City officials approved a pair of items regarding a new subdivision along County Road 200 West that will include an affordable home type new to Columbus.
The Columbus Board of Public Works and Safety on Tuesday approved an amendment to a previously approved subdivision improvement agreement for section one of the Sutter Place subdivision, located along County Road 200 West south of Lowell Road. The board also approved a final plat for the first section of Sutter Place that encompasses the first 50 of 273 lots, allowing the developer, Arbor Homes, to obtain building permits and start lot sales.
The board during a meeting on April 23, 2024 approved a subdivision improvement agreement for section one of Sutter Place that allowed the developer to start infrastructure construction.
“They’ve made some substantial progress on that, and they would like to amend that subdivision improvement agreement to provide financial guarantees for what’s yet incomplete,” Planning Director Jeff Bergman said. “… So we have both an amended subdivision improvement agreement that reflects that provision of financial guarantees. And then I likewise have the final plat for Sutter Place Section One.”
The subdivision improvement agreement amendment and final plat had been reviewed by the applicable city and county offices and found to be in order, Bergman wrote in memo to board members in advance of the meeting.
A total of 16 of the initial 50 lots will have “Genesis-style homes” on them. The other 34 lots will be traditional single-family homes, per city documents.
Genesis homes are intended to be more affordable for first-time homebuyers— they are designed in clusters centered on shared motor courts. The homes will sit on smaller lots, with the structure taking up most of them, according to planning officials.
Sutter Place is one of three subdivisions developed by Arbor Homes in recent years, joining 313-lot Abbey Place, and Abbey Commons slightly to the north, which is more than 40 lots.
“So we’re approaching almost 700 lots by Arbor along that 200 W corridor,” Bergman observed.
Arbor Homes in January 2022 received approval from the Columbus Board of Zoning Appeals to allow the Genesis homes to have lower percentages of ground floor living area than required by local zoning standards.
Columbus City Council about three months later gave approval to annex and rezone land the subdivision will be on from Columbus Township into the city and from Agricultural: Preferred to Residential: Two-Family.
