Plans for a new subdivision can move forward in Portage. The city council voted four-to-two last week to rezone almost 34 acres of land from low-density to multi-family residential development. That will allow Olthof Homes to build 90 paired cottage homes and 40 town homes south of Lute Road, between the Breckenridge Apartments and Roswell Drive.
Attorney Todd Leeth said the property has been a challenge to develop, since it's surrounded by so many different uses — including single-family homes, apartments, Portage High School and the Menards store. "This has been a problem property. We don't know what to do with this property, and I think Olthof has come up with a really good plan, over 11 months and probably 11 different iterations of the site," Leeth told council members.
As part of the development, Olthof is promising to connect Augusta Boulevard through the new subdivision, build a pedestrian path to the high school and install a 60-foot landscape buffer along the development's east side. One of city officials' biggest concerns was making sure there's an active homeowners' association to maintain that buffer.
"Once Olthof is done, once we have built the subdivision, we have to give them all the tools to succeed, but we're not the guarantor going forward, just as the city is not," Leeth said.
"We have several places in the city where we were told that, and now we're maintaining them," Mayor Sue Lynch replied.
Leeth also downplayed the subdivision's impact on traffic, saying the Augusta Boulevard extension would improve access to U.S. 6.
