On Tuesday Jason Barickman met with homeowners in the Wintergreen Subdivision in his role as a Partner with Fairlawn Capital regarding the company potentially purchasing and developing property that has to this point been known as Wintergreen Phase III. Wintergreen Phase II homeowners have concerns about Fairlawn’s proposal.
According to Dane Simpson a spokesperson for the homeowners, “The number one issue for the Wintergreen residents is dead ending, just putting a bookend on the two developments. Let them have their own entrance and egress. We have one currently. We are more than happy with the way we are set up with currently. We didn’t feel that there is any reason to adjoin the two with the main route.”
“We have a lot of young kids in our community that play with their bikes on the streets. The last thing we need is 110 units driving their cars through Wintergreen on Loblolly,” Simpson said.
Barickman said, “the Town of Normal does not favor cul-de-sacs, primarily due to public safety concerns, including the ability for ambulance and public safety vehicles to quickly and easily enter and exit subdivisions. The town also favors subdivisions having multiple access points, and if Bristlecone became a cul-de-sac, Wintergreen II homeowners would be left with only one access point, another safety concern by the town.”
The connection between the two developments is at the back of both subdivisions. Therefore it is unlikely that there would be much cut-through traffic from residents living in what has been called Evergreen III driving through Evergreen II.
Also, it is standard operating procedure for municipalities to require two points of ingress and egress for developments the size of these. A primary reason is that during an emergency, such as a fire, main roads can easily become blocked by emergency vehicles themselves. A second entrance allows another way for other emergency vehicles to get to the scene.
While the residents of Wintergreen II might be fine with one access point. This is not a risk the town can take. Should an emergency vehicle not be able to reach a destination because of one access point being blocked and a life be lost as a result, not only would the loss of life be a tragedy but Normal would be open to a lawsuit as well.
At the meeting Barickman tried to put the development on firmer ground by offering a fresh start of sorts. He announced that his proposed development that has been called Evergreen III will now be rebranded as Weldon Reserve and explained, “Weldon is the middle name of Jesse W. Fell, which brings a local and unique name to the subdivision.”
Barickman then tried to focus on four things Fairlawn had heard from Wintergreen residents that they felt they could address:
- Providing a natural buffer of arborvitae trees between Weldon Reserve and Wintergreen II.
- Creating larger lots that border Wintergreen II homes.
- Providing a mix of unique housing styles and designs.
- Including restrictions in any leases that prohibit things such as basketball hoops in front driveways, secondary structures in yards, and above-ground pools.
Simpson believes part of the disconnect between the Wintergreen residents and Fairline is the new model of the development.
Simpson says, “So there is a national model that you are seeing in large metropolitan areas where developers come in and they build out entire subdivisions and then rent out all the units. The houses, the duplexes, it’s all under one rental agreement with certain things in their contract, background checks and etc. ”
“So that’s our concern,” Simpson continued, “When it comes to building this development in our back yard you don’t want to be the guinea pigs of central Illinois because there’s been no other development this size that I can find in this small community,”
Barickman said units will be available for sale but also stated that what is being developed is something new to our community saying it is being done in places like Indianapolis, IN and Grand Rapids, MI.
Simpson says the model he is speaking about has been used in Tampa, FL, Indianapolis, IN, Dallas, TX, and on the west coast.
According to Simpson, “they will have a sliding scale on the house rentals and depending on occupancy it can either go up or it can go down. So they really don’t know exactly what the market is going to sustain as far as the rent prices. So those could fluctuate dramatically.”
At the meeting Barickman mentioned the Regional Housing Market Analysis prepared for the Bloomington Normal Economic Development Council. He mentioned that it was specific to our community and showed we have a shortage of high-end rental properties.
Barickman encouraged Wintergreen residents to put the renter stereotype aside. He pointed out that renters are Rivian employees, University Scholars, young professionals and empty nesters. “I push back on the characterization that just because people rent they are problems,” he said.
