Aging, Children and Youth, & Legislative Affairs- House
Video
Transcript
1 document
Bills discussed (2)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
|
HB1997
· 3 mentions in agenda, transcript, chapter
Matched: “…ke Rep. Glenn Barnes REGULAR AGENDA Number Sponsor Subtitle HB1997 Torres TO CREATE A ZONING EXEMPTION FOR CHILDCARE FAMILY HO…”
|
TO CREATE A ZONING EXEMPTION FOR CHILDCARE FAMILY HOMES; AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY. | Torres | Recommended for study in the Interim by the … |
|
SB340
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SB340 A. Clark TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING CERTAIN FEES, EXP…”
|
TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING CERTAIN FEES, EXPENSES, AND COSTS IMPOSED ON A JUVENILE OR … | A. Clark | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
Machine transcript
May contain errors. Verify important quotations against the official video.
About transcript accuracy
- Source
- SliQ live captions
- Model
- SliQ live ASR
- Processing date
- October 2, 2026
Representative Randy Torres
Unverified
0:13
will introduce yourself, you will be recognized. Uh, thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee, uh, State Representative Randy Torres,
District 17. Um Yeah, I get to proceed, OK.
Alright So I wanna begin by kind of
giving you an a a introduction into a pilot program that we have established in Western Benton County, um, by an organization that I've been involved with and I'm on the board, uh, on with, uh, and it's called Western Benton County Partnership, uh, if, if some of you in Northwest Arkansas or even anywhere
else have ever heard of um the uh the Northwest Ark. council, this is the same thing except it it it represents
Western Benton County, which is
more of your rural area of the county, so it's the same thing. So Western Benton County Partnership, uh, you know, really understands that child care is is such a big need, not just in our county but across the state and so we um have been very fortunate to receive a grant, uh, back in October of 24 for almost $340,000 that was
awarded by the Arkansas Community Foundation. And with those dollars we established 6 new in-home child care businesses. Uh, and they have successfully launched and it created 60 new child care spots that were unavailable a year prior. You see how effective this is? Well, the latest is we have 10 that are signed up, uh, in the next 3 will be on boarding in
the next 2 to 3 months, OK? This is all managed
and regulated by the state, of course, so they're monitored as far as how many children and so forth into these deals, um. So right now we're looking at uh about 58 children, uh, most of these are licensed, uh, for
up to 10. Um, all but 2 are full. So you can see
the demand of this service that we have. Uh, so,
The bill itself creates a targeted exemption from local zoning restrictions for licensed family child care homes, allowing them to operate in residential areas statewide. Including within municipal limits. Why does this matter? Arkansas is facing a critical shortage of accessible child care, especially in rural communities and small towns in many cases local zoning ordinances are preventing qualified individuals
from opening licensed family child care homes even though there's a clear need and demand. Uh, this exempts license uh or license seeking family child care homes from local zoning laws that restrict them from operating in residential areas applies the exemption to all residential properties inside city limits, preserves local authority to enforce health and safety regulations, ensuring community standards remain intact so that doesn't change. And it requires the division of
childcare and early childhood education to support and guide providers to maintain high standards. The childcare crisis is urgent. Communities are struggling to grow and retain their workforce without adequate child care options existing zoning rolls are in unintentionally acting as barriers to small home-based childcare businesses, uh, successful examples are in cities like Gentry and Grabvi show that these barriers are removed child care availability increases without a negative impact.
On neighborhoods. So in essence that's really what this bill is about.
Uh, I have had a discussion, uh, with, uh, a friend of mine that is with the Arkansas Municipal League. I, I sent this to him. This is kind of an emergency urgent request, quite honestly, because we, we've got so much momentum we don't want to stall out, uh, the, the, yeah, the, the results that we're getting and anyway I
spoke with him and I said I sent him the bill and he looked at it and he said. You know what, he says if this gets passed, it's not the end of the world. So That's,
Representative Glenn Barnes
Unverified
5:10
I'll end with that and open it up to any
questions. Other questions by the committee? Representative Barnes, you recognize. Thank you, Chair. Uh Carle Torres. You're meaning you're, you're wanting to allow these homes, I believe you said that can keep up to 10 children. Well,
Representative Randy Torres
Unverified
5:30
Uh, thank you for your question. It all depends right now currently some of the homes are licensed for up to 10, but that's managed through the division of childcare and early childhood education folks so if you have my understanding is and I don't know all the rules, but, but, but if you have an infant. You know, or infants, then that number can get bigger, you know, because they don't require as as much.
Handling as, you know. Toddlers, so to speak, so
Representative Glenn Barnes
Unverified
6:05
they've got all that figured out. OK, follow up and you're saying that they will be able to put these homes anywhere in any community without uh talking to the neighbors of those places that they
Representative Randy Torres
Unverified
6:18
may want to put. Those homes relax the city zoning, uh, in a
way that would permit people to be able to uh have a child care in home child care.
Representative Glenn Barnes
Unverified
6:30
Um Service correct. One more question. Was any mayors or anyone brought to the table asking
Representative Randy Torres
Unverified
6:41
the questions about it. I, I have, I've, uh, I reached out to our the mayor's like uh in gentry, uh, and then the other of course he was the former city administrator of Solem Springs and, and they both said it it's not the end of the world. There,
there might be a better fix to this, but this at least gets us started and if there are issues I'm happy to come back and make
Representative Joy Springer
Unverified
7:15
some changes. the next session. Like Representative Springer, you're recognized. Good morning and thank you, Madam Chair and thank you for the concern about making available childcare to citizens, I guess the question I would have is whether or not I live in Pulaski County and we may have
different zoning requirements here, so does this bill do away with the requirements in Pulaski County with respect to childcare facilities and so it may be that that a person could have a child care center, uh, for normally they would not be able to do so here
Representative Randy Torres
Unverified
7:50
in Pulaski County potentially correct. Of course they would need to meet the standards of the division of childcare and early childhood education, you know,
there's a lot of it, it's not an easy thing to do, so it's not like we're gonna I I don't see this scaling like big time they're gonna be like your short term rentals where there's just all over the place and, and
most people too, I would, I would say, you know, they have to have a calling to do this. Uh, and I would
say there's probably not a lot of people that are raising their hand to do this. Does that make sense? So I, I, if, if it were like a short term rental kind of a thing where you're just relaxing zoning requirements and then all
of a sudden you just have this wild west, uh, uh, uh result, then yeah, I would be apprehensive, but for
Representative Joy Springer
Unverified
8:41
this I don't see this as as being that final question. So, so did you
speak to someone in the division of childcare to go over this with them and and
Representative Randy Torres
Unverified
8:52
what they thought about it. I did with the other with the tax, uh, with, with another
bill that I had, uh, and, and they were favorable for it. In fact, they
sat and they testified for me as far as
Representative Joy Springer
Unverified
9:07
the importance of these in-home childcare facilities, I'm not speaking regarding the tax. I'm talking about the actual. place in a facilities in certain communities. I'm, I'm sorry, could you, I'm sorry, I can't hear you. Not, not for the there's a tax or a costs involved, but actually the placement of certain facilities, these facilities in certain
Representative Randy Torres
Unverified
9:29
communities like Pulaski County, I thank you Representative. Yeah, they're very favorable to this.
Representative Rick McClure
Unverified
9:37
Representative McClure, you recognized? Is there a reason that the local municipalities are
Representative Randy Torres
Unverified
9:49
not just handling this on their own. Well, again, the, the problem is is there's rules, different rules all over the state, uh, that make the process either. Where they prevent you from being able to do it or it it it's so laborious that it, it,
it actually it it it doesn't incentivize people to start doing this at all. So the idea is how do we make the barrier to entry easier for people to be able to um Provide in home child care services. Thank you. Does that
make sense? It just relaxes things. Representative Duke,
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
10:31
you're recognized. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you uh representative for bringing this bill. I got, um, Two questions.
Um, so first of all, can you tell me more specifically what caused you to bring this bill, what problems you're solving specifically. And second, um, when you talk about the zoning parts of it, does that mean that they can still The cities still have the authority to deal with any parking or issues like that that arise whenever you have people coming in and dropping off and picking up their kids throughout the day and and actually a third if I can throw the 3rd 1 in
there. Um, and also to can the HOAs
Representative Randy Torres
Unverified
11:16
and POA's still Regulate this. Um I, I do not believe that this impacts HOAs
because those are very specific, you know, people agree to terms to not be able
to do that in those areas, uh, so they have their own form of, of legal. Restrictions, you know, this just has to do with city, so it's not an association rule
here that we're applying this law to as far as the parking and all that, again, I think the other good thing is, is yeah, it is, it is pick up drop off, uh, it's not like a short term rental where you have several cars parked there all day long, uh, so I, I think that alleviates a lot of those concerns as far as the problem that we're trying to. is that we're seeing such such success with this pilot program,
uh, that we, we don't wanna, we don't wanna restrict other communities
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
12:21
across our state from integrating this same.
Representative Randy Torres
Unverified
12:26
Uh, follow up. So have you had communities restrict you? According to the director that is that is leading this out of gentry, uh, Arkansas, uh, yes, that this is a
very limiting element that could prevent this program from scaling across the
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
12:47
state and also I'm not sure we quite got to the, to the parking part, so because anytime that you have kids pick it, I mean, You you can't have if I'm a neighbor, they might have concerns about about am I going to have people blocking my drive? Am I going to have different things like that? No, it's different than a school, but does the city not have any authority on that, or would they still have
Representative Randy Torres
Unverified
13:07
some oversight on that without with this bill in place, Duke. They still have the authority to enforce the laws that are typical in these neighborhoods. That's exactly right. Good question. I appreciate you asking.
Representative Dolly Henley
Unverified
13:19
Representative Henley, he recognized. Thank you, Madam Chair. Representative Torres, um, so when Representative Duke talked about parking, so my first thought
was, I wasn't thinking about drop off pick up. I was thinking about the employees, because I've seen that in my community where the city required them to come in because it's the business now, so they had to pour concrete for a parking lot for those employees, uh, because the code called for that. So there is, there is
something to that, and I really do think that And Uh, because we all have these situations in our communities now and those people lobbied the city council, um, the board of directors and, and either they saw provision to change the zoning or not. So I think that this really should be in the hands of local government. Can I respond? I think she means wouldn't you agree? Yeah,
yeah. Wouldn't you agree and talk to the
Representative Randy Torres
Unverified
14:25
parking uh issue as well. I will, I will. Thank you, Representative Henley. So the way this works is we don't have employees, it's the homeowner. So they already live there, so the so the parking would not should not be an issue. Additional parking employee there's no employees it's the homeowner themselves that are operating the service.
Representative Dolly Henley
Unverified
14:52
So, you know, I don't know that code about childcare. So you could have one person taking care of 10 children regardless of the ages. You could have 10 babies and
Representative Randy Torres
Unverified
15:00
only 1 person. Yeah. I'm not sure how that works. I just know it's highly regulated and monitored as far as the rules around that. I, I can't answer that. I'm sorry, but uh. What How they're doing it
is working really, really well right now we've proven that. Yeah, thank you. Representative Nazarenko, you recognized.
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
15:25
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Representative Torres for uh bringing this. I know that um you're very passionate about this and, and you've done some work on it. I really appreciate that too. I do have some concerns, some questions, so I'll try to make these as concise as possible. The first one that kind of really strikes me. Do you, do you think that this could be looking very at a very specific issue
Representative Randy Torres
Unverified
15:52
state law. Because of that one specific area. Representative Nazarenko, I
believe what this does is it eliminates
any barriers to scaling a very successful program to solve the child care needs that we have in our
state, especially in rural areas. OK, thanks. And that like
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
16:09
you kind of brought up the scaling. I know you've mentioned STRs short term rentals quite a bit. And what We just recently yesterday, if I'm not mistaken, or maybe it was the day before, it's all blended together, but just, just the other day.
The House body Voted down an issue where we were going to be kind of telling cities what they could and couldn't do with zoning on STRs. So this, would you agree that this could be us trying to tell a city or municipality what they can and
Representative Randy Torres
Unverified
16:46
can't do with their own zoning. Good question the, the, the, the reason why I brought up the short term rental was simply to use that as an example of what
um what what a density, you know, as far as people and cars and all that that create really an unwanted, you know, undesirable experience in a
neighborhood, this doesn't do that. That that was the only reason why I used that as an
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
17:17
example. And I appreciate that and mother, um, so with that, and I know each, as we talked about each city, municipality is a little bit different. Some folks, some municipalities like mine in general has multiple use
zones, so they're kind of zoned where they can do, you know, they have different flexibility, um. In there, there is short term rentals are also some, you know, and I know each one is a little bit different, um, but with that when we're kind of looking at all of those, I still go back to, wouldn't you think it would be better that that city or municipality gets to say what they do or don't do locally to where they can just say, hey, we're going to change this rule, we're going to change this zoning and so it kind of gets back to we continue to talk
about local control. So would you, would you think that
Representative Randy Torres
Unverified
18:06
this would be trying to get taking away from local control. Well, uh, thank you, uh, representative, you know I'll just kind of relate
to a bill that we passed, not just the House and the Senate but is now law. Uh, this, uh, general assembly passed a law that removed the ETJ extraterritorial jurisdiction of our cities, uh, across the entire state.
Uh, that, that, that took the authority of zoning and land use and everything away from our
city governments for whatever reason. This is just limited to in here in home child care services. One last
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
18:45
question, Madam Chair. So in the last, last thing I have, and again, I appreciate the work on it. I'm just kind of curious here we are at the, the end, and I know you said you, it's a time, it's a time crunch, thus the emergency clause. 11 thing I'm looking at because
this could be something that's needed because if we need more childcare services and then maybe we're, you know, the buildings are too expensive for folks to go out there and buy the commercial building and turn it into a full blown commercial, so this gives them the ability, but could this be something instead of us trying to push it through emergency clause. Let's get it done, you know, now, could this be something that we would say, hey, let's look in the interim and let's just say, is there really a need? Can we be seen, you know, can we expect to be seeing even more because
something could change so would you agree that maybe this could be
Representative Randy Torres
Unverified
19:42
something we could look at in the interim and say this is a need now let's do something about
it. Um, yes, that, that could be the case what the the concern is is that that'll be 2
years from now. And, and the needs of in home child care or just child care and our communities
across the state is daunting. Absolutely daunting, so my, my
request is to get this bill passed. As a start. To to in crafting it and, and, and working together in the future if there needs to be changes, we can do that, uh, as a state, but for now it just we don't need a a yield sign or even a stop sign for people that are willing, and again, and I and I think Representative Nazarenko again, I, I, I think we have to be realistic and know
that this, this isn't this isn't gonna scale so big and become such. It, it's very isolated. I mean, not everybody's gonna say hey I wanna be a in home child care provider, you know what I'm saying? So I think it's very limited, uh, and it's, uh, impact, uh, in in our communities, quite honestly, I, I, I think it just, it relaxes for the moment these uh these zonings right uh requirements that allow us to continue to take ground for a critical need
that we have in our state,
uh. I, I'll just use an example. I, you know, I, I run a bank and I've got you know, 10 employees and I've got, you know, one of my tellers, uh, is a single mom, you know, with a little boy that's 3 and. You know, just haphazardly, you know, she, she lost her childcare provider, uh, for a very similar reason. And then all of a sudden, I mean she couldn't come to work, she
didn't know what to do, you know, and, and also the affordability this provides a much more affordable childcare option that's not the commercial high cost, high overhead, uh, that a lot of our hardworking Arkansas can afford, you know, to have. So that's the other component of it and so that's the purpose of the emergency clause is just uh let's let's get a start and then if, if we see issues then
I'm happy to rerun a bill in 2 years to kind of help, uh, hone it if it
Representative Glenn Barnes
Unverified
22:16
decides if we decide that that is a need. Thank you. Thank you,
ma'am Chair. Are there any other questions by committee? Representative Barnes, you recognize. To, I, I really, I really like what you're trying to do, my wife used to have one of these, um, it's a beautiful thing I think about some of the children they call me daddy. And I see them out now, they're grown out and working and doing
very well. I, I like, I like the idea. But I think about many neighborhoods that people have paid really good money to have. Quietness and they paid for that and that particular area is noted for that. Someone will put up one of these homes or maybe more than one and it's going to create some problems, and the problem is going to be on the city level. And we've made that decision from here and we're not really giving them the.
luxury of going down to the city council and and and debating it out because we've made that decision and I think we're overreaching a little bit. I mean, I, I like the fact that we can do things to settle problems in cities, municipalities, but with this, I think we're going to be overreaching into community and maybe working very well for you and that dynamic, it fits there, but you take that same model and put it somewhere else, it's gonna create a lot of problems, so that's. That's my position on it. Thank you.
Are there any questions by committee? Seeing none, we
have no one signed up to speak for or against. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak for or against. Yeah, you're the audience, so I'm just asking you. OK, thanks. OK. Um, Representative Torres, would you like to close for
Representative Randy Torres
Unverified
24:05
your bill? Well, Madam Chair, I think, I think that being said, I, I'll just pull it down and and work on it uh and try to craft something that will.
And hopefully in the interim we can continue to go move forward with this, but I, I appreciate the uh the the time to come and present this, the feedback is very helpful again, we're here to craft really good bills, uh, and, and we, we, we prefer long term, uh, solid solutions to the things that we do in our state and and this process will help with that. So Thank you.
Representative Glenn Barnes
Unverified
24:42
Thank you for listening to committee and being willing to pull your bill down
and continue the good work. And that is all we have before us committee, so we are adjourned. The Thank y'all. Maybe all
Agenda
REGULAR AGENDA
Number Sponsor Subtitle
HB1997 Torres TO CREATE A ZONING EXEMPTION FOR CHILDCARE FAMILY HOMES; AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY.
DEFERRED BILLS
Number Sponsor Subtitle
SB340 A. Clark TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING CERTAIN FEES, EXPENSES, AND COSTS IMPOSED ON A JUVENILE OR THE PARENT, GUARDIAN, OR CUSTODIAN OF A JUVENILE.
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — AGING, CHILDREN AND YOUTH, LEGISLATIVE & MILITARY AFFAIRS- HOUSE, Apr 9, 2025 | Agenda | 1 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Representative Randy Torres
Unverified
Representative Glenn Barnes
Unverified
Representative Joy Springer
Unverified
Representative Rick McClure
Unverified
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
Representative Dolly Henley
Unverified
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
Speaker 61