Larry H. Miller Real Estate initially told the Coalville City Council April 14 that its application for a village-like development had expired.
Summit County Community Development Director Peter Barnes confirmed the company’s project isn’t moving forward but said aborting the application is a little more complicated.
“There are actually other landowners in the original village overlay zone application. We have had no discussion, involvement or information from those landowners because, if you remember rightly, Larry H. Miller and Ivory Homes were actually spearheading that arrangement. But we're obliged to reach out to the other landowners and say we haven't had any contact,” Barnes said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” May 7. “Easily, by the end of this month, the project will have lapsed due to inaction.”
Whether it lapses or not, because Larry H. Miller is asking Coalville to annex some of its property, any landowner who wants to move forward with the old plan will need permission from the Summit County Council.
“If the village overlay zone applicants want to continue, we need to go back to council and get a modification to the application as it stands,” Barnes explained.
The “village” was originally the vision of landowners in Hoytsville who say they can no longer make a living farming. They wanted to develop their land into an affordable community and preserve open space along the way.
The plans for clustered development, phased in over decades, stalled at the Eastern Summit County Planning Commission last year.
Barnes said that was in large part because commissioners wanted the developer to promise affordability. But Larry H. Miller said it couldn’t make such promises so early in the process.
The developer is now downsizing its plans. It owns more than 1,000 acres and is asking Coalville to annex about 300. The area behind the future Red Hills subdivision would be called “Hidden Meadow Village.”
The developer had planned to hold an open house next week for Coalville and Hoytsville residents. Details about the public information session haven’t been released.
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