GREENFIELD — A Greenfield-based developer is preparing to bring a new subdivision to the city’s east side.
Joyner Homes wants to develop 90 single-family lots on about 37 acres east of Blue Road south of Brandywine Community Church and north of J.B. Stephens Elementary School.
The Greenfield Plan Commission last week approved a rezoning needed for the project to commence. The Greenfield City Council will consider the proposed rezoning at one of its future meetings.
Ron Pritzke, an attorney with Greenfield-based Pritzke & Davis, LLP, represents Joyner Homes. At the plan commission meeting, he told members that the proposed subdivision would be a “low-maintenance community of patio homes” similar to Joyner Homes’ Summerset subdivision at the southeast corner of Blue and McKenzie roads. Pritzke said the new development would appeal to both baby boomers and millennials attracted to low-maintenance properties.
“Demand is high for high-quality homes for those wishing to downsize but not downgrade in quality,” he said.
Pritzke listed architectural standards like large gables, cedar accents, a variety of siding materials, high roof pitch, dimensional shingles, 9-foot ceilings, front porches and raised-panel garage doors with windows.
He added Joyner Homes wrote 25 contracts in Summerset last year averaging more than $300,000 per agreement.
The Greenfield Department of Engineering and Planning staff’s report on the rezoning supports Joyner Homes’ request but encourages the developer to increase density when possible. The proposed project’s density is 2.42 units per acre, while typical density for the zoning classification Joyner Homes seeks averages 4.3 units per acre.
Joanie Fitzwater, Greenfield’s planning director, said at the meeting that higher density is the direction in which municipal planning is heading.
“That has come to be more of the norm than the large-lot developments of the past that were desired,” she said.
A large pond proposed for the center of the development is expected to help stormwater flooding in the area.
Phillip Going of Greenfield-based Accura Land Surveying said at the meeting that the site is part of an area of about 70 to 75 acres where stormwater flows west over Blue Road. Three culverts cross under Blue Road in that area, two of which are inadequate, he continued.
An adequate box culvert is about 30 feet south of the southwest corner of the property slated for the Joyner Homes development, Going said. The plan is for the new subdivision’s pond to intercept stormwater from the 70-to-75-acre area and release it at a controlled rate to that box culvert, he added.
Jason Koch, Greenfield city engineer and a member of the plan commission, agreed the pond should be a benefit.
“The development will definitely slow that water down and hopefully help a lot of that flooding that happens over there,” he said.
