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City council unanimously approved allowing the developers for the Hallstead Reserve residential development to amend its proffers to allow for more one-bedroom apartments while keeping the total number of apartments intact.

Originally, council had approved rezoning the property off of 2575 and 2665 Pruden Blvd. near Murphys Mill Road to allow for a 414-unit development – 312 apartments and 102 four-plexes, or condominiums. Of the 312 apartments, 100 of them were to be one-bedroom, with the remaining two bedrooms or more, as was stated in the original proffer council approved in September 2019.

Council’s original vote was 6-2 to rezone the property from general commercial to residential urban, with Councilman Tim Johnson and Vice Mayor Leroy Bennett voting against the rezoning, which affected 48 of the property’s 57 acres. Both had expressed concerns about the number of students the development would bring to Elephant’s Fork Elementary School.

David Hainley, director of planning and community development, said the amended proffers would help reduce the number of students that would go to the already-overcrowded school. He said the developer, John Napolitano of Napolitano Ventures LLC, wanted the flexibility to offer more than 100 one-bedroom apartments while keeping the total number of them the same.

“There is no change (to the number of apartments). It remains 312,” Hainley said. “The only thing that is going to be covered is that he is going to be allowed to exceed 100, which actually decreases the impact upon Elephant’s Fork Elementary School, which was the school impacted by this development.”

The changes eliminate saying how many of the units would have a specific number of bedrooms. The amended conditions for the development now include the following language:

“The site shall be developed for multifamily units only. No more than 414 multifamily units shall be proposed on site. This shall consist of 312 apartments and 102 four-plex units. The apartments shall consist of a minimum 100 one-bedroom units and the remaining shall be two or more bedroom units.”

Since council’s approval of the rezoning, the two tracts of land have been subdivided, creating a  third tract. The requested changes did not affect the scope of the conditional rezoning.

The other proffers that council approved in the developer’s rezoning request – including paying more than $26,000 per elementary school student the development generates – remained in place.

Hainley said the changes did not need to go back to the Planning Commission because it did not change the density of the project or affect the conditions of use for the property.

“This is actually good news,” said Councilman Mike Duman, “where I can see it’s just a matter of wording where it said ‘shall be 100’ which means must be 100, and now with it being able to exceed 100 apartments, obviously it (doesn’t) create any student generations, so it’s a very positive thing.”