Growing Holiday Island, on purpose

Following the Long Range Plan through isn't just about covering today's bills. Every new rooftop, every vacant lot that gets built on, and every family that chooses Holiday Island afterward makes that budget stronger — which is exactly why growth deserves to be part of this plan, not an afterthought to it.

How the Long Range Plan supports growth

The September 22, 2026 Long Range Plan does not contain a growth strategy, but it does list the strategic benefits of the transition, and several are about exactly the conditions growth needs:

• Long-term financial viability that does not depend on statutes written to create infrastructure without a plan for long-term operation and maintenance.
• A lighter burden on vacant lots: "making vacant lot ownership more affordable and increasing lot retention."
• Less exposure to lawsuits and lot foreclosures, the cost of defending which the plan says has totaled tens of thousands of dollars over the years.
• Stability for developers and business owners, which they need in order to invest in the community.¹
• Protection for property values.

The plan also names the amenities a future Parks and Recreation district would be responsible for: the golf courses, sports complex, marina, clubhouse grill, hiking trails and campgrounds. Keeping those on a stable footing is part of what makes Holiday Island worth moving to.

Source: City of Holiday Island & HISID Long Range Plan, September 22, 2026, pages 3 and 7.

Community growth opportunities

From here on, this page is the site author's independent analysis.

Why more residents strengthen every fund, not just one

Look back at how the proposed five-fund budget works, and a pattern jumps out: nearly every major revenue source scales with the number of people and properties in Holiday Island. That's not a coincidence — it's exactly how municipal finance works. It also means growth isn't a side benefit of this transition; it's one of the more direct ways to make the whole plan more resilient over time.

Sales tax revenue rises directly with population

The study's own formula for Holiday Island's sales tax potential is straightforward: population × $82 per person, per 1% of tax². At the proposed 2.5% rate, that's about $205 per resident per year — which is how the study arrives at its $502,660 estimate for 2,452 residents. That means the relationship is direct and mechanical: every net new resident who lives, shops, and spends here adds roughly $205 a year to city sales tax revenue at 2.5%, without a single rate increase. A modest rise to 3,000 residents — smaller than Green Forest's population and not far off West Fork's, two of the peer cities already compared on the Budget page — would put that same 2.5% tax on track for roughly $615,000 a year³ using the study's own formula (an illustrative projection, not a published study figure).

Vacant lots becoming homes shifts real money onto the tax rolls

The funding page already explains the hard part of this transition: at 5 mills of property tax (the planning assumption; the City levies 4 today), all of Holiday Island's vacant lots together would generate only about $33,000 a year², replacing roughly $840,000 in today's HISID vacant-lot assessments. That gap looks discouraging read one way. Read the other way, it's the size of the opportunity: every vacant lot that becomes a built, owner-occupied home converts near-zero property tax contribution into real revenue — property tax on the improved value, a new water meter paying into the Public Safety and Parks & Recreation Urban Service District fees, and a household actually spending money locally. Holiday Island has a lot of platted, utility-ready lots sitting empty; filling them in is generally far cheaper growth to serve than sprawling into undeveloped land, since the roads and pipes are usually already there.

More meters paying in means fixed costs are spread further

The July 2026 Public Safety fee estimate divides a largely fixed annual cost among 1,645 improved properties (water meters).⁴ The earlier Parks & Recreation estimate used its own billing assumption, so that count should not be read as applying to both. Those fees are locked for a 10-year period once set, so near-term bills won't move just because the community grows — but each 10-year reauthorization is a fresh opportunity to reset that math. A larger base of paying meters at the next reauthorization means the same total service cost divided more ways, which is the most realistic long-term path to easing the per-household burden of these new fees.

What already makes Holiday Island worth growing into

Whatever happens with this transition, Holiday Island's appeal doesn't change: an Ozark lake, a marina, two golf courses, pools, trails, and a community that has always punched above its weight on recreation and lifestyle. This conversation is about making sure that stays true for the next fifty years, not just the next five — and about growing on purpose, so more residents can share in it. Its place next door to the NWA corridor makes it a natural choice for retirees and remote workers, and makes a stable city structure worth getting right. Why a city earns buyers' trust →

Start with the region. The NWA corridor, the metro area next door to Carroll County, was the 9th fastest-growing in the United States in the Census Bureau's 2025 estimates, adding 14,744 people in a year to reach 622,177.⁵ People are already moving to this corner of the state; the question is which communities they choose, and a town with a conventional, stable city government is an easier choice than one a buyer has to research first (see why a city is the better structure). Holiday Island doesn't need to invent a reason for people to move here — the feasibility study itself points to what's already working. It also names two audiences directly worth thinking about: retirees drawn to the lifestyle, and, increasingly, remote-work families who no longer have to live near an office.

Growing local business and jobs, not just rooftops

Population growth is half of this story — the other half is how much of Holiday Island's own spending stays in Holiday Island. Right now, a lot of it doesn't. Eureka Springs, five miles away, has more than 70 restaurants and attractions and captures a meaningful share of local dining, shopping, and entertainment spending — the same dynamic the Funding page points to as one reason Holiday Island's sales tax yield per resident runs lower than an "organic" city's. That's not a reason to give up on local business here — it's the size of the opportunity.

A tool the study names that hasn't been highlighted elsewhere on this site

Named in the Mayor's feasibility study, alongside the more familiar Urban Service District, is a tool built specifically for this: Arkansas cities can set up a Community Development District — a special-purpose district for economic development, distinct from the Public Improvement Districts (for upgrading public spaces) and Municipal Utility Districts (for essential services) the study also names. None of these exist for HISID today, because they're tools available only to incorporated cities. Holiday Island has some tools for promoting tourism and economic activity today, including the Advertising & Promotion Commission and the chance to work with county, regional and state organizations. What it lacks is the broader municipal economic-development toolkit and the dedicated city capacity available to a fully functioning city. Those tools add options and flexibility; they do not guarantee growth.

What a city adds, concretely:

• Development districts of the kinds named above, which are available only to incorporated cities.
• Planning and zoning tied to infrastructure, so that roads, utilities and land use can be planned together by one body.
• Municipal grant programs for streets, parks and community facilities (see why a city is the better structure).
• A single counterpart for county, regional and state economic-development organizations to work with.
• A conventional government to show investors. Businesses, developers and lenders know how to deal with a city.
• The ability to plan growth deliberately, instead of only reacting to it.

A city does not guarantee that a business will choose Holiday Island. It gives the community a clearer governmental structure with which to recruit, plan for and support that investment.

Holiday Island already promotes itself — it needs a stronger partner

This isn't starting from zero. Since voters approved a 3% short-term lodging tax in November 2024, a seven-member Advertising & Promotion Commission has marketed Holiday Island as a destination.⁶ A&P funds are restricted by law to authorized advertising, promotion, tourism and related purposes. They are not a general-purpose economic-development fund, so their ability to support broader efforts such as business recruitment or healthcare access may be limited. The Commission does important work; it is not a substitute for general-purpose tools. What Holiday Island doesn't have yet is a funded city government with the capacity to take on that broader work, giving residents and business owners one clear place to go, the way Fairfield Bay's Chamber of Commerce functions as a hub for city services and utilities information (see the Fairfield Bay case study). A well-funded city with a broader set of economic-development tools adds capacity and flexibility that tourism promotion alone was not designed to provide.

Healthcare may be the clearest opportunity Holiday Island already has

Given Holiday Island's retiree-heavy population and its higher share of medical EMS calls, healthcare isn't a stretch as a growth industry here — it may be the most natural fit of all, and the gap is bigger than it should be. Holiday Island doesn't currently have a pharmacy, a clinic, a dentist, or an eye doctor of its own — despite a population that needs this kind of care more than most towns its size. Residents already make the drive to Mercy Hospital Berryville or Eureka Springs Hospital — a 24-hour Rural Emergency Hospital with its own based air ambulance⁷ — both about ten minutes away, for care as routine as filling a prescription. Nobody is proposing Holiday Island build a hospital. The real opportunity is capturing even a fraction of that everyday trip: a pharmacy, a small clinic or urgent care satellite, and the kind of outpatient specialty care an older population uses most — physical therapy, podiatry, cardiology or orthopedic satellite clinics, and home health.

The AMA's own case study for this is a town of about 3,500 people — Gibson City, Illinois — where a single family physician's practice became a real anchor for local jobs and spending. That's a useful coincidence for this page: it's close to the population Holiday Island could realistically grow toward, described earlier on this page, and exactly the kind of small, stable employer a bigger population base could support.

Arkansas already has real programs built for exactly this kind of recruitment: the state's own Community Match Rural Physician Recruitment Program offers financial assistance to physicians who commit to four years of primary care in rural, underserved Arkansas communities; the federal National Health Service Corps offers loan repayment for providers in designated shortage areas; and a Rural Health Clinic federal designation — which can be led by a nurse practitioner or physician assistant under physician oversight, not necessarily a full-time doctor — comes with enhanced Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement built specifically to make a small-town clinic financially viable. None of these require Holiday Island to reinvent anything; they require a city or a local health system partner willing to make the case.

Real small-town models worth learning from

None of these require reinventing anything. They're existing, proven programs — a state program Holiday Island could apply to join, a free consulting resource the City could promote today, and a nationally studied incentive model it could scale down to something realistic. What they have in common is a partner Holiday Island doesn't fully have yet: a city government with the budget, staff, and legal tools to make pursuing them worth someone's time.

More local business isn't just good for its own sake — it feeds the same funding structure this whole plan depends on. Franchise fees, sales tax on every dollar spent locally instead of in Eureka Springs, and property tax on any new commercial space all flow into the funds described on the Funding page. Growing the local economy and growing the population are the same project, viewed from two directions.

Sources for this section: Fairfield Bay Chamber of Commerce; Main Street Arkansas; Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center; Tulsa Remote; Northwest Arkansas Council — Life Works Here; Eureka Springs Hospital; American Medical Association — Economic Impact Study; Arkansas Department of Health — Rural Health Resources; Rural Health Information Hub — Rural Health Clinics.

The virtuous cycle this transition sets in motion

In this site's view, none of this sequence works if step one doesn't happen. The Long Range Plan says a "no" vote puts future transition planning on hold. Growth doesn't rescue a transition that stalls after roads — it's the payoff for following through. That's the author's case for treating the November 3 sales-tax vote as more than just a line item.