The Greenwood City Council OK’d rezoning nearly 44 acres along Emerson Avenue and Pushville Road to allow for a new Lennar subdivision with both townhomes and single-family homes on the city’s far south side.
SCOTT ROBERSON | DAILY JOURNAL
Nearly 150 new homes are coming to Greenwood’s far southside.
The Greenwood City Council on Monday voted 7-1, with one member absent, to approve two rezoning requests by Lennar Homes for a 44-acre property located on the southwest side of the Pushville Road and Emerson Avenue intersection. The neighborhood, dubbed Lincoln Place, would be bordered to the west by railroad tracks and to the south by the town of Whiteland.
Lincoln Place would include about 80 single-family homes and 69 townhomes and be located in the Clark-Pleasant school district, according to city documents.
Last week, the Greenwood Advisory Plan Commission voted unanimously to send favorable recommendations for the rezones to the Greenwood City Council, with conditions. About 26 acres was rezoned to residential medium from industrial for the single-family homes, and about 17 acres was rezoned to residential attached from industrial for the townhomes.
The price of the single-family homes will range from $300,000 to about $400,000. The townhomes will cost somewhere between the upper $200,000 to lower $300,000 range, said Brian Tuohy, an attorney representing Lennar.
The subdivision will have both one- and two-story homes, with the average lot size being about 9,500 square feet. The townhomes will be two stories, with an attached garage, and will be about 1,800 square feet, Tuohy said.
Construction on the subdivision is planned to begin in the summer of 2022, with the first families moving into the subdivision by spring 2023. The lots would also comply with city’s development standards, he said.
The plan commission required the developer to commit to building no more than 80 single-family homes and no more than 79 townhomes. Lennar will also be required to build a large buffer yard between the homes and railroad tracks, and a trail near the railroad tracks for Greenwood’s parks department, according to city documents.
A traffic study will also be required to show how the development will affect nearby intersections — Pushville and U.S. 31, Pushville and Emerson, and Emerson and Worthsville Road — along with two planned entrances along Pushville and Emerson, city documents showed.
Lennar agreed to all of the commitments, as well as an additional one added by city council member Brad Pendleton that would prohibit vinyl siding from being used for the development. The council passed the amended rezoning ordinance 7-1, with Pendleton voting no.
In other news
The city council also introduced two salary-related ordinances for 2022 Monday night.
The first would amend the 2022 salaries for appointed officers, employees and utilities for the city, raising the maximum hourly rate for two part-time police department positions: substitute assistance/building security officer and part-time records clerk. The amendment was needed due to an oversight by the police department that failed to include a 1.5% increase to the hourly wages for the positions, said James Ison, police chief.
The second would give city council members a 1.5% raise, along with a 1.4% raise for the council president next year. The ordinance had to be reintroduced after the council failed to pass it during its Oct. 18 meeting, voting 4-4 with one member absent. Pendleton, Ron Bates, David Hopper and Michael Williams voted no at the time.
Bates voted against it because of his long-standing belief that it is inappropriate for elected officials to vote for their own raises. It would only be appropriate if it was prior to an election, and constituents had a referendum on the council members’ effectiveness, he said last month.
Pendleton voted against it because he did not think the budget appropriately addressed public safety, he said.
The only change to the reintroduced ordinance was the ordinance number, council member Mike Campbell said.
While the city was required to pass a budget and salary ordinances for appointed officers by Monday, ordinances for elected officials have a later deadline. They need to be passed by the end of the year, said Greg Wright, city controller.
“If you’re setting the pay for 2022, then you can’t change it for 2022,” Wright said.
If the council fails to pass the ordinance this time around, they may not be able to pass it before the end of the year. It was introduced Monday, and has to go through two more readings before it becomes law, with the final vote in early December.
If the council does not pass it, city council members would not get paid at all in next year, Wright said.
