Charlestowne Developer Hopes to Move Away from Town Homes

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the amount of money the home owners are charged for maintenance. St. Charles Patch regrets the error.

For several years, a section of the Charlestowne neighborhood in north St. Charles has remained undeveloped.

Seventy-eight town homes were supposed to be built on the now-empty field. Fischer and Frichtel bought the land to build 210 town homes in 2006, according to Chris DeGuentz, vice president of community development.

The company developed some town homes, but in the past year, has sold not a single town home in that section, he said.

On Tuesday, the company asked the to consider changing the development plan for the neighborhood to allow them to build single family homes instead of town homes.

The original plan for the area was to build a building with five two-story town homes attached to one another, with twenty homes on each street. The townhouses would have garages in the back that were accessible by an alleyway, DeGuentz said.

The new design would put three, two-story homes in the space that would have once held five. The homes themselves would be the same layout, and same size, anywhere from 1,144 feet to 1,365 feet.

The cost for the homes would be about the same, raning from $109,000 to $119,000, he said.

Some City Council members expressed support for the switch during a public hearing on the issue until they learned that Fischer and Frichtel did not intend to offer a maintenance plan for single family homes.

People in the town homes pay a monthly $75 fee which gets their lawns maintained and their sidewalks and porch shoveled when it snows, DeGuentz said. Owners pay another $350 a year for general upkeep of the common areas.

He said requiring home owners to declare the $75 a month cost on an application for a loan would make the homes too expensive.

"This type of housing is workforce housing, first-time buyers, divorcees, blue collar folks," he said. "That's what we continue to sell down there. ... It's not luxury housing, but it's very nice town homes and row homes we are proposing."

Ward Five Councilman Mike Weller said he's concerned that the homes would not be kept up and maintained if they weren't included in the maintenance plan. He said he doesn't like the idea of separate requirements for the town homes and the single family homeowners.

Council President Mike Klinghammer, Ward-8, said he's heard complaints from residents in other developments where one portion of the neighborhood pays for maintenance, while the other does not.

"I think it's a critical component of this development," he said.

The city council could consider changes to the development plan at the Jan. 17 meeting, Klinghammer said.

For some neighbors, the possible design change raises questions and concerns.

The uniform design in the neighborhood is one reason Barbara Richter bought her home in Charlestowne. She told the City Council on Tuesday that she liked the idea that the homes would be the same.

She also liked that for $75 a year, someone mows her lawn, maintains the landscaping and paints the front door.

"It doesn't sound like we're going to have that for single family homes," she said.

John Frolker, who lives on Cog Wheel Station, showed the council photos of standing water, concrete slabs and other debris in the field in which these homes are to be built.

"One question I have, is this an example of good stewardship?" he said.

Frolker told the council he wants to see a guarantee the city won't allow the developer to put in a lesser quality home. He said the change away from town homes is risky. If it succeeds, the field would be turned into a completed neighborhood. But if it doesn't he fears the area would be developed slowly and not in a uniform fashion.

"We want to se the project finished," he said. "We'd like to see it finished in a way that's going to benefit all of us, the residents, Fischer and Frichtel and the city."