Public meeting planned to discuss residential expansion

As housing in Sidney continues to be an issue, city officials and Cabela’s executives are working together to make sure plans for the organization’s housing development aren’t delayed.

The planning commission recommended that some of the land for the development be re-zoned from agricultural to residential at last week’s meeting and the city council then set a public hearing for Jan. 14 in the matter.

The subdivision will be located between Old Post Road and link 17J, although the first phase will involve only a portion of that.

“I’ve been meeting with Gary (Person) and John (Hehnke), because this is such a big project, almost on a weekly basis,” said project manager for Cabela’s, Pat Mayer. “They’ve gone the extra mile to make sure we’re in compliance with the rules and regs.”

Cabela’s originally hired a planner for the project who wanted to construct the development in a grid pattern.

“We wanted something more than that,” Mayer said. “It just didn’t feel good.”

The company then decided on another planner who designs curved streets, which saves costs on streets and sewer.

“We always wanted affordability to be a component of what we we’re doing here,” Mayer said. “Not everybody’s making gazillion dollars a year.”

Current plans for the development contain a lot of green space due to the fact that the houses will have a fairly large setback from the road.

The subdivision will be built out in various phases. The first phase will not include any multifamily housing, although the company might consider that option at a later date, Mayer said. The entire subdivision will feature 750 lots, while the first phase will include only a fraction of that.

An area of the future development not included in the first phase is in the flood plain. Cabela’s plans to bring it to higher ground with dirt from another area of the development.

“We’re gonna create these lakes, to generate this material to bring this area out of the floodplain,” Mayer said.

It’s very costly to bring this area out of the flood plain and the company is attempting to minimize its costs.

He asked the commission for rezoning on a small piece of around 87 acres. The entire area planned for development and associated park space is around 180 acres.

Mayer shared with the city council that the houses might go very quickly once building begins.

“We have a market study that speaks to an absorption of 200 units a year,” Mayer said. “And there’s only 750 units out here.”

While the curving streets planned in the division will cut some costs, further setbacks from the road will raise costs for driveways and utility hookups.

There are some issues that must be addressed before the preliminary plat can be approved by either the planning commission or the council.

While all the lot sizes are at least 7,000 square feet, the city’s required minimum, the city also requires a 70 foot frontage for areas zoned for single family homes and minimum footage in these plans are 60 feet.

A lot of housing in Sidney was built in the 40s and 50s on smaller lots when affordable housing was in demand, said city manager Gary Person. Well over 50 percent of the city’s current homes are on 60 foot lots or smaller, he continued. The 70 foot requirement isn’t necessary, he added.

“It adds a lot of expense to our residential lots,” Person said. “You’re paying for that much more sanitary sewer, water, street, driveway the whole ball of wax.”

The frontage on the Cabela’s development lots might even be smaller than 60 feet because the lots are pie shaped but the portion where the house is built will be at least 60 feet. Person recommended the possibility of changing the requirements.

“It gives us more flexibility for the future,” he said.

Many of the homes in the plans have a further setback than allowed in Sidney as well.

There are more than 57 lots in the current subdivision plans that exceed the city’s maximum 50 foot setback from the street.

Current setback regulations say a home can be a minimum of 25 feet from the front of the lot to a maximum of 50 feet.

Public Service director John Hehnke confirmed that a larger setback would lead to higher costs, but these would be borne by the homeowner, not the city.

“It’s a lot more additional costs both upfront and long term,” Hehnke said.

The homeowner would deal with longer service lines for utilities that could potentially break or have other issues. A longer driveway would also be more costly for the homeowner.

“We’re just trying to time everything that when the spring weather hits, everybody can get their projects off and going,” Person said.

The planning commission and city council were unable to take action regarding the preliminary plat for this property until these two issues were resolved.

“Over time communities kind of get themselves in this traditional line of thinking,” Person said. “Everything is rectangular and that’s the way we tend to think and that’s the way that our plans, our zoning code accommodates.”

This type of creative pattern doesn’t conform with that traditional way of thinking, he added.

“These codes were adopted back in 1985 and we modified the charts over time to try and accommodate creative type thinking,” Person said.

Scottsbluff and Kearney, other first class communities which deal with a lot of development, both allow 60 foot lots or smaller.

“Back in the oil boom days and the depot days we built a lot of homes, subdivisions that were only 50 feet, some were even smaller than that,” Person said.

In the 70s and 80s the city got away from that, when there wasn’t a housing crunch and land was cheap and plentiful. These potential changes to current regulations will have to go before the planning commission and city council for approval, only after those changes can a preliminary plat be accepted by either governing body.

“Everybody knows we have this tremendous pent up demand for housing,” Person said. “And we’ve already seen successful examples of the 60 foot lots.”

City attorney J. Leef will work with city staff to make revisions to the planning and zoning codes to deal with these matters.