Council advances rezoning for The Meadows Part 6; debate over single‑family time limit

The West Branch City Council on May 6 held a public hearing and approved the first reading of Ordinance 815 to rezone an approximately 9.83-acre parcel in The Meadows Part 6 from R-1 to R-2. Brad Larson, partner with KLM Investments, and Chris Kofoed described the final phase of the development and presented a proposed lot layout of 19 lots: eleven designated for single-family homes and eight for zero-lot (two-family) dwellings.

At the April 22 Planning & Zoning meeting, commissioners recommended reserving some lots for single-family dwellings. Larson said the recent sections of the development had sold as R-2. The commission proposed a three-year time limit: single-family homes would be required on certain lots for three years, after which the developer could market those lots as two-family. Councilmember Jerry Sexton opposed imposing that three‑year limit, saying that "if he was a potential homeowner and built a single-family home on one of the single-family lots and then later a two-family home was built next to him, he would be upset." City Attorney Kevin Olson said the specifics of which lots could be developed as single-family versus zero-lot two-family would be included in the Developer’s Agreement prepared as part of preliminary plat approval.

The council voted on the first reading of Ordinance 815; the motion carried with Councilmember Tom Dean recorded as voting nay. The first-reading approval advances the rezoning and authorizes staff and the attorney to prepare the Developer’s Agreement and preliminary plat materials for subsequent council action.

The rezoning and proposed developer agreement language seek to balance the city's need for diverse housing types with homeowner expectations about lot use. Further restrictions or guarantees for single-family lots would be enforced through the developer agreement rather than zoning language alone.