While putting our annual “Who We Are” edition together the past few weeks — a duty I’ve held onto in my version of retirement — I had noticed that last year’s edition was heavy on the new housing developments set to bloom in Bluffton. Two of those projects, I observed, seem to be stuck in “Neutral,” or perhaps still in “Park.”
Our annual portrait of Wells County was included in Thursday’s edition, and the hope here is that you are still perusing it. It was designed to be picked at — perhaps with your morning coffee — for a few weeks. The annual effort has evolved over the years to become what I call a community yearbook of sorts. Although the project seems to be a bit more like work each passing year, it is a fun thing to wrap up and put on the press. But I digress.
(And I am a poet but don’t know it.)
So, remembering that a year ago, housing was cited as one of the key challenges facing the city’s and county’s growth prospects, what’s the status of our cumulative housing efforts?
What is platted as Flat Creek Pointe on East Dustman Road (just east of the North Shore Christian Care condos) and Parlor Development on 200 N (Monroe Street) are both yet to see a home started. Indeed, the Dustman Road land, after not being cultivated last year in anticipation of groundbreaking for a 154-lot development, has soybeans growing there.
“It’s my understanding it’s off the table” APC leader Mike Lautzenheiser, Jr. told me. That was confirmed by a local Realtor who’d been working with the developer. My characterization would be an inexperienced developer running into the necessary regulations and rules, getting frustrated by the process and deciding to focus their efforts elsewhere. It appears other developers are interested in acquiring the land and moving forward at some point. How the real estate market has changed dramatically just in the past month or so might, I speculate, impact that.
One of the issues related to that effort, according to Wells County Economic Development Director Chad Kline, was the sewage capacity at that edge of town. That will be greatly enhanced with the extension of services to Craigville.
Meanwhile, ground was been broken months ago and utilities installed at what I believe will be called “Parlor Bluffs” on the north side but there’s been no ongoing activity for a period of time. Lautzenheiser reported that some “compaction issues” have delayed the roadwork. Bluffton Mayor John Whicker confirmed, noting “that’s not unusual for developers to deal with this.”
While the developer in this case is a partnership between a Decatur man and a Fort Wayne developer, a national firm, the D.R. Horton Co., has been contracted to build homes in the development.
A spokesperson for the company, Bethany Carle, told me via an email last week that “we expect (the developers) to have the streets in the community paved within the next few weeks. Once the roads are paved and plat recordation has occurred, we plan to begin purchasing homesites and start home construction.”
She knows of what she speaks. Within a day or so of getting that email, I noticed equipment and men back on the land. As noted in Friday’s N-B, the streets should be paved by the end of the coming week. It will be interesting to watch how soon any home foundations are poured. These homes, as I understand it, will be in the moderately-priced range. Good luck trying to put a dollar-range on what “moderately-priced” is these days.
Mayor John has heard good reports on this company. He sees the value in how they operate. “I understand they do not build until they have the materials lined up,” he shared, “and then they will build five or six homes at a time” which has obvious cost benefits.
Horton is also quite active building homes in the Crosswind Lakes development just southeast of Ossian on 900 North.
Chad Kline says he’s not been “overly involved” in monitoring and pushing the housing efforts, mostly because, countywide, there is definite movement and progress. He cites the new 18-lot development in Markle and the Ossian projects, and added that Greenfield Farms on Bluffton’s south side should be breaking ground “any day,” also an expectation of Mike Lautzenheiser’s.
“In fact, there had been a date set for an official groundbreaking,” Chad told me, but it was canceled due to weather.
“The weather?” I asked. Yep, it was the one day it rained in the past what? — 40 days and nights?
So, part of “Who We Are” is a community in growth. Indeed, Bluffton’s cracking of the 10,000-population milestone has brought a whole set of new changes and challenges. Just ask the mayor about that — a story for another day.
miller@news-banner.com
