A housing development that stalled when the economic downturn hit is back on track under different and newer ownership.
The Mesquite Hills subdivision is located off of Mingus Avenue, west of the Verde Valley Humane Society and southwest of the Cottonwood Ranch Subdivision and Yavapai College’s Clarkdale campus.
The neighborhood was first approved by the Cottonwood City Council back in 2006.
“It was planned for about 600 residential units at build out,” Cottonwood City Attorney Steve Horton said.
Horton said that the project was expected to be built in three phases.
“The final plat was approved and recorded then the Great Recession hit and the project stalled,” Horton said.
For the past couple of years, Missouri-based Virtual Realty Enterprises, a Missouri-based developer, has been working to get the project up and running again through a subsidiary, VRE Cottonwood.
At the time of the recession, the housing development had only completed about the first third of the first phase of the project, Horton said.
The assurance agreement with the original developer concerning the rest of the future planned construction was released when the project hit a snag.
The agreement is a promise from the developer that it will meet the required improvements, particularly needed public infrastructure to build the subdivision as planned.
Those can often take the form of financial assurances through a third party.
VRE Cottonwood has paid to build a handful of houses in the development over the past couple of years through Lawler Construction, a Cottonwood firm.
“The developer has been doing a substantial amount of work at risk,” Horton said.
VRE Cottonwood has now provided assurances on the remainder of the first phase of the project and Horton said that future agreements would eventually be worked out for the second and third phases of home building.
“There are around 100 units now that will be subject to the assurance agreement, then ongoing discussions about the rest of the project,” Horton said.
Since the project stalled, the city passed what’s known as the “hillside ordinance” in 2011.
The intent of the ordinance is to keep an area’s character while still allowing for reasonable development.
“Hillside development standards are intended to minimize possible loss of life and property, to protect watersheds and natural waterways, to minimize soil erosion, to protect public infrastructure investments and to encourage the preservation of community character by retaining natural topographic features and minimizing scarring from hillside construction,” the ordinance states.
VRE Cottonwood would be exempt from the hillside ordinance for the remainder of the first phase of the project; future phases will be subject to the 2011 rule.
The new agreement calls for the developer to reimburse the city’s legal and engineering costs.
Offsite costs are expected to run around $1.5 million; VRE provided a $2.9 million letter of credit to cover those expenses, according to a report from the Cottonwood Development Services Department.
Horton said that the developer has also agreed to reimburse the city around $171,000 for a recent section of water line installed along Mingus Avenue that will serve the new development as well as take Cottonwood Ranch off of the nearby Haskell Springs well for water.
“I’m happy to see that they are moving forward,” Cottonwood Mayor Diane Joens said. “It also provides job and it provides living wages for families so it’s all good.”
