A group of Central Arkansas counties and cities are forming a Little Rock Air Force Base Regional Planning Committee that officials say will be the first of its kind in the U.S.
Officials said the committee, made up of Austin, Cabot, Jacksonville, Maumelle, North Little Rock, Sherwood, Ward, Faulkner County, Lonoke County, Pulaski County and White County, will be a formal commitment among the cities and counties with land use and planning authority to work together to ensure development around the Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville is consistent with the base's mission.
This will be the first regional planning committee in the U.S. that local jurisdictions took the initiative to voluntarily form in order to promote local development around a military base, according to Pulaski County.
Pulaski County Judge Barry Hyde said the Department of Defense reached out to ask how the involved municipalities and counties would keep the Air Force base viable to them 50 years from now, "just like it is today."
"They pointed out things like where they've had to close bases, which is devastating to communities that grew up around them, like Jacksonville," said Hyde, who is the chief executive of Pulaski County government. "And usually it's because growth of the community has encroached right up to the fence of the base. And so as technology changes and industry changes, and they need to add something, they don't have any room or it becomes so dense, just planes taking off and landing is so disruptive."
The Department of Defense provided the cost of consultants for a planning study to survey all the takeoff, landing and crash zones.
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Hyde said Pulaski County Attorney Adam Fogleman drew up all the legal documents and interlocal agreements for the past three years to get to where they are today.
"Without an attorney who was experienced enough and patient enough to work through this -- [Fogleman] is respected enough in that community that he was able to work with them -- we ended up with what I think is a very workable agreement."
Fogleman said that it is in the interest of all the communities involved to ensure that the air base is successful and "remains part of this community" as it has since it opened.
The Little Rock Air Force Base, officially activated on Oct. 9, 1955, started out with 100 officers and 1,134 airmen, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Today, it has more than 5,000 active military personnel and is among the largest employers in Arkansas, according to the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Arkansas Economic Development Commission.
Rob Ator, a retired military colonel and director of military affairs at the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, said the commission helps align all the different municipalities and counties around the Air Force base so they have similar rules in place.
"The whole point of it is, is to proactively set some rules in place so that so that the community and the base thrive at the same time," he said.
From his time in uniform, Ator noted that Arkansas is the most patriotic place he's ever lived, but it wasn't always "military friendly."
"Until more recently, when we brought this problem up to those communities, they have all rallied to try and do everything they can to be able to support what the base is doing," he said. "This is one of those times when you get real proud when you see these communities that, this may not be a big issue to them, but because it was an issue to the Air Force, they wanted to be a part of it and it just makes me a proud Arkansan."