Renewed St. Charles subdivision plan faces obstacles

The failed Regency Estates subdivision of townhouses in St. Charles may see new life under a new developer, but a revised plan for the site will require the city to bend the rules.

Regency Estates is part of a larger development west of Randall Road and east of Peck Road off Woodward Drive. The plan, approved in 2006, called for 61 townhouses on the site. But in four years, only one townhouse building with five units was constructed. Worse yet, none of the units in the building ever sold.

A new developer, Lombard-based Town & Country Homes, wants to keep the existing building and build 49 single-family homes instead of the remaining townhouses.

The homes would have lot sizes averaging about 5,000 square feet, leaving most properties without much of a yard. The expected price tag for the homes will be about $350,000.

The site already has utilities set up, including a water system, designed for townhouses, not single-family homes. But developers say they want to keep that system in place and try to make it work for the 49 single-family homes. City staffers warned the city's planning and development committee Monday night “there are some potential problems with this plan.

Beyond that, Town & Country Homes wants the city to allow it to proceed under the 2006 system for impact fees, which help offset the new burden on parks and local schools to provide services to the new residents, particularly children.

Single-family homes typically bring many more children to the area than townhouses. But the developer wants the city to apply the same impact fee of $185,000 per acre charged in the townhouse plan to apply to the single-family vision. Current rules say the charge should be $240,500 per acre.

The request to cut the developer's costs is similar to the request the city council faced in ultimately denying the plan for the massive Towne Centre development.

Committee member Ed Bessner expressed some skepticism that $350,000 homes on relatively small lots will attract more buyers than the townhouse plan did. But developers said 81 percent of all housing units sold in St. Charles this year have been single-family homes.

Committee Chairman Dan Stellato had his own concerns. He stressed a need for the developers to iron out the impact fee request with the local school and park districts before returning to the city.

“It sounds to me like you've got some big issues to address, Stellato told the developers. “We're going to have to think outside of the box to get this done. Unconventional thinking will be required on this one.