Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Be by 50 like I like to call you want to play with your daughter.

I believe this is why the United States of America is really what we're going to do is liberty and justice for all.

We're looking for a motion to

I'll make that motion to adopt the agenda.

I'll second. Motion to be made by Robert, seconded by Mark. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion carried. Okay, looking for a motion to approve the approval of May 28th, 2026 Planning Commission minutes. Is it read in your packet?

I'll move. I'll second.

Motion was made by Jeff, second by Keith. All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All opposed? Motion's carried. Okay, I'm looking for a motion to approve June 4th, 2026 Special Planning Commission Meeting. Is red in your packet?

I'll make that motion.

Second. Motion was made by Mark, seconded by Robert, all in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All opposed? Yes. Carried. Any public comment? Seeing none, moving on. Review or approve for proposed CSM at 409 Avon Street and 418 Lima Street.

Thank you. So this is a proposed CSM over in Lima and Avon Street. There's a couple of moving parts with this one here. So I'll kind of go over each factor that comes into play. But essentially, the property owner on Avon Street inherited a portion of the parcel behind him that contains a garage on the south side there. So the portion that he inherited is not a legally applied parcel. So in order to create that parcel, he's required to do a survey. The New Orleans zoning ordinance doesn't allow for garages to be standalone on parcels. So in order to make this process work, he would need to combine the portion with a garage with his own property, which by doing that creates another issue because he has an existing garage and you're allotted up to 1,100 square feet of detached residential structures. So by inheriting this next garage that is legal not conforming existed prior to the ordinance, he would now be over 1,100 square feet allotted. So in an effort to remediate that issue, the property owner on Avon Street poured concrete between the existing garage and his house in an effort to make them attached. The London's Ordinance does allow for a common material or a common floor to be poured in between two structures to make them attached. So and by doing so, it was his effort to make that garage attached and lower the nonconformity that currently exists with the maximum garage size that he has. So to reiterate, that garage that he inherited is a legal nonconforming structure. It existed prior to the Zoran and Ornette's grandfather, as some may say. He is now combining that garage with his own and in an effort to make it less non-conforming before that concrete between existing one and the house. Staff did review the certified survey map against chapter 17 and 18 of the municipal code. That's our subdivision code and our zoning code. The overall survey itself, we found no issues with the measurements and bearings. And in consideration of the legal non-conforming status of the garage and these inheriting, the fact that the property owner at 409 Avon Street acquired this property through a trust. He inherited it. He inadvertently created the violation that occurred. With all that in consideration, staff is recommending approval of the CSM as presented with no conditions. Happy to answer any questions.

Anybody got any questions? Okay, I'm looking for a motion to approve the proposed CFM for 409 Avon Street and 418 Lima Street.

I'll make that motion to approve.

Second. Okay, motion was made by Jeff. Seconded by Robert. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion's carried. Okay. conceptional review discussion on a Tomahawk construction LLC proposed residential development.

Thank you. So Tomahawk construction LLC is proposing a residential mixed use development on the property. This property is located north of Partridge Drive, north of the existing apartments there and north of Walmart. The proposed development is currently presented as 30 residential lots. with options for commercial corridors north of those storage units along Shawano Street there. The current intent is for the development to be single family homes varying in size and floor plans with a turnkey approach, which the applicant is present tonight today. He'll talk about what that means. And then the intent for those parcels of 32 and 31 along Shawano Street is to offer some commercial development and kind of creates a neighborhood mixed use type feel out here with some small-scale retail commercial offerings along a pretty heavily traveled corridor that we have here in the city. Property is located within TID District Number 7. That plan does identify this area as suitable for mixed-use development, so that does include residential and commercial uses. Any development incentives are currently being negotiated and will be presented to Economic Development Committee for approval when we get to that point.

So we're currently working with the developer on what those would look like.

So the conceptual design development does offer ample ingress, egress, which is very important for development of this size to make sure that people can get in and out in the event of emergencies. Currently, as proposed, the road will be coming off of Partridge Drive to the south and connect to Shawano Street, County Highway D to the east. City staff did meet with the County Highway Department to review that proposed access there because with it being restricted access along that way, there were some concerns about traffic. But after meeting with them and looking at the design, County Highway Department was confident that this could move forward with a second access there. Currently the subject property is zoned agriculture. So development of this type would need to be rezoned to something more that was more suitable for residential and potential commercial development. Um, based on as it's currently proposed, uh, we do have a zoning district in the city called neighborhood mixed use. Um, the intent of that zoning district is to offer just this, um, residential developments in conjunction with small scale, commercial retail, um, kind of creating that neighborhood feel with, you know, small shops nearby within walking distance. So, um, this type of development does create kind of a unique, um, sort of setting that we could potentially have on this side of town. So the City of New London 2040 comprehensive plan projects that we need 257 additional housing units by 2040. So developments like this do help address that proposed plan and goal as presented and approved by the city. So we need 257 by 2040. We'd be adding potentially another 30 here. So we're working towards that goal with developments like this. So as I mentioned, the applicant is here to help answer questions. I know we have some visuals as well to show you guys what these houses might look like. And with that, I'll turn it over to Andy, if you have any questions.

Does anybody have questions for me at all on this or anything I can clear up?

I would say if you can kind of talk about the turnkey process.

So what we normally do in a situation like this, when we would have a chunk of lots available, is we would like to put a few houses out where we would design pretty basic floor plans, keeping the sizes reasonable. So we're not trying to build a very high end home here. We're trying to build something that's affordable and something that's reasonable for people to get into. So our typical size would start about 1300 square feet, maybe a touch older. Some of our floor plans would be around 1,325 for square footage. That's kind of on the lower end size wise. And then we can creep up into the 1,500 to 1,600 square foot range. Ideally, we have enough variety and enough floor plans that we can stay smaller in that 1,300 to 1,400 square foot range, which helps keep affordability in place and That's something that we're seeing in the market right now is it's very difficult for people to find affordable housing. It's not available. People that own it right now are typically not willing to sell it. So that's what we're trying to just kind of fill that gap in the marketplace. So when we start with that, we would put probably three to four of our sample floor plans out there and we would construct those as what would be a model home where people would be able to go through and visualize what the floor plans look like. We would put a variety of different finishes in there. So we would have different cabinet colors, different flooring colors, countertops. I mean, you name it, there will be a variety of colors and options and floor plans available. And then how we normally sell these projects is buyers would come in and become attracted to the existing floor plans. And then when we have, in this example, we have 30 lots, we would allow the customer to come in and pick which floor plan they like. So there would be a handful of floor plans that they could choose. And we have these built all across the Fox Cities and other communities. This is something we do all over. of our book basically would be available for customers to walk through. They could see the floor plan. They could visualize it. They could see the different finish options. So then they would be able to pick the floor plan that they like. They can look through the community and say, well, geez, I prefer one lot over the next. They can choose the lot that they want. Then they can pick all of the finishes and colors and options that they want. So it makes it To the consumer, to the customer, it feels like you are doing a custom home. Like you have a lot of say in the process. It's fun for the customers to do this. They get to shop and pick and choose and really be involved in the process in designing their home. But it does not come with the cost and I guess I would say headache of a custom home where you have to pay for the lot out of pocket, and then you have to pay for the construction cost as you go, the utility expenses go, all of the expense in building a home, typically in a scenario like this is a buyer paid or consumer paid expense, which only adds to the price of the overall project for the customer. In this situation, we are carrying all of those costs for the consumer. They get full choice and flexibility in what they pick and choose. And they can get a loan just like they would as if this house had been sitting on the street for 20 years. They can come in with their loan and purchase the home at the end. And that makes it possible. So for many buyers, they do not have large down payments. They do not qualify for these construction loans. They don't have that. as an option. Here you can use smaller down FHA loans, VA loans. There are inexpensive loan products that are available many times for first time home buyers that make it easier and more affordable to get into a home like this. So when we're carrying the cost and putting the project together and funding and financing the project from start to finish, that takes that burden off of the consumer and allows them to just have the new construction process, the fun part, picking out what they want, designing what they want, getting a brand new house, and then being able to finance it as if it was, you know, an existing home that's been here for 20 plus years, so.

What if somebody came to and wanted a single house? single, single family home with no base slab. Do you do that?

We have explored that avenue and it does save so if we were to eliminate a basement in the house, we would save approximately 20 to $25,000 on the bill. I don't think that we would rule that out per se, to say no, we would not do that. But we have the The greater demand that we see is people want to have the basement so that they've got the option to or opportunity to grow inside the house. So what we see in many of our buyers, many of our customers, they might be younger couples that are just getting started and we want to provide them a home that they can grow into as well. And so in a lot of our homes, when we do basements in the home, We're already putting the plumbing and the stock plumbing in the basement. So it's ready to add another bathroom. We're cutting in an egress window down in the basement as well. So that would be another avenue for someone to turn these from what's typically a three bedroom, two bath home that could grow into a four bedroom, three bath home with multiple living spaces And what a 1300 square foot home could turn into, you know, you could be in the 2000, 2200 square feet. So people can grow into the product and stay there longer.

I think that's a great explanation. My daughter recently bought a home, built a home, same plan, out of state. And they're running into that right now. Their home was built on a slab. didn't have that futuristic thinking, and now they have two kids, storage, all that kind of stuff, and they're running into that problem. So I mean, I commend you for thinking of that and talking about that.

And we do, so part of the design of these floor plans is we are designing the basements as part of this, not that we're building and finishing the basements right out of the gate, that's typically not what we do, but the floor plans are very intentional how they are designed and I have seen over the years I've been through so many new construction houses where the intention is to just build it I don't want to say cheap or whatever but like a low cost house and that's a builder can trim three four five thousand dollars off the price of the house by how the basement sets up meaning like Where are you going to put the plumbing so it doesn't make sense? Where does the ductwork run? And you can cut corners there so the main level is great and it functions great on the main level. But when you go downstairs, it's kind of a mess and you've got support beams everywhere and your bathroom's in a weird spot and you've got ductwork running through your basement. These are all very intentionally designed. So when you walk down the steps in that basement, every single floor plan you build all of the duct work is to a back side, to a storage side. So you're gonna walk down into full eight foot, it's gonna match your main level. You're not gonna have all these pop-ups and weird jobs or a beam in the middle of your basement that you gotta like have a beam in the middle of your family room or something. It sets up very nicely so you get a good size Second living room, family space.

It's designed for a bedroom and a full bathroom down there. So what's the average square footage of the homes? Is this a single without a basement? Before you were saying 1,300? That's typically what we found.

That's without a basement? Well, yeah, correct. Without the basement being covered, it would be about 1,300 square feet. And that's what we found to be, because we like to, like, we pay a lot of attention to what amenities consumers want and what buyers want in the marketplace. And people want three bedrooms. That's almost like a mandatory thing. And for the most part, people want three bedrooms. It's better for resale. It's better to grow into. People are wanting two full bathrooms. They want two showers. They want two toilets.

Um,

They want to have laundry on the main floor. They want to have, when you come into the home, you want to have a spot to throw your coats and shoes and, you know, a mudroom is what we would label that. So we intentionally designed this stuff to pack all of the features that a home buyer wants, but we trimmed the size down to make it, not luxurious or something like that but suitable and usable where we don't have many times you would look at a 1600 square foot house and a 1600 square foot house has the same three bedrooms and the same two bathrooms and the same main floor laundry they have the same features but everything's just bigger but then that accelerates the price of the house when you do that so now your home price gets into like the mid fours when you start to do that. And now with interest rates, what it is and the cost of housing, what it is that becomes unaffordable for so many people. So we've tried to kind of scale this stuff down a little bit and still make the bedrooms a reasonable size. There's still plenty of room for a bed. There's still room for closet space. You know, your kitchen is going to be scaled down. The living room is going to be scaled down, but it's all, functional usable space that works versus luxurious space, right? Like that's not what our intention or goal is, is to build luxury homes, but we want to give our buyers the features that they want and then be able to build it in the price point that they come for.

You wouldn't build a house until you have a firm commitment? from a buyer or are you going to build and then try to sell them?

We might do a mixture of that. So to start, so what we typically do now, I don't think we would just go and dig 30 holes all at one time. We would certainly be building and selecting in my mind, I would say at least three right out the gate and just building them and putting them out there. And those are available for people to see. And then what we typically do for our marketing is we will build things in phases. So we will allow enough time to give buyers options and give them the choices. So we want them to have that experience of, you know, like a custom house basically. So you can come to us and say, geez, Andy, I'm really like this floor plan. I wish I could get it on this lot, and I really like this color floor, and I like these color cabinets, and I want my garage insulated. Or I would like to have a three-car garage. I'm willing to pay more for a three-car garage, but I want it to be on this side of the street. Everybody's got a little different preferences there. So we like to have enough lots available so that we can meet everybody's needs. sort of wishlist. And at the same time, we like to build. So the only reason like we can actually hit the price points that we would be selling these houses in, part of how we do that is by building them in a volume or in a chunk, right? So we're not going to come out here and just build one house at a time and then walk away, right? Like we couldn't even sell our houses in the price point that we want to sell them in. if we did that. So we're typically building chunks of houses. It might be six, seven, eight, 10 houses in a phase. So when we do that, we can have the excavators go out there and they'll dig gate holes and then they'll, frameworks will come in, the foundations would get poured. All of this stuff goes sort of in an order. then all of the subcontractors that we work with they're happy to give us better pricing which we pass to the customer and that's where we get the price of the home where it is but they'll give us a little bit better price if we say to them hey while you're out here digging a basement why don't you just go dig eight of them and then when you're pouring the foundation wall why don't you just go and pour and put eight of them And so the subway sector is like that because they get guaranteed work, they get to go work in one spot and then they repay us with that in a better price because it's like for an excavator, a lot of the expense is to take the equipment and all that stuff and move the equipment out there. And while it's out there, you might as well just keep going. So that's what we normally do. So there will be a mix in a chunk of, say a pack of 10 houses there will probably be a mix. So if we have 10 people that are, have picked out like, we'll do labels turnkey where they're selecting all of the finishes and all of the options, we probably wouldn't do any other specs if we sold 10 of them. But if we sold six or five that were picked out by a customer and they chose the layout and they chose the finish and they chose the lot, We might mix in the remaining five or six or four or whatever it is. We might mix those in where we're just picking the floor plans and picking the layouts. And we have a lot of experience. We build about 150 homes a year doing this. So we know a lot about what the consumers want and what's popular, what colors are popular, what floor plans are the best sellers. So we would incorporate that in so where we're confident hey let's just build them somebody's going to come along and buy them at that point in time so we do that that's how we typically put so when you build them hoses you have a starting point and what is added on is what the customer wants in their house which adds to the price the only things that add so We'll have a starting point in what we market is a great home that you can buy for the price that we would market the home for. You can 100% have that house built, put together for you at that price. But we will also give people choices and some things that could add money and say, like, if we advertise a house for $340,000, a buyer might come in and say, you know what? I want the fancy countertops. I'm going to pay for a stone countertop. I really want that. I'll pay for it. I want a larger garage. I want the garage to be finished and insulated so in the winter months it stays warm. I want decorative society, right? So we'll give people a choice. So not to eliminate buyers, we want to make sure that we're Like literally everybody that would come in, they could get what they want, whether they want an upscale home or they want just a nice new construction house. And they could choose at that point in time, whether or not they would want to make those upgrades or make those changes. And how we typically sell these is we will have a, we call it a build sheet or an option sheet where You will be able to essentially come in and you'll choose your floor plan. Each floor plan will have a specific price associated to it. Each floor plan will come with a wide variety of different colors and options and choices that you can pick from that are all going to be inside of that price. But there's also going to be on that bill sheet options to add. Some people might come to us and say, you know what, I would love it if I could get to five bedrooms in a house. Well, sure. We'll put another egress window down there, and you can pay for that egress window. And then now you have the option, if you want a five-bedroom house, you could. Or if you want your garage to be warm, or you want stone countertops, or, you know, whatever these are, garage size, they can pick and choose that. and they can they can spend that extra money if they want to but it is by no means a situation where we pick a price and put a price out there then all of a sudden you come to us it's like you know here's it's it's actually not 340 it's 360 if you actually want you know it's not that kind of game it's not this big switch kind of thing where you know we get people the door like We will sell the houses and give a lot of good options at our baseline price. And a lot of people stay within that. But there are some that want a little bit more or a little bit nicer. And we don't want to turn those people away either.

I had the opportunity to look at some of your projects that you've done. I got to watch one of them being built and the progress along with that. And I'd have to say that You guys do a very good job. Looks nice. The construction crews were all very decent throughout the process. I was kind of skeptical. I'm like, who's going to buy those homes? I tell you what, they filled up just as fast as we built them.

We are on average. And so part of the advantage is Tom has done a great job of building a lot of homes in a year. So he gets different style pricing. from the manufacturers of lumber and pouring and all this because of the amount of homes he builds, he gets lower pricing and that pricing is always passed on. So he can be profitable while his average home is gonna be, I would say at least $15,000 less than what any other builder would build it for or what anybody else could afford to build the house for. He'll put those pricing down there lower. And the intention is to sell the houses. We don't want to just have lots and sit on them. Our goal is to sell these things as quickly as we can. We want to build them as quickly as we can. And we do that by making the houses $15,000 to $20,000 cheaper than what the next person is going to be able to build them for just because they don't have the either the ability to get materials at the price that we do, and then they're not building 10 houses at a clip where you're getting the labor, the subcontractors to work for a little bit less. And so that helps us really take these neighborhoods and actually make it happen versus talking about it. It actually happens and it happens quick because it's a good value proposition. And that's one thing from the real estate side is like I mentioned earlier, there is not a lot of people that want to sell their starter homes right now. They have all these attractive interest rates from years ago and they want to stay tight. They want to hang tight. They don't want to get rid of that. They would be like, take this 3% interest rate out of my dead hands, right? Like you're not getting me out of here. And we've seen, If the existing homes are getting so darn close in price to what we can offer people a new construction house for that, it becomes for the buyers that are new to the marketplace now. Like in my opinion, and obviously I sell these things, but it's a no brainer. If you could get a brand new house and it's $20,000 more or $25,000 more than 30 year old house. And you get to pick everything out that you like about it. It's kind of a no brainer. And that's, what's kind of allowing this to become so successful. And my people are, are coming into this in pretty large numbers. So I think this community could be built out pretty darn quick. And the only thing, I guess, the caveat that I would say where we get any restrictions to buyers, because we care very, very much about what this looks like at the end of the day. So it's not like we're just going to slam 30 houses that look exactly the same all right in a row. We're going to have a variety of floor plans that look different from the front and that are going to have different textures and different, what we would call elevation changes, which is how your roof looks, like how the roof line looks. what type of, and you'll see some of the differences up there where you've got some more gables on others. You might have different shaped roofs, different angles on the roofs. You might put windows above a garage. There's a lot of things you can do. The different floor plans will all look a little bit different, but then amongst those floor plans, we are going to change the way the outsides look so that the community looks nice when we're done. And it's not, you know, you think of rural housing or whatever, where it's like you go through and every single house is the same, the same, the same, the same, the same. So that's the only thing we would limit people when they're coming through to pick their lots. As an example, let's say on lot number two, we have floor plan A, we don't want floor plan A on lot number three and lot number four. So we won't do that. That's where we might limit a buyer's choice. And that's where we would, if like a lot of buyers are picking a more popular floor plan, we might then build our specs as a different floor plan and sprinkle that in so that we're keeping the community looking different and keeping the variety so that it actually looks attractive when it's all said and done. Because that's a huge thing to us because we send all of our customers to our community. So they can go and drive in Neenah and Hortonville and Greenville and Kaukauna and Appleton and Winchester. We've done this all over. They can just go drive into our neighborhoods that we've built and go look at them and see what it is at the end. And that's attractive. Like it looks a lot better than 16 houses that all look the same all in a row. This doesn't look nice. It's just a cosmetic thing. But I think buyers appreciate that too.

I had one quick question. You said you build the houses in batches to save on initial construction costs.

About how long in between the batches? Like if someone got in the beginning of a cycle, how long do they wait until you're going to start building that batch of houses kind of thing?

It's usually, we don't run into too many circumstances where a buyer would have to wait longer than six to seven months would be kind of the longest. Because we're typically... We've had good success selling them and we'll start them in waves. And it's about a five-month process to get the home built. So we would usually sneak people in that process along the way. In the event somebody was unwilling to take us back or it turns into a situation, I don't think we've ever had somebody wait longer than two to three months at the most before somebody would be back on the calendar for that five month window type of a thing. So we've never had a situation where somebody would have had to wait over a year to get their helps.

Show the location one more time, Chad, where this is actually gonna be.

So on the north side of the city, everybody knows where Walmart is right here. So north of Shawano Street up in here, here's apartments and then the mini storage that are here. And then this is the development lot that we're looking at right here.

Okay.

So visualize this to this.

Right on the edge of town. So how long is it going to take to develop it, foot water, sewers? all that other stuff in there. Are you talking like two years down the road to finish it?

Does Tom have a timeline for getting?

I think we would be wanting to have houses next year. We would be as soon as we could get approval on all of this. If everything is approved, it's full speed ahead. So we've been at a shortage for lots, right? And the more lots that we have in inventory would be the better for us. And we've been short on that. So we're trying to create lots to keep up with demand as best we can. We've got sort of a following of people that are consistently on the website, looking at our stuff, looking at our communities that we have a hard time keeping up with the demand on it. So we would be looking to move forward ASAP From the development standpoint, I'm assuming that these things would be ready so we would be taking orders on houses early next year.

And in this project, the developer takes care of the infrastructure as well and then donates it or dedicates that information, everything to the city and the public right away.

Yeah, so like those commercial lots on the right-hand side, our intention, we would develop this and just donate it to the city when we're done. that would be the intention behind this. Because we don't really do, our focus is primarily residential. It is residential, that's what we're good at. So our intention, again, would be to give those lots back to the city, and then the city can use those to attract a commercial business that's appealing.

And we're in the in the inner workings of working through the developer's agreements and things like that. So we're starting those negotiations to figure that out. And that would come to economic development. The developer's agreement would come to economic development once we're ready to propose that.

Yeah, development like this has got a couple of steps for approval.

I mentioned that the rezone, we got to rezone this to do a residential district to support this. It's agriculture right now, which obviously doesn't support 30 homes.

So that'll be something that'll be coming first, is the rezone, and eventually we'll move into the plat process, both preliminary and final, in order to get this rolling. So you guys will be seeing this development again as it moves forward. As Chad mentioned, the development incentives and developer's agreement will be through economic development committee as well.

So we're not looking for any action today?

No action tonight, just any other feedback for Andy if we have it, and then we'll continue working with the developer.

Yeah. Biggest thing, do you like this proposal? If not, things change. But this is a preliminary looking for feedback. I think it's a good proposal.

I think it's needed for New London.

And we don't have a lot of residential on the north side right now, not compared to the south.

I'm not selling my house.

Me either.

I'm not either.

I could sell my house for a lot of money, but then I'd be homeless.

Right.

Where would you go? And then that's...

I'd have to come and see you.

My house is worth more to me than anyone else.

I think the business plan is outstanding. Like I said, my daughter went through this out of state. And it's an awesome concept for first-time homebuyers.

I see the ones you built there by Hartenville, those beautiful houses.

Yeah, it would be very similar to that project there. He slammed those 30 houses in there that got done in less than a year and put the whole thing together in less than a year. He got there and some houses up and done and built and sold in that time period and the houses are attractive. So that would be an example you guys could drive around in that neighborhood and see that's a perfect example of what one of the communities looks like. And it's easy for me, like I'm involved in sales aspect a lot of it. Tom is the one who's building and organizing all of this stuff and managing the crews. And I've been around real estate for 20 years. I've sold several thousand houses in my day. I've met every single home builder that exists in the Fox Cities. And I've never met anybody like Tom that's got his stuff in order the way he does. Expectations are always met. Deadlines are always met. Quality is always met. Service after the sale is always met. It's done to the highest level I have personally been around. It's very well done.

I guess what I really like is that you won't put a bunch of houses in a row that look the same. I like that you stop them from being able to do that because that just looks bad.

They would just have to choose another lot. They would just have to choose another lot, I would say.

It's that row housing. I like that they keep track of that. They know which house is going where, so you don't have that because that would really look I don't want to go there.

Welcome to Pleasantville.

Yeah. And we'll have, I know there's some thought process that's been put behind this template of lots that you're looking at. Some of our different floor plans fit better on different size lots. And this is all done intentionally so that we will have certain lots fit certain floor plans. Some lots will fit three car garages. Some will not. Some will fit layout A, B, and C. Some will fit layout D. It's all done intentionally so that there's variety. And that also does help us to sell things a little bit quicker or put a demand to the buyer, to the consumer, is because if they want a certain floor plan, it might only be available on six or seven of these lots. And sometimes that can be what causes the buyers to take action or take action a little bit sooner. Or they say, well, geez, I want a three-car garage. Well, we've got X amount of lots for a three-car garage. And when they're gone, they're gone and there are no more three-car garage lots. And so that will sometimes cause people to act a little bit sooner or a little bit sooner to get their 100% perfect house to that buyer. Some buyers don't care and they're just happy. And that's the other thing why we mix doing some turnkey houses, which are where the customer picks everything out and where we pick out houses ourselves and put them out. Another reason we do that is because the buyer population, the people that are out shopping for houses, it's not like every single buyer can wait six months for your house. Not everyone can. Not everyone wants to. So if we have a nice mixture of the two, then we have options for people that want to get every little last detail that they want. We have options for them and they've got time and they're under no rush. They can take their time and have the home built. Great. We also have buyers that are a little bit more time sensitive where they come to us and like, Like right now, I could have a buyer who says, I want to be in a house before the end of summer, or I want to be in before the kids go back to school. And it's nice to have product available for any type of buyer. So that's why we always will have some of what I call the spec house, meaning we picked out all the options, we picked the floor plan, we picked the colors, we picked the lot. We chose all of that and did not give a buyer a choice. Because we have some buyers that need something faster. They come to the market with a quicker timeframe and buyers that have that quicker timeframe are typically not as concerned about what color their carpet is or what color their counters are, what color are my cabinets. They just want a nice house and they want it in two months. So we like to have options always available for any buyer that comes in. And I think that's helped us to sell these projects so quickly is because we don't, like, there's never a reason to turn somebody away. You know, there's always, no matter what you're looking for as a buyer, we'll typically have you covered and have an option or a solution for you. Each buyer is a little bit different. Their needs and wants are different. So we try to accommodate everybody.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm excited to move forward and see a product.

Yep. I'll make a motion for that. But there's no motion to be made tonight. Just to be clear. Why, thank you.

Awesome. Thank you guys. I appreciate it.

All right. Next item on the agenda is conceptual review discussion for for three development north or yeah bridge north residents go ahead and start austin yep

Um, so another residential proposal that we've received at the city, um, this one in case in this case is for multifamily housing, uh, specifically for 12 unit apartment buildings, um, along, uh, the existing handshake drive east of all the, on the north side of town. Uh, the proposal currently is for these buildings to be two bed, two bath with attached garages. Um, we did re zone this property as part of our zoning rewrite to, um, residential high density to accommodate a development of this type. So this is the next step in that process. This is a conceptual review tonight and look at this proposal and provide similar feedback as we just did for the previous proposal. So as I mentioned, it's currently zoned mixed residential high density. So development of this type fits in the zoning. We wouldn't have to change the zoning out here. This would simply be a site plan review, infrastructure review, stormwater review through city staff, so. This project is also located within to district number seven. So similar to the previous proposal, we're in negotiations for what development incentives would look like out here. And then any finalized developers agreements will go through economic development committee for review and approval. So as it's currently proposed, the intent out here is to have two points of ingress egress, one going coming off of the to be extended Partridge Drive. It's currently not there, but the intent would be to build that road out and provide access to the north. And then to the south side, the intent is also to have access there. So there'll be two points in and out to this development. As currently proposed, there is a onsite stormwater pond on the north side there, which will be serving the development. That pond will be subject to engineering review through staff, and we'll be working with the developer on what that would look like going forward. But as currently proposed, there is a on-site stormwater pond for the development. So there's a couple of different layers here that are still in the works for how this development is going to look. Right now, we currently have a public right-of-way running north to south. It's currently Hanchkey Drive. You know, we're in discussions with the developer this time whether that area will be vacated because with the connection between the north and the south, the shared driveway is currently closed. There may not ever be a need for a publicly built road running north to south there. So that's currently in discussions about what that's going to look like. But as it's currently designed, it does show that that right away is vacated. So we'll work through that process with the developer. In addition to that, there's currently three parcels development will be occurring on. As you can see with the concept there, the buildings are proposed to be over lot lines. So one of the things that would have to happen for this development is for those parcels to be combined through a certified survey map in order to allow for the placement of those buildings in that location. So that would be another item that would go through plan commission for review would be that certified survey map. So one other step that needs to happen for this development. So tonight, again, it's just an opportunity to provide feedback for the developments. We do have some visuals to show you. A member of the applicant team is here to answer questions as well. And this is the time to ask them. So as previously mentioned, we do have a housing need in the city. This is another opportunity to help meet those goals as identified in our comprehensive plan. So.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today.

My name is Jared Schmidt. I'm an engineer on behalf of Pre3. I work at Robert E. Lee & Associates. Bob Murray and Josh could not be with us today. They happen to be in another community going through a similar exercise. So a little bit about Pre3. They were founded in 1975. They're owned by a singular gentleman that has a passion for developing multi-family. Just in the last eight years in the state of Wisconsin, developed over 60 communities similar to this. The focus of the development is to get just on the outer ring of the primary cities and be able to serve communities that otherwise typically don't see a lot of new developments. trying to bring really high quality housing at a reasonable price to those types of communities. So very passionate about those brings this typical model that we'll walk through a little bit more throughout the presentation. You can jump to the next slide. The general layout was already discussed in this application for four 12 unit buildings. There's obviously been some initial conversations with the city specifically to the street. handshake between Northridge and Partridge and whether there's fundamentally a need for that. Public infrastructure is pretty expensive. It's actually really expensive, a thousand bucks a foot. You know, if you're not utilizing the road, why have it? We are kind of in the account that that road isn't necessary for us to have a functional development. And we were able to identify a layout and a configuration that reduces city infrastructure costs, but allows good connectivity. Having two points of egress for a site is always nice. It allows us good traffic circulation. And the fact that you have utilities, fairly available water bisects the property that is on the west side and sanitary is reasonably available. So developers are really excited to take on the project and undertake it. As practical, we'd love to break around this fall. If that isn't practical because of some of the municipal utility extensions that need to happen, it would likely be spring of 27, but they're really excited to keep moving. As we move to the next one. Um, the building itself, uh, landscaping is a huge driver, um, for the owner. Um, you know, here's a sample of a foundation plantings, um, but ultimately they put large mature trees throughout the development. Um, they have onsite management, um, something that, uh, development of this size and scale doesn't always have. Uh, so there's a dedicated office and a garage maintenance space on each of the properties and, uh, the aesthetic of them are, are, are very important. So they're excited about that opportunity. General floor plans are here, obviously a little bit small to see, but all units have two bedrooms, two baths, about 1,200 square feet, plus or minus. All have one attached garage stall cover that is direct access to the unit. Also, every unit has individual entry. So no common hallways lives more like a townhouse or a home. And that really helps promote longevity and tenant retention. We'll talk a little bit more about that. From a building standpoint, example rendering, colors may not match exactly what we come through, but as we navigate the municipal entitlement process, we'll bring clarity to the colors But what they really want is, again, a smart, high-quality looking development, essentially running with stoner brick, LP smart siding for a side. Again, something a little bit more elevated to create that nice aesthetic. Interior-wise, you know, well-appointed, moderate to higher end finishes, in-house laundry, basically all the amenities of a home for folks to live in. Few more photos for you. And one of the big things that they preach is within their management structure, management style, Pre3 manages all their properties. They've got over 10,000 units that they own and manage throughout the region. So they primarily only build in Wisconsin. They're currently taking on and building a project down in Illinois. That's their first out-of-state build, but they do own properties in about 12 states. These are market rate apartments. So they're not section 42. They do own those properties. They do buy those properties and flip them and turn them into a higher quality, home and living space as they're coming out of some of the WIDA tax credit funding components. But what you see here today is holy market rate. And as we talked, because of the way these buildings live and the way they keep them up, their average annual turnover is only in that 20 to 30%, where nationally you see an average of 40 to 50. So tenants are staying here longer, becoming part of the community and becoming integrated within that. It really, again, comes down to the amenities that you see, the means in which they upkeep the yard, and then how they lived. So we are, again, really excited for the opportunity to come. Citi's been great to work with, I would say, the initial entitlements, just getting background information and trying to garner support for the project itself. And we're here today just to talk about layout, see if there's anything that we have comments about that we'd like to see changed The building, the building nature itself is pretty set. And we think, you know, with what you have there, it's a really nice product. You know, happy to pass along and share locations that are either under construction in the region or recently constructed throughout the state. Should you want to see them, you've got some product in town that mirrors comparable to this, but I would say be newer and being their newer building model. It's a little bit elevated from, from that product. So really appreciate the time. And like I said, hope to get some feedback and even if, hey, it looks great, let's keep her plugging along. Happy to hear that. Or if there are any opportunities or edits you'd like to see, we do our best to incorporate those as we advance through the entitlement process.

Did you say one grad stall with each unit? Correct.

There's one attached grad stall.

And then you'll have like an outside one also or availability?

Yeah. Generally speaking, there's 12 units, 12 covers. We allocate room behind the garages to park, but we don't encourage it. They're not striped. And then there's usually 12 to 14 service stalls per building. So one per each plus a guest. So theoretically there's 36 parking stalls per building, but again, we really try to steer away from people parking behind garages. It's just not something we want, but we leave enough space to let ingress and egress a little bit easier. And if you've got a few family members over and need an extra stall, you have that opportunity.

Thanks. One thing I'd like to echo is you did say that they mirrored some of the developments that we have here already. And I find that people enjoy that setup. Those buildings are always full. The only thing I can do. Their market rate. So people are looking for.

The only comment I have is we need more housing, so put the shovel in the dirt and get going.

And just for reference, again, just to showing outside map, again, on the north side, Walmart right here, the three parcels that were discussed were these three right here. So here's all these three right here. Like Jerry talked about where you're in, you probably have noticed we had extra fill from Oshkosh Street here. We have extra fill that we can continue that. We're engineering in some wetland delineation investigation right now to make sure that all set, ready to go there. And then again, that south side cul-de-sac, it would be proposed down over here, just north of Crystal Falls or Victory Church. So these are the three lots. show the YouTube here. These are the three lots right here, just east of all these that are consideration.

Wasn't that originally proposed? It's just three units? Now it's four?

Nope, it was four from the start.

I thought it was three from the last meeting. Am I wrong? You could be wrong. You could be wrong. I could be wrong?

Okay. The only downside I see to all this development on that end is we might have to put a new sled hill out there too.

I'm in. That's a good problem. Rumor has it the city's going to be getting two more lots just for that from the other guys.

What are you looking for from us, Bernie?

Anybody got any more questions?

Thumbs up, thumbs down.

Start building. Go for it. That's a building for me.

That's Austin's job. As I previously mentioned, we're working through some of the logistics stuff, what this is going to look like, you know, whether we're going to vacate right away. We got to combine those parcels. We got to look at stormwater infrastructure, engineering, all that yet.

So tonight is, you know, was that opportunity to just get in front of you guys to get your thoughts and get your feedback.

But yes, I'm wondering here, we'll keep working with the developer and keep moving forward. I can't believe you ain't got it done yet.

We look forward to seeing you back here. We'll be back. So thank you all. I really appreciate it.

We've got economic development in a couple weeks.

I think we're teed up for that.

We're working on that. Very good. Thank you all. Okay. Next item is review upcoming agenda item.

Yep, so we're going to next meeting is tentatively for July 23rd. That's our normal meeting dates. Right now we have two rezone hearings that are currently scheduled for that date. So those will be the public hearing process where we'll discuss that. And then in addition to that, we're going to have a site plan review, a formal site plan review for for an addition to an industrial business in town so those would be the three main discussion items there um we are currently still working with our city attorney about our club building ordinance so there may be an opportunity to have discussion about that as well depending um where we're at with that so we'll have another full agenda on july 23rd so thank you awesome okay next item on this agenda i'm looking for a motion for adjournment i will make the motion a second

Keith made the motion to adjourn. Mark seconded. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye.