Council member Theresa Turk on May 8 urged the Historic District Commission to evaluate options to protect the Dixie Street area of the Dixon Street National Register historic district after a wave of proposed student housing projects and other developments.

"We are way behind. I think that's why developers are coming here," Turk told the commission, summarizing concerns about scale, parking and viewshed impacts on the historic corridor.

Turk presented maps and National Register documentation showing that the Dixie Street district contains roughly 56 resources (35 contributing and 20 non‑contributing) evaluated for the period 1892–1957. She identified three recent proposals that she said threaten the district’s character: a redevelopment at the UARK (York) Theater (listed as a contributing resource), a seven‑story campus bookstore proposal inside the district and a proposed seven‑story private student housing project on Block Street that is the subject of litigation.

Staff said the city recently added a private‑dormitory use unit to the zoning code and revised parking standards on May 6 to scale parking reductions by project size; staff described the parking change as a response to recent projects that proposed deep reductions in required parking where surrounding streets have narrow rights‑of‑way and limited on‑street capacity. The new rules require a parking plan and reduce the automatic discount offered to very large projects (for example projects with more than 251 beds now receive a smaller parking reduction than under the previous rule). Staff noted the parking revisions do not apply retroactively to projects that were already in the pipeline.

Commissioners and staff discussed regulatory options that could be used to influence new construction’s scale and design. Staff outlined three broad approaches: 1) amend the existing downtown design overlay standards to add clearer, building‑type specific guidance; 2) adopt a new, more prescriptive overlay for the Dixie Street area that would layer additional standards; or 3) pursue local historic‑district designation using either a petition from property owners or a council‑initiated conversion of the existing National Register boundary to a local district. Staff said the council‑initiated path can use an existing National Register boundary but still requires design guidelines and the 60‑day reviews required by state law.

Staff cautioned that restricting height through zoning changes could raise legal and financial issues for the city. Staff referenced advice from the city attorney that state law may require the city to compensate property owners if a regulatory change reduces a property's market value beyond specified thresholds unless the change is implemented under an adopted plan; staff said that step makes an adopted downtown plan an important foundation for any action that would materially reduce permitted development rights.

Turk and commissioners also discussed alternatives such as: the conditional‑use permit (CUP) requirement recently added for private dormitories, targeted parking districts to reserve street parking for residents, and refining downtown design standards to require more compatible materials and facade articulation on larger buildings. Staff suggested the commission could act as an advisory body to planning commission efforts to revise the downtown standards and could also recommend that the council request staff to initiate a local overlay or district process.

Commissioners asked staff to circulate the existing downtown design overlay and examples of overlay language from other Arkansas cities that Turk had gathered (Conway, Prairie Grove, Paragould) and agreed to begin review at the next meeting. Staff said the conditional‑use route is the quickest tool already in effect for new private dormitories but noted it does not regulate other apartment or mixed‑use building types that fall outside the private‑dormitory definition.

Staff also said the TriNetas/Trinidad student housing project had been denied by the planning commission (4–3) and by the city council (5–3) and that the developer subsequently filed suit; staff emphasized that because that project predated the recent parking and private‑dormitory rules, those changes do not apply to it.