I haven’t written anything about the Sand Hill Farm project in a while. Not because it’s stagnant, but more because of being too busy with it! The basic idea of a mixed use development hasn’t changed, but the path towards that continues to be a bit bumpy… Some of this has been here before, but for new readers, I’ll reiterate.
Last year, the Stellar competition was supposed to be our “in” for IHCDA Tax Credit Housing. When we didn’t get Stellar, I had multiple meetings with IHCDA, which indicated they were eager to help, but we just didn’t meet the threshold needed for a project. In discussions with Town leaders, we decided that the need was immediate and we needed to do something. The Town will be competing for Stellar again this year, but the changes to the program mean that the funding wouldn’t come through until 2019 and that’s too late.
I have gone through the process to have the eastern portion of the project annexed. I have been through the BZA and gotten a Special Use Variance allowing multifamily housing on the property. I have worked through MCEDC to secure Region Cities funding for the project. I have formed a new LLC (Culver Sand Hill Farm LLC) and transferred the eastern portion of the site to that entity. I’ve had multiple meetings with accountants and banks on how best to structure the project. From there, it became an issue of defining what the project would be.
I had discussions with the Town about doing a small townhome project, but the dollars didn’t work. It wouldn’t have been enough to justify the Regional Cities money and didn’t really fit what the goals were. We are now proceeding down the path to create a 24 unit apartment building. The sketches I have included here are the preliminaries for that. Final designs may change, but they’re what pricing is currently based on.
In order to meet the cost goals for the project, the Town has agreed to provide infrastructure. That’s allowing the rental rates to be reduced and hit some of our target audience. This will bring in water, sewer, streets, street lights, sidewalks, etc. to the project. They will also be providing a Tax Abatement for the project.
The public comment periods on this were a bit harsh. Always disheartening when you find out who your friends aren’t. Most of the vitriol was directed at the Town Council, but some got personal. That was despite the all of the employers we were targeting appearing and speaking for the project. This is somewhat baffling since affordable housing has been the top request in all the surveys from back to the Comprehensive Plan. It continues to be the top concern in the Stellar surveys. Since those meetings it has been nice that there have been a lot of people providing off the record, positive comments to me. It’s unfortunate that they were unable to speak publicly for fear the naysayers would shun them and their businesses.
Currently we’re working down two tracks in order to make this happen. The first is with the Town to find the most economical route to provide access to the current and future projects on the site. This is being handled by the Town’s engineer with input from the Town Manager, Utilities Superintendent and myself. The second is working to bring the building plan in at or under budget. That is proving to be challenging, but the budget has been set by what the banks will support and what has been approved for the Regional Cities money. Building a project with Market Rate construction costs, but renting it at below Market Rate is difficult. In typical fashion, the banks only want to lend money when you don’t need it.
The conversations with the Town and the buzz through the community has been fascinating. The need is there, but everyone has different ideas of how to address it. Several have mentioned the tiny house craze. Enough so that I will probably include that in my PUD as an option. It seems like a reasonable possibility. Mostly, I’m looking at how to most efficiently use the property. I think working on the density is probably the key. Tiny houses might be a component, but I’m still thinking multifamily and zero lot line construction may make more sense here.
More to come!
Tiny house image via Cass Community Social Services
There was an article in the Culver Citizen on April 7th answering Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about the Stellar Communities program and the Town of Culver‘s plans to compete for the award again this year.
Culver competed in 2016 and was a finalist. The Town has been encouraged by the State Agencies sponsoring the program to compete again this year. The Town Council and the Town’s Stellar Committee have again taken up this challenge. I’ve include the article to the right and the continuation can be seen here.
Thursday, July 21st, Culver had their evaluation from the various state agencies on their Stellar Communities application. I have been involved with this project from the beginning and on Thursday I not only served as a golf cart driver, but also as a presenter at a couple of the sites. For those of you that might be interested I thought I might give my impressions of the day and a brief synopsis of what happened.
Thursday was the culmination a lot of work but it all came together at 9:00 at the Depot in the park. Twenty representatives from OCRA, IHCDA, IAC, INDOT, Serve IN, IOTD, ISDH, and DNR arrived at the Depot along with many of our local regional partners. Representatives from Marshall County, City of Plymouth, Argos, Bourbon, MCEDC and many others showed up to show how important this was not just to Culver but to our surrounding area. Blueprints on each of the seven projects were given to the attendees. These were the boiled down bullet points from the overall investment plan that was submitted last month. Mark Damore Jr. then made introductions and briefly warmed up the crowd before introducing the Town Council President, Ginny Munroe, who gave a speech on what Culver to the Max meant, how it evolved, and a bit of her personal story on coming back to Culver. That was followed by Jonathan Leist giving a very brief synopsis of the projects.
The Sand Hill Farm project that has been discussed extensively here is part of the Stellar Communities application that Culver has submitted. I would assume most of you reading this are aware that Culver has made the first cut and is one of the three finalists for the 2016 award. As part of the public education process, an article appeared in the Pilot News (see right – The continuation of the article can be viewed here.) on yesterday. Jonathan Leist, Culver Town Manager, did a nice job describing what has brought us to this point.
The Troyer Group has completed some preliminary sketches based on my preliminary vision of phasing for the project. One of those is included in the article to the right. They have also included some preliminary sketches of the potential housing which I will share here when I get the chance.
As part of this process, I appeared before the Plan Commission in May and received their blessing on annexation of the eastern half of my property. At the following Town Council Meeting, on June 12th and formally requested voluntary annexation. They agreed to this and have begun that process. There will be a public hearing on the annexation in the near future. More on that here soon too.
Stop by the back room of the Lakehouse Grille tonight from 6:30 to 8:00 for an open house to find out more about Culver Stellar Plans. Town council member Tammy Shaffer and Town Manager Jonathan Leist will be there to answer questions about our application for the state program, how the program works, and what projects are including in our plan.
We will have a map of the proposed trail route around the lake (draft version), floor plans and site layout options for the beach lodge, and a site plan for the Sandhill Farm Housing development, plus more on display.