Unfinished Sugar Grove duplex project shows signs of life

A glimmer of hope for home-building in Sugar Grove has sprung up, as a company is interested in taking over and finishing building the Meadowridge Villas complex.

DRH Cambridge Homes Inc. has a contract to buy the remaining 28 lots from Melrose Holdings Inc. over the next 2½ years.

The lots are zoned for duplex housing.

DRH Cambridge is seeking the village’s permission to amend the 2005 annexation agreement for the development, which is on Route 56 east of the Prestbury neighborhood. The board will vote on the request Tuesday.

It is asking the village to lower some of the required impact fees. The village has offered rebates on some of its impact and building permit fees since October 2009, hoping that the break would encourage builders to continue work during the recession. There have been few takers.

The developer is also asking for some changes on exterior architectural details for the rear of homes that back up to Route 56, and to be allowed to use three-tab shingles instead of architectural shingles on the roofs.

When the subdivision was approved in 2005, it called for 48 age-restricted duplexes. Residents had to be 50 or older. The developer was John Clare Ltd.

Melrose Holdings is a subsidiary of the original mortgagee-holder on the project, West Suburban Bank.

In 2009, the village placed liens on properties in the development for the cost of mowing weeds on some of the lots; it also drew on the letter of credit John Clare had posted to finish some infrastructure such as streets and sidewalks.

From the early 1990s to the mid-2000s, Sugar Grove had a massive residential building boom, issuing more than 300 permits a year. It expected to issue 550 in fiscal-year 2007, before the single-family housing market collapsed. In calendar year 2010, the village issued five housing permits.

Twenty-eight duplexes may seem like small potatoes, but Village President Sean Michel is happy to have it.

“We realized that having an active subdivision is better than having an inactive one. We hope to get things kick-started in the community,” he said.