Residents win Great DG Store Debate of 2022

Evidently the Dollar General Store wasn’t a “done deal” after all.

Late last week word broke that those trying to get approval to rezone property at the intersection of Commonwealth and Euston Roads in the Metfield area on the east side of Bella Vista had withdrawn that request.

Prior to the request being withdrawn, a letter to the editor appeared in The Weekly Vista claiming the arrival of a Dollar General Store on the city’s east side was happening. It was a go. A sure thing. A “done deal.”

The request would be approved by the Bella Vista Planning Commission. The black on yellow signage was on its way.

However, nothing was mentioned about the City Council getting the last word on approving any rezone requests given to it by the Planning Commission, which always has to happen when it comes to rezoning issues.

Apparently some were putting the cart before the horse or, in this case, the Dollar General shopper before the yellow shopping cart.

The path a rezoning request takes from start to finish is a simple one — tedious, yes, lengthy, can be — but every hurdle must be hurdled before the next one can be attempted.

The city planners did their due diligence, seeing that the entities making the request have covered all the bases. The city planners do this for every request. I’ve not seen one instance where they haven’t addressed every detail of a rezoning request without having first gone over it with a fine-toothed comb. They did this in this instance, and I’m sure they did it regardless of how they may have felt about another Dollar General Store coming to town.

They present their work to the commission. If the commission approves, the approved request is sent along the path to the City Council, which votes either to green light the request or turn it down. If there’s a tie, the mayor votes to break the tie or chooses not to vote, meaning the issue fails.

The mayor, in this instance, has made it known he had no prior knowledge of this plan to bring Dollar General to the Metfield area. Of course he was also accused of trying to bring Walmart to town as mayor when he had yet to become the mayor. But I digress.

Of course, one step in the path I left out of my previous description — which isn’t really a step as much as an option that can be added, subtracted or even left out any stage of the process entirely — is that of public input.

This issue had it. And that input by the residents of Bella Vista played a major role in the failure of this project.

Could the applicants step back, regroup, and make another run at the Metfield neighborhood? Sure, I suppose. But they would have to know the public input would return to greet them.

There were other issues that caught the commissioners’ attention, and those issues were addressed during their work session, issues that played a big part in the request ultimately failing to make it to the Planning Commission’s April 11 regular session, where it would have been voted on by the commissioners.

But the public took advantage of its right to have its voice heard, and that carried a lot of weight with the Planning Commission.

In the Great Dollar General Store Debate of 2022 there were a lot of good points made. There were a lot of heartfelt points made. There was even (believe it or not) a lot of points made based solely on misinformation.

But at least there was debate, and it didn’t fall on deaf ears.

Just as there is a process for rezoning requests, there is also a process for the splitting of lots. And

this debate there were some who accused those against the rezoning request to be of the “not in my backyard” ilk. In other words, they were accused of acting like they were too good to have a Dollar General Store in their neighborhood.

Maybe those accusers could fill out the paperwork to have their lot split and invite the Dollar General folks to be their neighbors.

Maybe I’ll save that point for the next debate.

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Bennett Horne is the managing editor of The Weekly Vista. He can be reached via email at bhorne@nwaonline.com. Opinions expressed are those of the author.