New homes planned for unfinished Clublands subdivision in Antioch
Aside from vacant lots fronted by utility boxes ready to be connected, the neighborhoods in the Clublands of Antioch look tidy and typical of life in a comfortable subdivision.
What visitors may not realize is only about a third of the original 956 planned houses have been built, leaving those who did buy to deal with the expense of maintaining the grounds in a community where time essentially has stood still.
But on Wednesday, a small group of homeowners and others gathered at the site of a soon-to-be-built model house to hear developer Troy Mertz outline how the corner has been turned. With a key village action earlier this year as a foundation, Mertz snared D.R. Horton, the nation's top homebuilder, to begin filling in the blanks of a project reboot that has been years in the making.
"We are very excited about having this community come to be with the way it was planned 15 years ago," Mertz said during a ceremonial groundbreaking.
Mayor Larry Hanson, who was a village trustee when the original Neumann Homes projects at Savage Road north and south of Route 173 began, said Clublands has been a thorny issue for the village that finally may be solved. Clublands, which is all single-family houses south of Route 173, is the larger of the two and is being considered separately for development purposes.
Antioch officials have been dealing with issues related to the developments since 2007, when Neumann Homes declared bankruptcy. That has included a lengthy legal fight that ultimately allowed the village to install utilities and public parks to spark interest at Clublands.
The housing market recovery was slow but has accelerated since Mertz became involved.
"After a while, you feel it never would happen," said Paul Johnson, president of the Clublands of Antioch Homeowners Association.
"We spent a lot of time and money keeping the area up. It would have been easy to let the weeds grow," added Johnson, who has lived here since 2004.
This past February, the village board refinanced $24 million in special service area bonds, which resulted in a small tax reduction for existing residents. Hundreds of dollars more in reductions on individual bills are anticipated as development proceeds and more taxpayers contribute.
"It was critical to have the SSA bonds refinanced," Johnson said.
Considerable time also has been spent restructuring the homeowners association to protect existing residents and ensure continuity in standards, such as fencing, when dealing with new builders.
Horton and the village recently agreed to design standards allowing homebuilding to proceed.
Besides the model, Horton plans to build a small number of houses this year. Horton has a contract on 178 of the available lots with an interest in more property, Mertz said.
Mertz said he plans to build a community clubhouse, one of the original Clublands elements never completed. Because of the size of the development, that will be possible with no increase in association dues, he said.