The Festus City Council on Monday approved rezoning a property on Hill Road to make way for a townhome development, and extended farmers market hours to include certain Wednesdays.
The City Council voted 5-0 to rezone a .79-acre parcel at 1235 Hill Road from the R-3 single-family district to the E-2 clustered home single-family district, allowing David Ginsburg, owner of Harvest House Enterprises Inc., of Boca Raton, Fla., to build two attached two-family townhomes on the property.
Councilmen Michael Cook (Ward 4) and Allen McCarthy (Ward 2) were absent from the meeting.
City documents show the existing house on the Hill Road property is currently unoccupied and has had previous code violations.
Ginsburg, who joined the meeting via Zoom, said his plan would be to demolish the single-family home on the property and build the two townhomes.
“We’ve seen that there are roughly similar-sized houses, maybe a little bit smaller, single-family in the 1,300- to 1,500-square-foot area that are selling between $320,000 and $350,000,” Ginsburg said. “We’re planning roughly 1,700 to 1,800 square feet with built-out basements to be right around $300,000.
“The hope is that folks will accept a larger house in exchange for a lower purchase price and a neighbor that’s right next door.”
Ginsburg said he expects the homes to be built in nine months.
“To your credit, your town is growing quickly, and the professionals who do all the legwork are pretty busy,” Ginsburg told the council.
“The biggest delay we’re finding so far is getting the plot plan set up, getting the surveyors working, and getting the architecture and the engineering done.”
According to city documents, each townhouse would be sold individually, and the lot would be re-platted to create four separate property identification numbers and addresses.
Councilman Rick Belleville, who represents Ward 4, said he was in favor of the development.
“I believe this is a positive movement forward for that area, and I think once that’s completed, it could signal additional improvements in that neighborhood,” he said.
Also during the meeting, the council approved 5-0 a request from organizers of the Festus Farmers Market to extend the hours of the market to 2-8 p.m. on the first and third Wednesdays of the month.
This time would include both setup and teardown of the vendor stalls, in addition to the actual market.
Currently, the market operates from 8 a.m. to noon on Saturdays, from April through October, near the intersection of Behring and South Second streets.
“We have had an amazing turnout from our community (and other communities) to our farmers market, and we often get requests from the community as well as vendors to add another evening to our market dates,” wrote market organizer Tricia Nelson in an email to the council.