“It’s coming along well,” said Corey Schinstock, as he watched an excavator move dirt Wednesday on what will soon be a road in the new Cedarbrook addition north of Miller Road.
The assistant city administrator has high hopes for the new housing development that contains 22 residential lots. The City of Iola sold the lots to Lakeview Investment Properties, an LLC owned by Jennifer Chester and son Blake Boone, in an effort to address the community’s housing shortage.
Prior to the sale of the property in November 2023, the city invested $1.7 million to extend utilities to 16 of the 22 lots. Chester and Boone paid $1,000 for each of the 22 lots, and will pay an additional $6,500 for each of the 16 serviced lots as they sell.
“All of the 16 lots on the main road will be shovel ready as soon as we are done with the road,” said Schinstock. The six remaining lots are located where the subdivision turns back to the northeast.
“We don’t have any infrastructure built to those lots and this road won’t be built over there,” he explained, as he gestured at the road currently under construction.
Schinstock added that Chester and Boone will be responsible for the cost of infrastructure extension to the additional lots, but that it shouldn’t be a difficult task.
“The sewer is already close to them,” he said. “It will be easily attached to. The water is already there and the electric is really close.” He noted that three of the six lots could likely be served with electric right now and one (possibly two) could be served with sewer, if Chester and Boone wanted to start building on them.
The biggest hurdle is there is currently no roadway access to those lots. Once Chester and Boone decide to build the road to the six lots, it will have to be built to the city’s standards.
CONSTRUCTION continues on the road to the other 16 plots. “If we get the concrete road in, it gives them more access,” Schinstock said. If Chester and Boone wanted to start building now, he noted that they’d be able to on the west end of the development.
“We’ve already poured concrete there and it is ready to go,” he said. He added that there isn’t a tremendous amount of concern about the curbs and the sidewalks just yet. Ultimately, though, the addition will have sidewalks on both sides of the street. “It won’t be long, once they pour the road, they’ll be doing curbs,” he said.
Currently, crews are working on removing excess dirt that they had previously dug up from the east end of the roadway. Once they have finished that, they’ll be able to lay the base rock down and compact it. Next, dowel baskets will be laid prior to the concrete being poured. This portion of the road will then wind around the 16 lots and connect with the already completed road on the west end of the addition (McGuire Drive).
Schinstock noted that he doesn’t have a good time frame for the completion of the road. “They did those two stretches on the west end in roughly two weeks,” he said. “If they have good weather, and the base is ready to go, I’d say within a couple weeks they could have the concrete poured.”
The developer requested the city not complete driveways for the residences. With the large size of the lots, Chester and Boone want to be able to put the driveways in at certain locations. “I’m fine with that,” said Schinstock. “It doesn’t bother me. We’ll just run curbs straight through it and go from there.”
Once the road, curbs and sidewalks are complete, only two minor things remain on the city’s end of responsibility. These include water meter and transformer installation. “We’ll put the water meters in when they go to build,” said Schinstock. “That’s all included in our price.” He explained that the city wants to wait until after the developer isn’t driving heavy equipment on the lots, to avoid damaging the water meter pits.
As far as the transformers, Schinstock said they’d be a quick install and the city wants to avoid them getting knocked over or beat up during construction. Each transformer will serve two houses with electricity.
