Plans for 28 homes and duplexes near downtown McCall were approved last week by the McCall City Council.
The subdivision, known as Dawson Trails, will be built on 3.7 acres along Wooley and Davis Avenues between Spruce Street and Louisa Avenue.
Plans call for 12 single-family homes with two-car garages and 16 three-story duplexes with two-car garages. Access to the subdivision will be on two private roads linked with Dawson Avenue.
Short-term rentals will not be allowed in the single-family homes, while one duplex unit will be reserved for local housing under the city’s housing program.
More local housing sought
Council members applauded the developer, Shane Mace of Eagle, for participating in the city’s housing program, but encouraged him to commit more units in Dawson Trails to the program.
“We’re just all interested in seeing if we can do more,” McCall Mayor Bob Giles said.
The housing program offers developers $10,000 incentives, like building permit fee waivers or free city water connections, for each unit that is permanently deed-restricted for use only by McCall residents.
Mace told council members that he wanted to dedicate more units to the housing program, but was advised against it by Realtors who said steep discounts would be required to sell the units not only initially, but for future owners.
“I talked to three different Realtors,” Mace said. “All of them said, ‘how many units do you have to give? Don’t give any if you can.’”
Discounted local housing prices not penciling for developers
Mace was unsure of the estimated discount needed to sell the deed-restricted units, but council member Mike Maciaszek, who is a Realtor, suggested it could be close to 50%.
A deed-restricted local housing unit in the recently completed Running Horse Subdivision, which is across from Rotary Park along West Lake Street, sold for $800,000 while the other 12 homes in the subdivision sold for $1.5 million and more, Maciaszek said.
“When you get into the development cost of the lot, plus the cost to build, Shane is losing money (on deed-restricted units), plain and simple,” he said.
Mace is absorbing more than $2 million in infrastructure costs to build Dawson Trails, or about $140,000 per lot before construction even begins on the homes, said McCall attorney Steve Millemann, who represented Mace at last week’s hearing.
That includes paving Dawson Avenue, which is currently a gravel road, from Wooley Avenue to Spruce Street and adding on-street parking spaces along the east side of the road.
Mace will also pay to pave Spruce Street from Davis Avenue to Dawson Avenue.
Public pathways
Several public pathways planned through the subdivision are the inspiration for naming it Dawson Trails.
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One pathway will run east and west from the end of Fir Street through the middle of Dawson Trails before linking with separated pathways that Mace will build along Davis Avenue from Fir Street to Wooley Avenue.
That pathway will provide access to a public dog park the subdivision is building near Davis Avenue’s intersection with Fir Street.
An existing dirt and gravel pathway along Dawson Avenue would also be widened and paved to city standards. That pathway will link with the new east and west pathway through the subdivision.
A private trail for residents creates a loop through a wooded area in the northeast corner of the subdivision near Davis Avenue and Spruce Street.
The pathways will be maintained by a homeowners association associated with the subdivision.
A traffic study found that the subdivision will not significantly change existing traffic on Dawson Avenue and other nearby roads and intersections.
The design of the subdivision was previously approved by the McCall Area Planning and Zoning Commission, but final approval for the application rested with the city council.
Nobody spoke in opposition to Dawson Trails at a public hearing before the council last Thursday.
