A developer is proposing 172 single-family houses and 176 paired villas on about 112 acres off Fortville Pike on Fortville’s south side. In this rendering, the yellow lots represent the single-family homes while the orange ones represent the villas. Submitted illustration
A developer is proposing 172 single-family houses and 176 paired villas on about 112 acres off Fortville Pike on Fortville’s south side. In this rendering, the yellow lots represent the single-family homes while the orange ones represent the villas. Submitted illustration
FORTVILLE — Farm ground on the town’s south side is back under consideration for a housing development from another builder after officials turned down a proposal there last year.

Olthof Homes, based in St. John in Lake County, is proposing 172 single-family houses and 176 paired villas on about 112 acres at the northeast corner of Fortville Pike and County Road 850N. The site is across Fortville Pike from the Mt. Vernon North neighborhood that’s underway.

Last year, Fortville officials turned down a proposal from Indianapolis-based Arbor Homes for 317 singlefamily houses on the site.

Leaders cited the proposed neighborhood’s deviation from town standards and how the town’s comprehensive plan calls for the area to remain agricultural.

The new proposal is called Beyers Estates, named after landowner Beyers Farm LLC. Derek Hays, land acquisition and entitlement manager for Olthof Homes, said at a Fortville Town Council meeting earlier this week that the neighborhood’s single-family houses would be about 1,700 to 3,100 square feet, and bigger if sun rooms or other additions were included. The paired villas would be about 1,500 to 1,600 square feet. Based on the current market, Hays estimated price points would be around $350,000 for the single-family homes and around $250,000 for the villas.

Briane House, a lawyer with Greenfield-based Pritzke & Davis, represents Olthof Homes on the proposal.

“There is a clear trend in home development today,” House told council members. “...What we see today are homes that exhibit a farmhouse style, a craftsman style, really sort of hearkening back to homes we would’ve seen built in the 1920s, the 1930s.”

Homes in Beyers Estates would follow those styles, he continued, adding they’d include features like masonry, porches, and shake and clapboard siding.

“This development keeps in mind what I think is the desire of the community and your planning director to have a classic neighborhood layout,” House said.

“Generally the streets are straight, the lots are arranged in the fashion that we would see traditionally in neighborhoods of the past, and I think that serves Fortville well.”

The neighborhood would include open space and the preservation of certain woods, House added.

Hays said the single-family homes and paired villas would be mixed throughout the neighborhood rather than separated by product type.

“We wanted it to be one seamless community,” he said.

Olthof Homes is asking Fortville to rezone the site from agricultural to a planned unit development, which would set development standards the town and builder would agree to.

Fortville Town Council unanimously approved an ordinance for the rezone on first reading. The matter now heads to the Fortville Plan Commission, whose next meeting is at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 27 at the town’s municipal building, located at 714 E. Broadway St.

“We’ll be doing a more comprehensive presentation and analysis at the plan commission meeting,” said Adam Zaklikowski, Fortville’s planning and building director.

At the meeting, the commission will make a positive or negative recommendation on the rezone and possibly add conditions of approval.

The town council would then hold a second and final vote, likely at one of the body’s meetings in August, Zaklikowski said.

If approved, the development would join others Olthof Homes has in Hancock County. Greenfield officials earlier this year annexed about 71 acres onto the city’s northeast side, where the builder plans more than 200 houses and villas.

The company is also developing a subdivision at U.S. 40 and County Road 700W in Cumberland.
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