Colfax Plan Commission recommends marketing expanded lot sizes for East View

By LeAnn R. Ralph

COLFAX —  When it comes to residential lots, buyers apparently seem to think bigger is better.

Colfax is giving away the first six lots in the East View Community Community Development along Dunn Street, and while the lots have been on the market since June of 2015, village officials are now hearing that people wish the lots were bigger.

The Colfax Plan Commission discussed the issue of lot sizes at a meeting December 5 with Patrick Beilfuss, a planner with Cedar Corporation, and Krag Blomberg, a real estate agent with RE/MAX.

The Colfax Village Board approved the sales sheet, developer’s agreement and application form for East View in June of 2015 upon the recommendation of the Colfax Plan Commission.

The six lots are all zoned Residential-1 and are 90 feet wide and a 160 feet deep, with an assessed value of $15,000 each.

One house that has been built in East View by Andy De Moe, owner of Andy’s Custom Concrete, has been completed and is now up for sale.

The developer’s agreement with the village requires that the finished homes, including the lot, have an assessed value of $175,000.

Each $175,000 house built in East View is expected to generate about $4,500 in property taxes, and based on $4,500 in annual property taxes, six finished houses in the development would generate around $27,000 each year in taxes.

Scott Gunnufson, village president and chair of the plan commission, said at the December 5 meeting that Lynn Niggemann, village administrator-clerk-treasurer, has been receiving telephone calls about East View and that potential buyers have said they wanted a larger lot size.

The first three houses in East View, including the house De Moe built and two additional houses that have not yet been built, will not need much in the way of additional infrastructure, Beilfuss noted.

East View is in Tax Increment Finance District No. 4, which is a mixed-use TID.

The lots are sized in such a way that the tax increment generated in TID 4 will pay for the infrastructure and also will allow the village to give away the first six lots, Beilfuss said.

Although some of the developers may have asked for an additional lot, Beilfuss said he would not be in favor of setting a precedent.

“I would not like to see the village sell double lots,” he said.

On the other hand, to increase the size of the lots to accommodate people who want larger lot sizes, the village could take the five remaining lots along Dunn Street and make them into four lots, Beilfuss said.

Gunnufson pointed out that developers also have been asking about lots on which to build duplexes or four-plexes.

Multi-family housing is planned for the next phase of development in East View along Dunn Street, he said.

People who have lived in or around Colfax all of their lives and now want to downsize would like to have a duplex or an apartment, but because there are not many duplexes or apartments available in the village, they have moved to Bloomer, Eau Claire or Menomonie, Gunnufson said.

The rental market is “hot” right now, and there are many duplexes and four-plexes under construction around the area, Blomberg said.

If Lot 5 were split in half, it could be sold to the lots on either side, Beilfuss said.

The 90-foot by 160-foot lots are already bigger than most lots, and the density of the housing is needed to pay for the improvements necessary to make it possible to build the houses, he said.

Lots 1 and 2, however, could be used as lots to build twin homes, Beilfuss said.

Lots 1 and 2 are closest to the railroad tracks.

A twin home is a duplex owned by two people who each pay their own property taxes, mortgages and maintenance on their half of the home.

The village could market the lots in two different ways — as they are currently marketed now for 90 by 160-foot lots and as one-and-a-half lots, Beilfuss said.

The Colfax Plan Commission unanimously approved a motion to recommend that the village board market the lots in East View two ways, as single lots, 90-feet by 160-feet, or as a lot and a half, with the condition that someone who is obtaining one lot for free would pay half of the assessed value for half of the lot next to it.