HSV plan available for public comment
HOT SPRINGS VILLAGE — A completed draft of Hot Springs Village’s Comprehensive Master Plan and Development Code is now available for review and for public comment.
The master plan seeks to protect the community’s long-term fiscal sustainability, to establish and preserve its natural character, and to evolve the experiences and housing offered to meet the changing needs of retirement and demographics, a news release said.
Public comments will be cataloged and reviewed by the Ad Hoc CMP Steering Committee, the CMP planning team, and the Hot Springs Village Board of Directors. The plan will be introduced as new business to
the board at its regular meeting at 9 a.m. March 21 at the Ouachita Building, Ponce de Leon Center, 1101 DeSoto Blvd.
The final plan will be adopted by the board in April.
The documents may be viewed at http://www.ExploreTheVillage.com/ Vision/Comprehensive-Master-Plan. Printed copies may be viewed at the POA Administration Building at 895 DeSoto Blvd., or at the Coronado Library, 150 Ponderosa Lane.
Comments can be submitted via email to development@hsvpoa.org.
The plan, developed by a project team including Crafton Tull, DPZ, Great Destinations Strategies, Randall Gross Development Economics, East Harding, and RPPY, provides a phased, successional development approach for Hot Springs Village for the next 25 years.
An eight-day charrette, or intense period of design and planning activity, was conducted in early December 2017 “elicited a large amount of feedback,” Kate Chagnon, the HSV POA communications manager, told The Sentinel-Record ln Dec. 11, 2017, after the charrette wrapped up.
“We’ve had more than 2,000 people participate in this process already in some fashion, and we will keep trying to engage our residents, nonresident owners, builders, developers and investors,” she said.
Based on information gathered during the charrette and other forms of engagement with property owners and stakeholders, the plan encompasses the wants and needs of current residents while planning for those who are not yet part of the community.
The three primary strategies identified were protecting the long-term fiscal sustainability of the Village, establishing and preserving the natural character of the Village and evolving the experiences and housing offered to meet the changing needs of retirement and demographics.
Twenty-six percent of Hot Springs Village’s 34,000 originally platted residential lots have been built upon since inception. In order to financially support the current infrastructure, planners estimate that the Village will need to expand that number to between 50 and 66 percent over the long-term.
High-quality videos of the CMP presentation held on March 6 have been added to the CMP website, along with the slides from the presentation. These and other resources available on the website may serve as helpful aids when reviewing the plan.
“As Hot Springs Village property owners and stakeholders, our most critical pursuit today is to take personal ownership of our road map for success and sustainability by contributing to the Comprehensive Master Plan process,” John Weidert, Hot Springs Village Board chairman, said in the release.
“We must all embrace the task at hand; the future of Hot Springs Village depends on it. We hope to hear from all property owners as we take this exciting step forward together,” he said.