ST. CHARLES COUNTY — Eight months after the St. Charles County Council blocked the proposed Tall Tree subdivision amid opposition from nearby residents, a home builder has submitted a revised plan that would slash the number of homes on a portion of the site.
Lombardo Homes of St. Louis is seeking approval for 120 homes on the southern part of the site, near the August A. Busch Memorial Conservation Area, down from the roughly 270 homes proposed last year.
The county Planning and Zoning Commission has scheduled a hearing for May 15 on the new plan.
“We came up with a plan that significantly reduced the density on the south side,” said Mike Van Pamel, Lombardo of St. Louis’ president. “I recognized that some kind of compromise on everybody’s part is going to be necessary.”
Last year’s Tall Tree plan, by KM Investment Group IV, had initially proposed building 556 homes on a 356-acre site. The subdivision would have been the largest housing development built in unincorporated St. Charles County in recent years.
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Van Pamel said under the new plan, well over 50% of the trees on the southern tract would be preserved. He said some lots could be made considerably larger if fewer trees are retained. He estimated that the home prices would range from $700,000 to $1.5 million.
A leader in Citizens for Smart Growth in St. Charles County, which strongly opposed last year’s Tall Tree subdivision proposal from KM, said the current plan is an improvement.
“It’s insufficient progress but it’s progress,” said Bill Carrier, co-manager of the group. He said he gives the plan a grade of C, up from the F he would assign last year’s proposal.
But, he said, the group still has concerns about the new project, dubbed The Highlands At Busch Wildlife in a nod to the nearby conservation area.
Carrier commended Lombardo Homes for taking some steps requested by the group to help retain the rustic flavor of the area. But the group and the builder don’t agree on the mix of lot sizes proposed for the 137 acres in the southern portion of the site, he said.
Another point of contention is Lombardo Homes’ intention to build a separate, more dense project on the northern 165 acres of the former Tall Tree site, which it will ask O’Fallon to annex into that city.
Carrier said the smart growth group wants to see details of the northern plan to be submitted to O’Fallon before taking a position on the southern proposal. “We cannot formally support it at this time,” Carrier said of the southern proposal.
He said he would urge the County Council to table the proposal until details of the O’Fallon plan are known.
Van Pamel, with Lombardo Homes, said the northern plan is still being formulated and won’t be released until the company turns in its request to O’Fallon in the coming months.
Last year, in addition to complaining about the housing density of the Tall Tree proposal, nearby residents worried about traffic congestion, soil contamination and possible environmental impacts on the Busch conservation area.
Amid the outcry, KM reduced the proposed number of homes to 452, on 298 acres, removing 57 acres of development next to Broemmelsiek County Park from the project. But the County Council still voted unanimously last August to reject that plan.
Van Pamel said while Lombardo Homes had planned to buy some of the lots and build some homes as part of last year’s KM project, he wasn’t involved in the Tall Tree subdivision proposal to the county.
He said among the things he’s done to try to build support this year is to move lots from areas that would have made homes more visible from Highway DD. He said the current plan also includes a large landscaped berm along the road.
He said the lot sizes in this year’s proposal vary, with four three-acre lots on the southern border and the tracts getting progressively smaller to the north. He said the smallest are just over a quarter-acre; he didn’t know offhand the number of those.
County Councilman Mike Elam, whose district includes the site, said the new plan sounds like a better fit for the area than last year’s but he has yet to take a position on it.
“I’m more likely to vote for it than I was on the last one,” said Elam, a Republican from Dardenne Prairie. He said he wouldn’t support delaying a decision until the proposal for O’Fallon is unveiled.
“Whatever they do in O’Fallon shouldn’t have any bearing on the decision that’s in front of us,” Elam said. “We’re either OK with this development or we’re not.”