Greenwood’s city council approved plans to bring 56 new single-family homes to the city’s west side.
J. Greg Allen Home Builders proposed a new neighborhood to sit on empty land between two existing subdivisions on Apryl Drive, northwest of Freedom Park in Greenwood. The 22-acre property is adjacent to the Featherstone and Alden Place subdivisions. The Greenwood City Council voted unanimously Monday to approve rezoning the land to build the 56 homes.
Bob Wildman, an attorney representing the builder, called the land a lone spot surrounded by developed neighborhoods when he presented the plans to the council.
"This is kind of an island piece of property among already developed subdivisions," Wildman said.
The lots in the subdivision would be zoned R-2A and R-2B, single-family residential homes, with each space averaging about a maximum of 12,500 square feet in size, according to city documents. That would be about two and a half homes per acre. These homes have an expected price around $300,000 and would be located in the Greenwood school district.
The City of Greenwood currently owns that piece of land, with prior plans to eventually extend both ends of Apryl Drive as a thoroughfare to connect the five subdivisions that already exist in the area.
But J. Greg Allen, owner of the building company, had said to the Greenwood Advisory Plan Commission Sept. 28 that a new neighborhood was the best way to do this, instead of connecting the streets with a 40-mph empty stretch of road across the property.
“The plot behind this subdivision design is to make efficient use of the land and the portfolio of home products,” Allen said. “This small parcel cannot bare the cost of $800,000 for a road that cannot be used to create lots, which would generate revenue. It can’t bare it. It’s been left in the middle and it’s too small.”
During that meeting, the plan commission voted unanimously to send a favorable recommendation for the subdivision to the city council.
