HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-57 (4)
Ramirez, Jonathan
From:Katherine Faught <kassifaught@icloud.com>
Sent:Tuesday, June 18, 2024 2:57 PM
To:Agenda Item Comment
Cc:Masters, Jessica
Subject:Fwd: RZN-2024-0018
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Begin forwarded message:
From: Katherine Faught <kassifaught@icloud.com>
Date: May 21, 2024 at 6:31:55 PM CDT
To: scott.berna@fayetteville-ar.gov
Subject: Fwd: RZN-2024-0018
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Begin forwarded message:
From: Katherine Faught <kassifaught@icloud.com>
Date: May 20, 2024 at 7:33:47 AM CDT
To: jcurth@fayetteville-ar.gov
Subject: RZN-2024-0018
Jonathan Curth, AICP
Development Services
Director
Reference: RZN-2024-0018. #8 on agenda
Mr. Curth,
I am part owner with my two sisters of Summit Terrace Apartments/Kerr
Investment Company. We acquired this property after my father passed
away this past October. We all live out of town. One sister lives in Texas. The
other lives in North Carolina and I live in Conway. All of us were born and
raised in Fayetteville, graduated from the U of A and our children have
attended the university as well. All three of us and our families are season
ticket holders to the Razorback football games and yes, we all come in town
even from Texas and North Carolina for the games!!! I remember helping my
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dad with the Lions Club as a child collecting tickets at the games at the gates
of both the football and basketball games while he volunteered before we
went and sat in our seats. I thought that was so fun! My dad tried to give by
way of service. He was named the volunteer of the year with the Veteran's
and he volunteered on Thanksgiving to make food baskets through the Elks
Lodge. He let Fayetteville high school students park in his empty lot at the
apartment house because they did not have enough parking. This is just the
kind of man he was and I wanted you to know a little something about him
and our family.
I personally lived in the big white townhouse while going to school, my son
and nephew followed in my footsteps as well growing up, my dad had all
three of us doing summer “jobs“ at the property by cleaning the pool,
painting, apartments, picking up trash, etc. my son carried on the tradition
while he was in school and took care of the mowing, helped with
maintenance with his papa. So we all have great memories. My dad has had
this property since I was an infant and I remember Scott and Becky Bull (yes,
the Razorback/ pro football player) being his office manager and several
“known” basketball players living in the apartments. One in particular, Scott
Hastings, teaching me how to dive in the pool! My dad built our families
livelihood off of his four apartment houses and rentals around the campus
one apartment house he sold on Maple Street, TWO apartment houses were
taken by the university by eminent domain, and then this piece of property
was the last piece of property he had left.
My father made us three girls promise to keep this apartment house running
as long as we could and not sell until after his death. We did this. I feel you
need a background story on our struggles to make this happen. My mother
and father built and ran these properties as he was able to fix, repair and
build anything. That is how they made this business profitable and
successful. Being able to handle all of the maintenance and problems was a
huge asset for them. Summit Terrace was actually a nice apartment house to
live in back in the day. With that said, 10 years ago, my mother was
diagnosed with lung problems and five years ago, my mother passed away of
cancer. after she died, my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Over these
past 10 years the apartments fell on the wayside a bit. Necessary things were
done because we had a manager, but not how Dad usually kept them up. We
didn’t know what was going on until the Alzheimer’s diagnosis. But it made
sense why the apartments were not maintained to me and my sister’s
standard. He was unable to get around , let alone fix the things he was
usually able to fix in the past. Once we saw the condition of the apartment’s
of at least 10 year’s worth of neglect, we knew it was time to just maintain
them as long as we could to honor dads wishes.
These apartments are now being called “ affordable living” and it’s become a
hot topic. I’d like the city to know that we as a family actually discussed
trying to keep the property. In our opinion, as it is now, the apartments are
beyond just simple repairs. The choice we had to make was to tear all of it
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down and rebuild or to just sell it. We chose the latter simply because we all
live in different states, and it would be very difficult as it is now to keep and
maintain apartments. Either way, the affordable living topic that might be the
issue, is really a non-issue. If we rebuilt or decided to renovate, our rents
would have gone up to reflect what we had done . It was a hard decision,
trust me. This was Dad‘s last piece of property and our decision was made
with a heavy heart, but due to age and condition of the property, we cannot
maintain these apartments like they are anymore. It is not cost-effective.
I hope this information helps you understand the position we were placed in
and why we chose to sell versus tear down and rebuild ourselves and help
the city vote to pass the sell of our property.
Sincerely, Kassi Kerr Faught
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