A revised housing plan for a 76-home development near St. Charles is being considered by St. Charles, though questions from the City Council and residents remain about the proposed project and its potential impact on traffic in the area.
The project, called Claibourne Farm, would sit on 38 acres west of Rosebud Drive and south of Reserve Drive, per the city, that is currently outside of but adjacent to the city’s boundaries. The parcel in question is the northern part of a property known as Red Gate Farm at 36W368 Red Gate Road.
The original plan was reviewed by the city’s Plan Commission in November, at which point the commission expressed support for using the land for single-family homes, but took issue with the single point of access into the neighborhood via Rosebud Drive, a residential street.
Commission members also suggested the developer take the surrounding area into account — such as by increasing lot sizes, providing buffering along the perimeter and preserving mature trees as much as possible — and questioned whether a Planned Unit Development, or PUD, request that would allow for more building coverage and smaller yards was necessary.
At that time, the project encountered pushback from residents of surrounding neighborhoods. The developer ultimately requested additional time before proceeding, per the city.
Then, in March, the developer — M/I Homes — came back to the city with a revised plan.
The changes to the plan include
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a reduction in the number of homes from 83 to 76, as well as an increase to the average lot size and increased lot widths along some of the property lines.Like the original proposal, the subdivision would be accessed via a road connecting to Rosebud Drive.
The developer is seeking annexation of the parcel into St. Charles, per city documents, as well as a PUD zoning designation. The property has already been identified by the city as recommended for single-family homes.
The matter came to the St. Charles City Council at its Committee of the Whole meeting on Monday, where representatives of the developer and property owner presented the plan for the site.
It’s also continued to generate pushback among residents. At the meeting, more than a dozen individuals came out against the development — expressing concerns about the possible worsening of traffic in the area as a result of the proposed development, as well as about things like increased housing density and water usage.
On Monday, St. Charles Community Development Director Russell Colby emphasized that, as it stands, the proposal is “very early on” in the development process and therefore is not yet going to a vote. He explained that the developer is seeking city and community feedback as it weighs whether to move forward with the project.
John Hoscheit — representing the property owner, Jim Cooke — explained at the meeting that only part of the farm property would be developed, and that the property’s owner plans to continue living on the land and potentially pass it down to his children.
The Red Gate Farm property has been in the Cooke family since 1959, Hoscheit said, and they’ve lived there continuously since. In 1989, Red Gate Farm was listed on the Kane County Register of Historic Places.
Hoscheit also addressed some of the concerns that have come up with regards to the plan. Noting other surrounding developments that have cropped up in the area since, he pointed to the fact that the city and county have planning and engineering staff that evaluate residents’ concerns about issues like traffic, housing density and utilities with development projects — and that, with other projects, concerns like these have been addressed during the development process.
“St. Charles is a great community, and a lot of people want to move here,” Hoscheit said at Monday’s meeting. “With each subdivision that was platted surrounding the Red Gate Farm, the same comments that were made tonight were made in … different ways.”
Russ Whitaker, representing developer M/I Homes, also addressed the housing plan at the meeting. He said the proposed homes would all be four to five bedrooms, with 2.5-5.5 bathrooms and two- or three-car garages.
Whitaker said the developer is maintaining in its plans a single point of entry for the subdivision, a point of issue which has generated concern from the city, and indicated that it has hired a traffic engineering firm, but has not yet submitted a formal traffic impact study.
He also pointed to the planned revisions to the original development proposal, including the reduction in the number of homes and subsequent increase in lot sizes, and the focus on increasing the distance between the edges of the development and existing properties.
Whitaker also defended the smaller lot sizes for the project, saying they’re “desirable in today’s market” for home-builders.
Alluding to comments made about housing density, Whitaker said space is not the only reason families move to the suburbs. They also choose where they live based on affordability, access to schools and proximity to jobs and family. He also noted that, following the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a shift in buyer preferences away from large yards that require significant maintenance.
“Different people have very different reasons for why they choose to live … where they do live,” Whitaker said.
At the meeting, some members of the City Council expressed support for the overall project, though several focused on the single point of access to the subdivision and the possible traffic issues that could arise from it, looking for further information from the forthcoming traffic study.
Ald. Vicki Spellman, for example, expressed concern about the single point of access onto Rosebud, saying the set-up is not analogous to other subdivisions in the community and asking about the possibility of an access point onto Red Gate Road.
“It’s a convoluted access plan that drastically inconveniences probably a thousand people, for the sake of — it sounds like — the pretty sight lines to the beautiful home,” Spellman said of the current proposal. “And that is a valid concern, but I do not think it’s a more important concern than the livability of all these people.”
Spellman said she is supportive of homes being built on the property, but wants to ensure that “it’s a reasonable plan, that it has the best interests of the entire community at heart.”
Ald. David Pietryla also said he too supports single-family homes on the site, but asked about the developer’s requested variations in the PUD.
Whitaker, in response, said that some of the floor plans fit entirely in the existing zoning requirements, but the developer could run into an issue where the largest floor plan, for example, built on the smallest lots wouldn’t meet the existing requirements. So, to avoid being “overly restrictive,” the developer is seeking deviations.
But Ald. Bob Gehm expressed continued concern that, despite the reduction in the number of homes, the proposal is still “very high-density.”
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“The way this stands right now,” Gehm said, “to me that does not look congruent and balanced and thoughtful to the community.”