By Kevin Boneske
Staff Writer
HOBART – A preliminary planned development district (PDD) to construct up to 32 residential live/work/garage units on 12.34 acres between West Mason Street and Haven Place was approved Tuesday, April 20, by the village board.
Prior to the development proposed by C. Roffers Properties receiving final approval, Director of Planning and Code Compliance Todd Gerbers said it must go back before Hobart’s Planning and Zoning Commission and then back to the village board.
Gerbers said the same property was before the commission and board back in 2019 when the plans called for constructing individual contractor condo storage units, which were approved but never developed because of a downturn in the economy.
“The developer is now looking at making it more a residential atmosphere,” he said.
Gerbers said the concept is the same by having a maximum of 32 units, but with residential structures.
“The residential structures will be geared more towards a storage unit, so it will be a larger garage with a smaller dwelling unit inside,” he said. “There is no attached garage.”
Gerbers said the residential development would also have a private roadway with access from both West Mason Street and Haven Place.
Jon LeRoy of Mau & Associates appeared before the board on behalf of the developer to discuss the project.
LeRoy said the project is based on the idea of having garage units with a residential component, which could appeal to people who travel south for the winter and have a recreational vehicle they want to store.
“They still want to have an address up here in Hobart that they might want to live at for a part of the year,” he said. “They have an option then. They’ve sold their house. They want to have something smaller.”
LeRoy said people who want garage space, but don’t want a large living space, could also be interested in the units.
He said the units would be suitable for individuals who are interested and in having large garage spaces as hobbyists, as well as those who have extra income and want a “man cave.”
“This is specifically not commercialized space,” LeRoy said. “This is for residential and recreational (purposes).”
Because the village currently does not have a residential zoning district to allow a garage space to be more than 50 percent of a building’s footprint, Gerbers said a PDD is required for the project.
“The Planning and Zoning Commission did recommend approval to rezone it to R-3, which is the base zoning,” he said. “Then the PDD overlay district would be on top of it.”
Upon preliminary board approval of the PDD, Gerbers said the developer will have to come back with the final plans to provide the village more details on the project.
“It will have more detail on the buildings,” he said. “It will also have more detail as far as the roadway, setbacks, all that stuff…”
Gerbers said a condition for the project could be not to allow businesses in the residential development.
LeRoy said the buildings will have a maximum height of 20 feet with two designs.
“There will be differentiations between each individual building…,” he said. “You may see the same building like 10 buildings down the road, but it wouldn’t be side-by-side.”
LeRoy said the units would be priced like residential structures.
“If somebody wants to go ahead and use that as just a storage unit itself to store things in, I don’t think it would be a wise and prudent choice…,” he said. “These are residential units.”
LeRoy said the units would have a front yard setback of 40 feet and a side yard setback of 15 feet with a minimum residential space per unit of 400 square feet.
He said the road width in the development would be 22 feet “to be cumbersome to lower speeds, but still adequate to have two cars pass.”
“If it happens to be narrower, you will slow down,” LeRoy said.
After the commission would consider the final PDD, Gerbers said the board will hold a public hearing prior to voting on whether to give the project final approval.
“The applicant may be submitting (a final PDD) in May, otherwise it may get pushed out until June,” he said. “We’re working on some details, so it’s not a guarantee it will be back next month.”