New Arkansas Zoning Strategy May Loosen NIMBY Chokehold

Neighborhood activists wield immense power over what gets built in their communities.

Public hearings and discretionary reviews often give organized “not in my backyard” groups opportunities to delay or derail projects they oppose, frequently affordable or multifamily housing. Across the country, a growing chorus of lawmakers, urban planners, housing advocates and real estate developers has encouraged legal changes that blunt NIMBY opposition in zoning efforts.

Arkansas took a big step toward a first-of-its-kind model on potential tactics to dislodge NIMBY logjams. Gov. Sarah Huckabee signed legislation April 14 that permits cities and counties to implement administrative approval on zoning requests as long as the changes being sought fit an adopted land-use plan.   

That may seem arcane. However, the relatively simple change to state law means a city or county could enact approval procedures that would bypass a local legislative process.

When community activists assert themselves into such a process, a zoning request “ends up failing a lot of times on narrow interests,” said James Walden, an urban planner in North Little Rock, AR, with national civil engineering firm Garver.

Like other states attempting this through different policy tactics, Arkansas law aims to streamline zoning changes and reduce barriers to development, speeding up sorely needed housing production.

Land-Use Plans and Zoning Battles

During the COVID-19 pandemic, housing shortages ballooned in many parts of the country. NIMBY opposition to new developments spooled upward.

Countering the opposition took on such importance that Congress passed funding in 2022 that included $85 million for “Yes In My Backyard” grants through Housing and Urban Development under former President Joe Biden to help counter NIMBY opposition.

One such strategy would encourage cities to pass laws that remove barriers to creating more housing and promote a broader variety of residential options, focusing on affordability.

How those grants get doled out under the Trump administration could change.

Rezoning a property can take months or longer, at great expense, to navigate public hearings, work with neighborhoods to win support, and address issues legislative bodies may raise.

HUD Secretary Scott Turner acknowledged the housing affordability crisis at the 2025 International Builders’ Show in Las Vegas in February, and reinforced his agency's commitment to reducing regulatory hurdles.

We can’t keep running the same old plays and accepting the same old unacceptable results,” he said in a speech at the show.

Rezoning Challenges

Developers everywhere tend to dread rezoning a property in areas with strong community activism. Sometimes, they nix a plan because of anticipated opposition and entitlement risk, even if a land-use plan shows the housing use for the site that would be rezoned.

That’s the rub. A land-use plan is intended to guide a municipality’s future growth path. These plans can take years to complete. To create them, cities hold meeting after meeting of public engagement with intensive design workshops, where participants draw out their ideas to reach a consensus.

When complete, those plans serve as a guide for the next decade or until the city decides to update them.

Despite considerable public input on the plan, rezoning that matches the plan all too often still encounters debate through the legislative process.

Arkansas Law

The state doesn’t quite have the same housing challenges as others in the South, such as Texas. However, Garver, who worked to get the law passed, said that housing affordability challenges exist in the major northwest Arkansas cities—Bentonville and Fayetteville areas — headquarters to Walmart, JB Hunt, and Tyson Foods.  

He noted that the law wouldn’t be a silver bullet solution for housing, but he called it a “silver buckshot” that acts as part of multiple efforts.

The law doesn’t require municipalities to make the change. It gives them that option in their ordinances.

Garver said the law is “designed to create flexibility, to create a model that works” for the municipality.

The process ensures that all stakeholders — including property owners, residents, and developers — have a clear and predictable pathway for requesting and responding to zoning changes.

Garver said that if a city adopts the administrative process, a rezoning change could take weeks instead of months.

Whether other states adopt this model depends on politics.

It would be helpful in Georgia,” Atlanta real estate attorney Steven Jones said.