Robb Westaby
Well, once again,I'm at Walker City Hall to talk about a housing development called Pheasant Preserve. Just a few days ago I was talking about Riverbend North and Windermere condos, and the person I always talk to is the Walker City Planning Director Paula Priebe. So what is this piece of paper that we'relooking at?
Paula Priebe
This is the plan set that accompanied the preliminary plat for Pheasant Preserve.
Robb
What's a plat?
Paula
A plat is a subdivision, and it's the legal mechanism by which they divide the property for a traditional neighborhood.
Robb
It's something planners and developers talk about, but regular folks think of it as a plot of land.
Paula
The plat is the layout of the neighborhood, the streets, the lots, their sizes, dimensions, utilities all set down on paper for legal definitions.
Robb
All right, so how many homes are they proposing on this?
Paula
The Pheasant Preserve plat has 18 lots.
Robb
I have the location here, and I'll show you the map. The location is Richmond, just north of Blandford, which is part of the city of Grand Rapids. So, it's right at the edge of Walker.
Robb
Now, I've been talking to you over and over and over about these developments. Why are people building homes in Walker so much?
Paula
Oh, Walker's a great place to live, work and grow.
Robb
Okay, I've read the signs, too.
Paula
You know, Walker's a thriving community real close to Grand Rapids, and we've got land for development.
Robb
Oh, now there's a key right there. The kind of land also seems to be in common with the last two plans, and that is, it's kind of embedded between one piece of property, which is Blandford, and another piece of property.
Paula
So, Blandford is south of development. And Pheasant Avenue and Whitmore connect with Richmond. There was this piece of property in between, and the developer came in and said, "This is a great place to connect to these. So the new road connects there and adds a cul de sac for 18 lots and some stormwater retention.
Robb
Okay, and so where are we in the actual process?
Paula
A plat approval takes a long time. It requires city approvals, state approvals, county approvals, the health department gets involved. At the City Commission meeting on this past Monday (Dec. 8), the commission accepted the final plat, saying that the lots were fully developed and the road is in place. They also accepted the new roads into the public road network, because these are public roads. So now, with the final plat going to the county and the state for approvals, the developer should be ready to go ahead with construction as soon as the weather cooperates.
Robb
Are there any other developments that might be, say, on the horizon that you know of, or are we like, tuckered out from 2025?
Speaker106:21
Oh, they keep coming in. We have several development projects and Walker in the development process. And new ones keep coming in.
Robb
How can the public find out about these sorts of things?
Paula
Every residential development in Walker that's more than a single family home or a duplex, goes to our planning commission, and the planning commission meetings are open to the public. We publish all of our packets, and the meetings are live streamed. It'sall available on our city website.
(Koetje Builders is the developers. They had not responded to my email as of our deadline.)
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