Columbus City Council members gave initial approval to annex and rezone about 107 acres where a developer is planning a potential cluster development of single family homes and some type of multi-family component on the west side.
The developer, Chase Point Capital LLC, is asking to annex into the city and rezone land at the northeast corner of State Road 46 West and County Road 500 West in Harrison Township.
Chase Point is asking to rezone about 98 acres from Agriculture: Preferred (AP) to Residential: Single-Family 4 (RS4) and just under 9 acres from AP to Residential: Multi-Family (RM).
Councilors voted to approve ordinances establishing the annexation and rezoning on first reading 8-0 and 7-1 respectively. Council Vice President Grace Kestler, D-at-large, abstained on both because she said she has family with property nearby. Council member Chris Bartels, R-District 1, voted against the rezoning component.
Ordinances must be passed twice to be fully approved. The second reading of both ordinances is set for the council’s next meeting on July 1.
Plan commission members continued the request on April 9 because members wanted more information about what road improvements would be needed in the area. During the plan commission’s May 14 meeting, favorable recommendations were forwarded to the city council by 11-0 and 9-2 votes respectively, with Commissioner Dennis Baute and Bartels, who is the city council liaison to the plan commission, voting against the latter.
The annexation and rezoning area has frontage on Country Road 500W, State Road 46 and a future street right-of-way at Belmont Drive.
Topography on the site varies widely, with elevations ranging from 630 feet near Wolf Creek to more than 680 feet on the eastern and southern portions of the property. Significant portions of the site are also heavily wooded. In addition, the area has property that is within the floodway, 100-year floodway fringe and 500-year floodway fringe, planning staff pointed out in their report.
Also of note is that BCSC’s new westside elementary school — Maple Grove — will be just south of the subject property.
Chase Point’s Jack and Tom Laskey said they see the development as helpful in addressing the city’s housing shortage, reflected in the recently completed housing study that showed a need for 3,600 units by 2035, spread across all price points.
City officials have said repeatedly in the past year or so that there is a dwindling amount of space where housing can actually be built because of flood concerns, necessitating the annexation of areas outside the current city limits.
The motion to forward both matters to the city council came with commitments that the RM area include a buffer that Chase Point update a 2022 traffic study of Belmont Drive that incorporates their development and the new BCSC elementary. And it also included improvements specified by the city engineer be done to the intersection of County Road 500W and State Road 46.
Those three were included in the planning staff report, but after discussion during the May’s plan commission meeting, two were added that there would be a maximum of 300 homes in the proposed RS4 area and that no development happen on the proposed RM portion until access is provided to 500W and Belmont Drive.
An additional committment was added by city council members on first reading— that the proposed development on the RM portion be limited to two stories. That was added by a 7-1 vote, with Bartels voting against. Bartels had instead pushed for a committment on proposed RM zoning regarding density that the council will further discuss during the next meeting.
The update to the Belmont Drive traffic study is also to analyze if a traffic signal is needed at the road’s intersection at State Road 46. Tim Ochs, an attorney with Indianapolis-based Ice Miller LLP representing Chase Point, said they would be willing to put forth $26,280 to pay for an update to a traffic study on Belmont Drive.
City Engineer Andrew Beckort said during the plan commission meeting in May that, with the new school, Belmont Drive is likely to meet at least one of the considerations required to put a stoplight in, but funding would be the question.
Eric Frey, the city’s executive director of administration, said Tuesday night that the Chase Point, BCSC and the developer have agreed to put up the money for the stoplight, if approved, which Beckort previously said would cost somewhere between $300,000 and $400,000.
The updated study would potentially demonstrate to INDOT that “demand and traffic is such that a light is warranted at the Belmont, Tipton Lakes, State Road 46 intersection,” Planning Director Jeff Bergman told council members.
Neighbors near the proposed development expressed concern about impact on traffic in the area, particularly given the current state of 500W, potential flooding, impact on wildlife in the area and their own property values. They also gathered and submitted to the plan commission and city council 100-plus signatures from neighbors within a one-mile radius symbolizing their opposition to the project, organizers told The Republic.
The RS4 district allows for a minimum lot area of 5,500 square feet, but the 97 acres proposed as RS4 only has about 85 acres that are developable. Some amount of space would be needed for streets, storm water facilities and open space as well. Planning staff in their report observed that the Windstar Woods neighborhood, also zoned as RS4, needed about 30% of its land area for infrastructure needs and open space.
If every acre of the RS4 would be developed, it could hold more than 500 units, according to the planning department. While the plan commission capped that at 300, Chase Point representatives said 250 units would be more likely.
The 250 units on the RS4 proposed zoning is partly because of the topography challenges, but Ochs said there is also an area on the east of the site where “it would make sense to have larger lots at a different price point.”
“The nice thing about the proposed project is it really will allow for two or three really different types of homes and price points to meet varying demands, which is exciting,” Ochs continued, referring to it as a “cluster-type development.”
“You have some smaller lots, but you have significant amounts of commons areas, which is what we intend to do here,” Ochs said. “That allows us to utilize the natural features of the property that makes it actually more attractive to people that want to live here.”
Jack Laskey referenced the housing study that provided that 58% of new single-family development should be at market and high-market rates.
“Market right now with construction costs is the ($300,000) number. We probably feel that we will have some in the ($300,000 to $400,000) and then some, as stated because of the topography and the woods and the wetlands on the kind of the northeast portion, some of those may go into ($500,000, $600,000), something like that, likened to what is across the street at Tipton Lakes,” according to Laskey.
The RM zoning district allows for a density of up to 25 units per acre, meaning the 8.74 acre area could be developed at a maximum of 218 total dwelling units. Chase Point representatives said they’re more focused on the RS4 portion and will flesh out what exactly will happen on the RM portion later.
“Our land closing schedule has us closing on this land over the course of about three-and-a-half years,” Jack Laskey told council members. “The development is not, you know, day one. It’s over the course of probably a five-year, six-year plan here. The RM-piece probably fits into the middle of that plan.”
Ochs pointed out that there will be 15 to 20 lots in the proposed RS4 zoning area that border them proposed RM area, saying “it would be very short-sighted of us to not be very sensitive to housing that is bordering the multi-family family.”
In May, Chase Point representatives said they would potentially look at a build-to-rent community on the RM portion that would have single-family-style homes and close-to-zero lot lines. Each home would have its own garage and a little backyard, with the community owned by one entity. They also mentioned duplexes at the time.
Chase Point estimated that, given all the requisite approvals on given on the city side, they would break ground in 2026 and start bringing lots online in 2027, 2028 and 2029.