City council approves final plat of Arbor Estates

Now that the final plat of the first Arbor Estates subdivision has been approved by city council members, it’s almost time for home builders to do what they do best.

Luckily for the city and Newton Housing Development Corporation, the new subdivision has already piqued the interest of builders. Especially those who have successfully completed houses in the nearby Fairmeadows North, NHDC Housing Director Bruce Showalter said.

“They all have interest in it,” he said. “They haven’t made any offers on them yet but I think that will be coming forward soon once those lots are ready to sell or can be sold … We’re looking for builders to buy lots and start construction later this summer, work on ‘em over the winter and have ‘em available in spring.”

On Monday, June 15, the Newton City Council officially approved the final plat Arbor Estates Plat 1. This aligns with the council’s No. 2 goal of developing the land for housing. The City of Newton has worked with NHDC for several years now to grow the town’s housing supply and create a demand for homes.

Approval of the final plat allows NHDC to report and provide legal descriptions of the 30 lots to the recorder’s office at the Jasper County Courthouse. Once that “final step” information is submitted, NHDC can begin selling the lots of Arbor Estates Plat 1 for home builders.

Instead of an overgrown field full of dried corn husks and tall weeds, the Arbor Estates plat is mostly bare dirt and provided with most of its utility lines. A large portion of the land — roughly 20 acres — will be transitioned into an extension of Agnes Patterson Memorial Park. This leaves about 50 acres for home building.

“We’re working (to have) bulldozers and graders skim it all down, leveling it up and make it flatter so that it’s ready for housing whenever we need it,” Showalter said. “They’d be ready to put the streets in and other utilities in … We’re planning ahead for that whole 50 acres so all the water runs toward the pond.”

To see Arbor Estates shaping up so quickly is exciting for Showalter, who has been in the real estate business since 1994. Back then, the city was already toying with the idea of turning the area, formerly known as the Barton trust land, into a housing development.

The plan with Arbor Estates is to find a developer willing to buy large chunks of ground to put in their own infrastructure. Showalter said the city was aggressive with its planning stages and successfully determined there is, indeed, a market for housing in Newton.

“It’s finally coming together and it’s going to turn out to be a pretty nice little subdivision,” Showalter said. “I’m very excited about it.”

Other Arbor Estates news:

The first phase of the Arbor Estates construction project has been completed. On Oct. 7, 2019, the Newton City Council approved a more than $1.14 million contract with Seamus Excavating, of Clive, and then later a more than $38,000 change order. Another change order decreased the project amount.

According to city documents, the completed construction project — with change orders — cost more than $1.12 million, less than the original total. Crews provided earthwork, sanitary and storm sewer, water main, 31-foot-wide portland cement concrete streets, erosion control and seeding, among other things.

On Monday, June 15, the city council approved the purchase of wetlands mitigation credits for the Arbor Estates grading project. Reports determined about 0.49 acres of the 70.1-acre Arbor Estates parcel would be disturbed for wetlands purposes. The project engineer explored a credits option.

This would allow for the wetlands to be mitigated at an off-site wetlands bank. City staff believe purchasing the $22,050 in credits instead of completing the mitigation grading project elsewhere will be half as expensive. Credits were purchased from HUC 8, Inc., of Council Bluffs.

Contact Christopher Braunschweig at 641-792-3121 ext. 6560 or cbraunschweig@newtondailynews.com