and ask specific legal and implementation questions. Staff said Kylie (planning staff) and Carly (planning staff) have annotated draft edits and that the association representative offered to join next month’s meeting via Zoom if available.

No formal vote was taken. Committee conversation ended with a general consensus to invite the association representative to the next meeting and to circulate questions and annotated drafts in advance so members can prepare.

Ending: The committee moved on to the second agenda item after confirming there were no further questions about manufactured housing and noted staff would return with clarifications from the association on conditional-use permits and any other state-imposed limits on local regulation.