51 homes proposed for vacant parcel near Res HS running track; vehicle access would be from Talcott Ave.
by BRIAN NADIG
Lexington Homes is proposing to build 51 single-family houses on a 7.5-acre vacant parcel at 7400-04 W. Talcott Ave. and 7401-25 W. Everell Ave. that currently is owned by the Sisters of the Resurrection and Amazing Grace Luxury Living LLC.
The development would be located to the north of the new Amazing Grace assisted living complex, 7432 W. Talcott Ave.,which is located inside the former Resurrection convent, and to the east of the outdoor running track for Resurrection Prep High School, 7500 W. Talcott Ave.
The Sisters announced in 2017 that the order would be selling its convent and some of the adjacent land but that the high school would remain open.
“It’s going to be a singe-family development coming in, and it’ll be under the existing underlying zoning … with (vehicle) access from Talcott … not Everell,” Alderman Anthony Napolitano (41st) said. “It would be self-contained from Talcott.”
A site plan shows that the vehicles would enter the subdivision from an entrance on Talcott and that the two-car garages for the proposed houses would be located along a series of private alleys that would be constructed. Nine of the homes would front Everell, and the 42 others would front a new public roadway, which would run primarily north-south, that would be installed in the subdivision.
In addition, there would be a pedestrian access point on Everell, where emergency vehicles also could enter if needed, but there would be a barrier preventing other traffic from using that access point. Initial plans included access into the subdivision for non-emergency vehicles from Everell, but the developer was asked to remove that, said Napolitano’s chief of staff Chris Vittorio.
The proposal calls for two-story houses with either three or four bedrooms and a basement. The 30-foot-tall houses would be built on lots ranging in width from about 26 to 30 feet.
Napolitano said that the proposal, which is contingent on the City Council’s approval of a planned development ordinance, will not go in front of the 41st Ward Advisory Committee for a vote because the project would be built under the site’s existing RS-2 zoning, which is intended primarily for single-family home construction. The committee’s votes serve as recommendations to Napolitano.
Under the proposed ordinance, the project would have to meet the bulk and density requirements of the site’s RS-2 zoning, which includes minimum 5,000-square-foot lots for each house, Vittorio said. The planned development ordinance, whose underlying zoning would be RS-2, is required due to the large size of the development, he said.
Napolitano said that he does not plan to oppose the development, explaining that residents have expressed a strong preference for new single-family homes over denser, multi-family construction in the ward.
Several years ago the advisory committee did not vote on another planned development proposal because the underlying zoning of the property would not have changed, Vittorio said. That project never came to fruition.
Information on the projected asking prices for the homes was not available, but Napolitano said that they appear to be high-end houses based on the renderings. The exterior would include decorative stone elements and pitched roofs.
