Wednesday, April 14, 2004

Hailey approves
five new subdivisions

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By GREG MOORE
Express Staff Writer

The Hailey City Council approved two subdivisions this week that will contribute money toward eventual purchase of another city park.

The council Monday, April 12, approved a preliminary plat for an 87-lot subdivision in Northridge on 28 acres, and the 18-unit Winterhaven condominium project in Woodside.

Hailey city ordinance requires all new subdivisions to dedicate 10 acres of land for park space per 1,000 new residents. The ordinance allows the developer to provide in-lieu fees for the appraised value of that amount of land if approved by the City Council.

The Northridge IX subdivision will contribute in-lieu fees worth the value of a .66 acre lot there and the Winterhaven project will contribute fees worth the value of a half-acre lot in that neighborhood. The Northridge contribution is less than that stipulated by the ordinance due to an earlier dedication of land for playing fields at the Wood River Middle School.

"The smaller parks are draining our budgets to death," Councilman Rick Davis said.

Davis said he’d like to see the city pool money to create a larger park similar to Hop Porter Park.

"I think we owe it to the northern part of our city to find one and turn it into another facility there.

Planning Director Kathy Grotto said the planning and zoning commission had liked the diagonal layout of the nine-building Winterhaven project.

"With these new subdivisions in Woodside, we’re starting to get some really interesting plans," Davis said. "That’s something we’ve all be striving for."

In other business, the council:

• Approved the re-subdivision of a five-acre block of the Airport West Subdivision into 16 lots within Merlin Loop.
  
  
  "We don’t see this as any deviation from the original development," said engineer Brian Yeager. "We’ve always represented that it was a large-lot subdivision that would be further fragmented."
  
   
• Approved the six-lot Edgewood Subdivision on the east side of Winterhaven Drive. The subdivision is a mirror image of the Sagewood Subdivision across the street.
  
   
• Granted final plat approval for the River Street Townhouses, with the stipulation that a bond be paid toward eventual construction of a sidewalk along the length of the block once the rest of the block is developed.

Despite the advertisement of public hearings on the applications, no members of the public requested to speak during the meeting.

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