Community Development Authority given proposal from local builders for Lakeside Renaissance Zone
Local builders Jim Fleis and Dan Gabara have teamed up to form a new corporation called Lakeview Builders and have submitted a letter of intent to precede a proposal to the Community Development Authority (CDA). Both Gabara and Fleis have put in a great deal of time, thought, and preparation to development of the Lakeview Renaissance Zone. They are are excited and ready to go if the CDA and the city will give them a go-ahead. However, the letter was returned to Fleis and Gabara with many restrictions and summarily reduced to a non-plan, according to both Gabara and Fleis, who were disappointed at the response.
However, progress was made at a closed meeting Tuesday between the Lakeview Builders and a CDA subcommittee. With both Fleis and Gabara present, the Lakeview Builders said they were encouraged and were working on a new letter of intent.
?WE FEEL we worked through to an agreement and will be giving a new letter of intent,? Gabara said after the meeting. ?We remain very excited about the project and hopeful for a good outcome.? Mayor Beach Hall said of the meeting, that an agreement had been reached to remove the property from the market until February 3 to allow Fleis and Gabara to prepare an offer. Hall also said that did not mean the CDA would not entertain other offers and there might be several more local offers in the works.
?We?re trying to do this the best way that we can,? Gabara said. ?We want to follow some kind of format along the lines of what the city would like to have. Gabara said, ?We have already re-grouped our efforts and are in the process of rewriting and readjusting and are continuing to work with them. We are very close to making an offer.? According to Gabara, both he and Fleis have decided to jump to the next level and make an honest-to-goodness offer.
BY TEAMING together as Lakeview Builders, they believe they can come up with a lot of good information, ideas, and can provide all the options prospective buyers might desire. Lakeview Builders would be able to provide stick-built, BOCA modular, and panelized homes, which according to Fleis are pre-assembled sections that basically cut construction time drastically but are just like a stick-built home. At odds with city thinking, according to Fleis, are the size of the lots at present, and the trail that lies in front of the development. ?Our proposal would sacrifice a few lots to increase the 50×80 foot size to 70×80, a little more breathing room,? Fleis said. ?We also would like to eliminate the proposed alley and ?back entrance only? proposed by the city?s plan. ?WE WOULD, at our own expense, like to move that section of the trail to wind behind and through the development property. It would be safer, beautiful, and would allow a front access to the proposed homes to be built.
?We also would make sure the trail was beautifully landscaped and maybe even some trail lighting along that section,? Fleis added. Fleis said the present trail also was installed with parts of it being put two-feet on development land, and that could create a liability issue for prospective home buyers, aside from the fact that two feet of an already very small lot had been lost. According to both Gabara and Fleis, when homes are built on those lots, the trail will have to be torn up anyway because of water and sewer hookups.
?Eliminating the alley should save the city quite a bit of money,? Fleis said. ?They would not have to build it and they would not have to maintain it or snowplow it.? ?I would hope the city would let us develop the project and then let us worry about all the designs and layout issues.?
FLEIS SAID having access to the homes only from a rear alley would create safety issues with home owners having to back out of their garages and the possibility of small children being present, creating a dangerous situation. Visitors would have to park across Lakeview Avenue in the front and walk across a trail to approach a home?s f
According to Gabara, a lot of work must be done before the development can proceed. ?We would like to do it ?yesterday,? ? he said. ?We need to get moving now for a spring construction date to become a reality.? According to both Gabara and Fleis, they want to utilize as much of the local labor and people as possible for the project. Fleis and Gabara have a lot of unanswered questions.
Anyone living in a Residential Renaissance Zone would not have to pay both property taxes or Michigan income tax for a period of 15 years while living in their home, or until the program expires in 2017. (Complete story is available in the Advance, December 18, 2002)
