The De Soto City Council approved a request to rezone 6 acres on Clarke Street for potential senior apartments.
City Manager Todd Melkus said the property at 1410 Clarke St. is owned by J Mac Development/Jim McCullough but is being sold to a potential developer of senior apartments.
“This is the property that is contiguous with the Arnold Ready Mix property on Clarke Street toward Hwy. 21,” Melkus told the City Council on Monday night. “They are looking at putting in potentially a senior development. Obviously, anything multifamily, it can’t be done with R1 (residential) zoning, so they requested to be R4 (multifamily).
“The Planning and Zoning Commission voted unanimously to recommend the City Council approve it. Of course, all this does is allow them to have a multifamily development on the property. All the site plans, the development, still have to be approved. We will have additional public hearings for those processes.”
The application for a rezoning request states the preliminary plan is to build four buildings of senior apartments, as well as a clubhouse and dog park.
One neighbor, who did not identify himself, told the council he was against the development because he was worried the apartments would turn into low-income apartments at some point. He also said it would not be a good location due to the noise from the Ready Mix business.
The council voted 4-0 to approve the rezoning. Councilwoman Randi Scharf was not at the meeting.
Also, during the meeting, the council unanimously approved the donation of property at 509 Rollins St. to the city from Lawrence Wilson through a quit-claim deed.
Melkus said Wilson decided it was not financially feasible to improve and elevate the rental property, which is in the floodplain and asked to donate it to the city.
Melkus said the city would demolish the home on the property and like the other floodplain properties the city has acquired, housing could not be built on it.