FORT SMITH, Ark. — Now that the 188th Wing in Fort Smith will be the new home to an F-35 Pilot Training Center, it's time to get public input on how to keep the noise from the new center from getting out of hand. It's called a military combat overlay district.
Some Fort Smith residents tonight came to see the proposed plan for that military district and to share their concerns on April 22. One worry seemed to have more interest than others— the noise the jets would create.
"We are proposing our certain sound attenuation requirements for walls and windows in order to reduce the amount of sound that gets into a home. And this is only for new construction," Carl E. Geffken, Fort Smith City Administrator, said. "For homes and buildings currently in the area, we have a list provided by our building services department that shows what can be done to help reduce noise."
This overlay will be a huge part of the city, so Geffken says he wants everyone's voice to be heard before they move forward with the plan.
"We're going to be affecting everyone's lives," he said. "And so we need to have everyone's input because there may be something that we didn't think about or how one of the proposed rules will affect that will have an unintended consequence that if we fix it now like we should, it could mitigate that."
Both Geffken and Fort Smith Director of Planning and Zoning Maggie Rice said they believe this new training center will be transformative for the city.
"Like anything good. It takes a while to get there. This is important to Fort Smith, this project is transformative," Geffken said. "Fort Smith, I think, has had some close times where it could have had one of a transformative project and it hasn't. Now's the time. We're ready for this project, and we want to make sure our residents and our businesses are ready too."
"I think that ultimately it's going to have a very positive impact," Rice said. "I think that the economic development that will come from the new military mission will be very positive, and what we hope to do through the zoning overlay is to mitigate any sort of adverse impact that could come from noise from aircraft."
While many citizens have concerns, many say they are encouraged by the effort the city is putting into listening.
"I think the city, you know, they put it on paper," Rodney Ghan, commercial developer, said. "They've gone one side of it. Now they're hearing my side of it and hopefully we can find a happy medium."
The second meeting to talk about the district will be this Thursday, April 25, at 5:30 p.m. at the Blue Lion in Downtown Fort Smith.
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