Ryan Homes first approached the city of Centerville with development plans nearly one year ago.
In 2014, the city approved a proposal to build 85 single-family homes on the property but the developer came back in the spring of 2015 with a more “economically feasible” plan to build 87 duplexes, for a total of 174 units on the property.
“It seems like every time they come back, they come back with a proposal for more homes,” said Richard Yager, one of nearly a hundred residents to turn out to oppose the project at a public hearing Monday night. “It’s greed.”
This latest proposal is Ryan Homes’ third.
The plans, which called for 98 single-family homes on .305 acres each, would have put two to three houses on the same amount of land that just one sits on in the existing Pleasant Hill neighborhood off of Zengel Drive.
“It’s too much,” Yager said.
Council made the unanimous decision to reject the project following a nearly five-hour meeting where residents filled council chambers before spilling across the street to the police training center to watch the meeting play out on TV screens.
In June, the city planning commission voted 4-2 to recommend the developer’s preliminary plans for “cottage style” homes priced from $280,000 to $300,000.
However, city planner Andrew Rodney said Tuesday that council was not convinced Ryan Homes’ plans met standards laid out in Centerville’s zoning ordinance.
Mark Locke, who has represented Ryan Homes’ throughout the application process, was unable to comment on council’s decision Tuesday due to corporate policy.
“Something new may come forward when the dust settles from this particular situation,” Rodney said, but there is no way of knowing at this juncture.
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