St. Charles City Council approves 50-home subdivision on city's east side

ST. CHARLES – Airhart Construction has been given the green light to build 50 single-family houses on 15 acres west of South Tyler Road at Munhall Avenue.

At their Nov. 16 meeting, aldermen approved preliminary plans for the subdivision as well as approving a special use map amendment for the project.

The houses would range in size from two bedrooms to four bedrooms.

"The homes include a variety of exterior styles that blend together to create a unique and interesting streetscape from traditional to mid century modern," stated a development proposal. "Homes may feature a front porch to increase neighbor interaction as well as stone or brick accents mixed with siding. The garage faces will be set back from the front of the homes to lessen the impact of the garage doors."

The average selling price for one of the houses would be $475,000 and the houses would range from 1,400 square feet to 3,000 square feet in size. The houses would be geared to empty nesters and those who have retired.

"They have been in the community and want to stay in the community and at this point may even be on a fixed income," Airhart Construction President Court Airhart and Airhart Construction Secretary/Treasurer Mark Glassman said in a letter to St. Charles City Planner Ellen Johnson. "However, often there is no readily new housing to meet their needs. In addition, singles are drawn to this type of housing as well."

According to a memo from Russell Colby, the city's community and economic development assistant director, the city will reimburse Airhart Construction for the cost of re-routing a sanitary sewer trunk line through the project, with a reduction for “oversizing” of the on-site sewers that would otherwise be required.

"The cost is estimated at up to $500,000, but will be defined during the final engineering review," he said in the memo.