The superintendent of a school district in Jonesboro, Ark., says a proposed 260-unit apartment complex "could significantly impact the needs and services of our students."
In a letter to the city's planning staff, Karen Curtner, superintendent of the Nettleton School District, says more than 60% of students at two of the district's schools use buses to get to and from their homes.
"This has led to increased traffic congestion in an area that already experiences such congestion due to the number of buses that are required to transport such a large number of students," she writes.
If preliminary plans for the development at Savannah Hills are approved, "the construction of these apartments will increase the overall population of our students in our district, which could require a requested school tax increase due to the cost of construction, personnel, and supplies," she adds, per the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
SSP Investments is seeking to expand the housing subdivision, which currently contains 65 lots on 26.18 acres.
Each lot would contain four-plex apartment buildings, or 260 new housing units.
The proposal has been on hold since Sept.
12 after Jonesboro's engineering staff questioned the accuracy of a traffic impact study.
A revised study was submitted prior to that meeting, but not soon enough
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