Housing development in Huber Heights could be revived


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What: Huber Heights Planning Commission meeting

When: 7 p.m. Tuesday

Where: City Hall, 6131 Taylorsville Road

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A Huber Heights housing development that has sat dormant could soon be restarted with new construction.

An unnamed builder is looking to jump-start Artisan Walk, a subdivision at the northeast corner of Chambersburg and Bellefontaine roads that currently has six homes but features a total of 50 lots, according to Huber Heights assistant city manager Scott Falkowski.

The homes were built between 2008 and 2010, then the housing market crashed and the property — once owned by California-based Valeo — went through foreclosure, Falkowski said.

A pre-application presentation is scheduled for Tuesday night’s planning commission meeting. Falkowski declined to name the builder, and nothing has been submitted to the city yet, he said.

Liberty Bank owns the 13-acre property, and the builder would purchase the lots from Liberty, Falkowski said.

“Obviously, this is a good sign for the city,” he said. “We have a large number of houses being sold in the Carriage Trails development up north, and the city is excited to help develop and keep things moving forward in this area.”

If the presentation goes well Tuesday and planning commission ultimately approves the plan later this year, Falkowski said construction of new homes could begin early next spring.

The square footage of the existing homes is 1,400 to 2,200, and originally they were sold between $300,000 and $400,000. Utilities are stubbed to the lots, so any changes to the lot sizes would require additional work, Falkowski said.

Improving Chambersburg Road, with average daily traffic count of 14,000, has been and will continue to be a focus over the next several years, with it being a “main connector from the city to (Wright-Patterson Air Force Base),” Falkowski said.

The Chambersburg/Bellefontaine intersection recently was widened to put in turn lanes, and a traffic signal will be installed within the next two months, city engineer Russ Bergman said. The total cost of the two projects is about $500,000, paid for by grants and permissive tax money.

Plans to upgrade a little more than a mile of Chambersburg are scheduled for 2016, 2018 and 2019, and include widening it and adding a walking/bike path. Each of the three phases will cost about $800,000, with half of it funded by grants and the other half by the city’s capital improvement fund, Bergman said.

At least five more phases — all the way to Ohio 4 — will be planned as funding becomes available.

“It’s the busiest road that we have that isn’t improved,” Bergman said. “If (Artisan Walk) grows, it will help development to the east.”

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