The 34-buildings — each containing two, owner-occupied units — would be constructed on nearly 18 acres of land on South Gilmore Road, just north of Mack and adjacent to Mercy Health Fairfield Hospital.
Under consideration is a funding and development agreement with Mitchell Development and Construction LLC that would help defray the estimated $5.6 million cost to buy the land, grade it to create building pads, put in a pond for stormwater detention, install underground utilities and construct streets and sidewalks.
“Over the last three-or-four years multiple developers have attempted to make a low-density housing project work in this location,’’ said Nathaniel Kaelin, the city’s economic development manager.
“That has been challenging as the site has major topography challenges — meaning that there is a very significant amount of earth work required to make 68 developable lots on the hillside property. Developers have talked to us, looked at the site and walked away.”
The agreement with the Mitchells calls for the city to provide a $1.2 million loan to the developers from its transformative economic development fund. The loan would not have to be repaid provided the Mitchells creat developable lots for home construction.
Without the development agreement and loan, Jim Mitchell said the company would not move forward on the project.
Assuming the agreement is approved by council at its Feb. 23 meeting, site work would begin this spring, Mitchell said. When the lots were ready, they would be sold to M/I Homes, which would construct and sell the duplexes.
“I have heard over and over again — that we need small, single-family homes in the city," said Councilman Tim Meyers.
“We are losing the elderly who do want to downsize…to other communities because we don’t have these projects," added Councilwoman Debbie Pennington, who is a Realtor.
Kaelin said he expects the villas to be similar to the 2024 project, that was also to be built by M/I Homes.
“We’re starting with the same plans, same design firm, and same homebuilder,’’ Kaelin said.
To recapture the city’s investment, Kaelin said, future legislation would be introduced to create a 30-year tax increment financing district on the development site.
That would redirect a portion of property taxes to a special fund to recoup dollars from the development loan.
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